Jonathan McGowan Assignment 2

Jonathan McGowan

Assignment 2 Soc 167

As of September 27, 2013 a college freshman from Temecula, California by the name of Jared James Abrahams was arrested for an online “sextortion” scheme.  This case being particularly unique and applicable to this assignment because Abrahams has been diagnosed with autism.  The crime that ultimately got him caught was trying to extort sexual materials from the newly crowned Miss Teen USA, although it is reported that he had used the same technique multiple times in the past and had upwards of 100 slave computers at one point for hacking.  Abrahams would use malware to infect potential victims’ computers, and then activate their webcams and take pictures of them when they were changing. He would then threaten to release these photos to the public if his demands were not met, his demands usually being more inappropriate photos, especially considering many of the girls he manipulated were under age.  It is yet to be seen what verdict will be decided for Abrahams, but the crime itself is very serious since he compromised the privacy of minors worldwide, as well as hacked and infected many computers with illegal software.

There are many different things that contributed to the disinhibiting of Abrahams, this much at least is clear.  Dissociative anonymity as well as invisibility both played a role in Abrahams doing the things he did.  In the real world he was just another kid with below average ability to understand social dynamics and relationships, but online he could be anonymous and there were less strict boundaries affecting him.  Here he could do things that he could never get away with in the real world and no one would even know who had done it, yet alone suspect him of doing it. It was a place where he could act out, either because of his sexual tendencies, or just because it gave him some sort of power and control over someone else, thereby making him feel more in control of his own life.  This being said it can easily be seen that Abrahams was also disinhibited by minimization of status and authority.  He never would have acted like this had there been an authority watching, and beyond by learning to hack he even turned himself into an authority of sorts.  It can easily be seen that he viewed himself in this light by this quote, “I’ll tell you this right now, I do NOT have a heart!!! However I do stick to my deals! Also age doesn’t mean a thing to me!!!”  Overall, there were a variety of factors that led to the ultimate disinhibition of Abrahams, but it is obvious, that the online disinhibition affect played a major role, if for no other reason than the nature of this crime, and that Abrahams probably never would have done anything of this nature had it not been for the anonymity of the internet.

Link to New Article: http://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20130927/miss-teen-usa-sextortion-case-autistic-college-freshman-held-in-global-online-scheme