New form of bullying by e-mail on rise

The Yomiuri Shimbun
July 19, 2008
Source: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080719TDY02308.htm

A new form of bullying is rapidly spreading among middle and high school students in which bullies hide their identities by sending hate e-mail using the return e-mail addresses and names of other students whom the targets know.

Some receivers--upset because they mistakenly believed a bullying e-mail had been sent by the actual holder of a faked return address--became truant from school.

However, investigative sources say the act of faking e-mail addresses cannot be considered illegal under current law, making it difficult to crack down on the malicious senders.

Concerned about the situation, an official of the National Web Counseling Conference, a Tokyo-based voluntary organization that has been asked for advice in about 300 such cases this year alone, said, "[Such e-mail recipients should consult authorities first before becoming distrustful of others."

The scheme is simple. All a sender must do to disguise an e-mail's return address is to access certain cell phone Web sites and type in any address they want to display to the receiver. The receiver will only be able to view the disguised address rather than the sender's actual e-mail address.

The method had been used by malicious perpetrators of Internet spam to fake their e-mail addresses. Since a year ago, however, it has been used among middle and high school students.

The number of cases per month reported to the National Web Counseling Conference ranged from zero to two through April last year. Last summer, however, the number started rapidly increasing, reaching 89 in April this year and 76 in May. Most of the inquiries concerned e-mail with a disguised address from unknown senders.

For example, a middle school student in Tokyo received e-mail that included abusive terms directed against the student, such as "You're disgusting" and "Die!"

After that, the student refused to go to school.

The school, which investigated the case but was unable to confirm the sender's identity, concluded that a bully had wrongfully utilized a class list of e-mail addresses used by the class as a communication backup.

In another case, a Saitama Prefecture high school boy and girl, who were dating, received e-mail with each other's names listed as senders, saying, "I'm breaking up with you" and "Delete my e-mail address [on your cell phone] right now."

After the incident caused friction between the two and made the couple break up, it was discovered that the e-mails were fakes sent by their friend, who was believed to have been feeling jealous of the couple's relationship.

(Jul. 19, 2008)