As many of you know (probably all of three of you who read my blog) I am taking a class called investigating online crimes. Super interesting class, lots of guest speakers, and current issues. Yesterday was an interesting day because the FBI came to speak about a guy named Johnathan Vance who had been arrested for taking girls facebook accounts and trying to illicit nude pictures from them. The reason I am blogging about this is two fold. First, I hope to make some interesting observations about sin on both his part and the girls and provide warnings to young girls so that they don’t fall for any dufuses like him. And second because this guy was not so far away from any of the rest of us. At this point I am not sure how graphic my descriptions below will be, but I will try to keep it PG.
Basicly this guy had a great tactic. Easy entry. All he did was find a high school students AOL instant messenger account and a few things out about her (first and last name, maybe high school and area of town). He would then say hi, and have fun letting her try and guess who he was (as if he knew her really well). Then he would tell her that he was a secret admirer and tell her that if she would answer ten questions, he would reveal his identity and the show would be over. He would warn her that he could ask anything he wanted. He would then ask her flirty personal questions that would be embarrassing if they got out but convince her through natural language and by calling by her nickname or last name and she would keep guessing who he was and answering questions. (Totally appealing to a high school girl). At about question 8 he would ask for their facebook password. Of course reassuring them he wouldn’t do anything and if they answered he would tell them who he was, at this point he would threaten to tell people she knew her embarrasing facts. If they revealed the password, he used that account to get her friends accounts and passwords. He would then ask them for a naked picture of them, of course the would say “no”. So he would threaten to post all their personal info on their facebook (and most of the information she had given him would ruin her reputation – which matters even more to a 15 year old.) Out fear several girls gave in.
Now, I would like to add that these girls were not “crazy party scene” girls. He targeted girls in churches who had good reputations in there neighborhoods. And a lot of them were here in Birmingham. People you probably know.
After he got the picture, he had total control over the girls. He would threaten to post it on there facebook if they did do what he wanted which we won’t get into but it involved a web cam. Many of the girls would cry and plead with him to let them go but they were stuck. He had so much leverage on their reputations that he could completely control them and make them do terrible unspeakable things… and all of this is done via instant messenger. He earned his sentence. 18 years + life on parole.
You can begin to imagine what this guy might be like… an old creep… disturbed childhood… (I pictured a slightly over weight middle aged man with rings under his eyes and dark curly hair… don’t ask me why.) Turns out this guy just graduated from college, and landed a great job. He was a virgin waiting for marriage and raised in church. He went to auburn and most people knew him. He was fit, clean shaven and likable. He found a means of sinning and shortly after, his entire life was ruined and rightly so. His sentence may seem harsh, but remember I omitted a lot of what he did, although all of his crimes were committed through a keyboard.
I found it interesting that his attack is very similar to the attack that Satan uses. Most of these girls real mistake was telling him something embarrassing and flirty. Each subsequent step was relatively small and was done out of fear, not temptation. Granted, most girls just gave up after they lost their facebook and risked their reputations , while a few tried to save there reputations and gave him the picture.
I think that paragraph is loaded with principles but I won’t draw all the parallels because i figure you probably already have. But I do want to share this thought. His sin was illegal. Most sins should be, but because we do not live in a theocracy, like we will one day, we get away with things. It just reminds me that I’m not so far away from Jonathan Vance.
When the FBI came to his house he agreed to answer some questions. He was shaking the entire time. When they finally asked him if he had ever heard of the screen name “metascape” his head collapsed into his hands. “I want to express my deepest apologies for my actions,” He said in court.
