Beach Blanket Bingo, 21st Century Style

That stalker case I had has largely resolved.

I am of the right age to have been the product of a successful game of beach blanket bingo around the time this gem (#EYEROLL) was in theaters, but things here in the 21st century are a bit different.

Once upon a time there was a girl (female human under the age of 45) who went to the beach. She had a smart phone with the requisite Instagram account favored by younger Millennials and Zoomers old enough to drink, but then things took a dark, 21st century turn.

Attention Conservation Notice:

This is just me dragging some hapless incel. You could go watch car crash dashcam videos on YouTube or something and it might be a better use of your time.

Background:

OK, so healthy young adult female human takes phone with Instagram to the beach, proceeds to clown around with her friends. She’s trim, she’s athletic, based on evidence review I deduce she owns at least two versions of one of my favorite 20th century innovations - the bikini. She and her friends catch some sun, they engage in vigorous beach sports requiring a change of tops for the sake of support, there are sometimes evening scenes in which wrap type skirt thing accessories appears, and there’s ironic consumption of cocktails with little umbrellas. You know the drill.

She has a college job, keeps it clear through, a retail thing with a company that stuffs a gender balanced crew into khakis and company shirts. Their locations are large, a staff of a couple dozen on an ongoing basis, and people come and go. Read: sizable suspect pool.

The problem begins with some texts, pretending to know her, but the origin is one of those $2/month get an SMS only number services. Once she realizes it’s not a friend with a new phone the block-o-rama begins. The number changes dozens of times before little man makes a slip. She’s got an iPhone, and the final message from this SMS number pool indicates that it’s also on an iPhone. Clue #1.

He changes it up, maybe realizing he slipped, but maybe it’s just because he’s discovered her Instagram. Clone accounts appear, and mixed with her legit photos are snippets from other sources whose operators are … more revealing. Read: seems like he knew her for some time before figuring out she had the Instagram, so an unrequited lust thing from a guy who lacked the self confidence to approach her directly. He fantasizes, he becomes obsessive, he begins constructing this alternate reality.

So that’s all not good but I think every pretty girl gets at least one of these experiences. But then things escalate past annoying and weird …

Invasion:

Things began with looking from the outside, then weird attempts to chat, then fabricating the alternate, sexualized reality where he is in control. This goes on for months, well into OCD stalker territory. At one point he says another girl asked him to do these things over some party foul - eyeing this notional other girl’s guy. Victim says nothing without really knowing why, but I saw this as an elicitation attempt that she neatly avoided. Had she taken the bait he’d have had more clues about her doings.

Things go into high gear. There are a couple weeks of password guessing attempts on various things connected to her, and then he escalates bigly, gaining access to all of her stuff by using a SIM swap attack(!) So we’re way over the line into the prosecution zone and then he goofs again, because she’s been tracking the IP addresses involved in the intrusion attempts. The combination of the background, the iPhone slip, and an IP address that was used draws the circle quite a bit tighter.

Graduation & Beyond:

But this all happens around graduation, and her response is just flawless. She recovers the SIM, changes her number, locks down everything, and moves on into adulting.

Years go by without any sign of trouble …

And then without any triggering event, there’s some new weird behavior that references this thing in the distant past. We don’t know precisely who is behind this but even a slow freshman when she was a senior would be out by now and it’s not graduation or even end of the semester. Working theory is he found some other pursuit after she graduated, has recently lost that, and is casting about for a replacement, visiting old haunts.

So we’ve got some current behavior that’s annoying but not criminal … yet. Given how things were the last time, better safe than sorry. She gives no response, instantly locks down all the things, and we reviewed her 2FA setup. Again, perfect response.

Conclusion:

The thinking is that without any response he’s going to have to find something else to do. They shared a job, or maybe some classes, and a metro area. She hasn’t gone far and if he’s still in the vicinity … yuck. If there’s any trouble, she’s going to immediately share the details with me on Signal and we’ll see if there’s a way to ID him.

Say we do get a name … then what? She didn’t lead him on some chase, or react strongly, which a stalker personality would find validating. And yet he still escalated over the undeniably criminal line, showing an understanding what he was doing was inappropriate right at the start, with the concealment behind the SMS service.

This originated IRL, it’s never been anything other than a virtual problem, but given how he’s escalated in the past I worry this guy is on a course that’s absolutely going to end with violence … for some unlucky girl. If there’s further provocation, if we do identify him, still seems like the best strategy might still be to shut up/shut down/disappear.

I would interdict this progression if I could, but the number one duty here is protecting the principal from this unwanted attention.