Study: Female-Name Chat Users Get 25 Times More Malicious Messages

[Nikki Stone1]

http://www.enme.umd.edu/news/news_story.php?id=1729



Study: Female-Name Chat Users Get 25 Times More Malicious Messages



A study by the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering Department of Mechanical Engineering found that chatroom participants with female usernames received 25 times more threatening and/or sexually explicit private messages than those with male or ambiguous usernames.

Female usernames, on average, received 163 malicious private messages a day in the study, conducted by Michel Cukier, assistant professor in the Center for Risk and Reliability in the Clark School’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, and an affiliate of the university’s Institute for Systems Research, and sophomore computer engineering student Robert Meyer.

The study focused on internet relay chat or IRC chatrooms, which are among the most popular chat services but offer widely varying levels of user security. The researchers logged into various chatrooms under female, male and ambiguous usernames, counted the number of times they were contacted and tracked the contents of those messages. Their results will be published in the proceedings of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers International (IEEE) Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN ’06) in June.

“Some messages to female usernames were innocuous, while others were sexually explicit or threatening,” Meyer says. Harmless messages included “helo” and “care 2 intro?” Tamer examples of malicious messages included:

<10:30> feeling horny?

<10:43> Do u need money? Looking for someone who does not mind providing personal intimate services. $150/hr. Serious offer. 178 74 male 29 here. Interested pls intro?).......

[Duer 157099]

1. And that's news?

Really? Seems obvious to me. But then, look at my username, lol.

[JackRiddler]

14. Maybe not news, but it's important & it helps to stop the denial about gender relations.

[deaniac21]

2. film at eleven

[Arugula Latte]

3. Why am I not surprised ...

*sigh*

[alphafemale]

4. Loser guys find it easier to do stuff like that than facing actual rejection face to face.

And they might actually hit on someone ready to take them up on it.

And if someone ever takes them up on it?

They'll be like a dog that found a sausage under the sofa cushion one morning.

That dog will check under that sofa cushion every morning for the rest of its life.

[lumberjack_jeff]

5. "Malicious"?

They're using a different definition of malice than the one I know.

Toolish, crass, inept, dopey and rude... sure. I completely understand women often use unisex usernames.

[redqueen]

13. Why'd you leave out "threatening"? (nt)

[lumberjack_jeff]

15. Because "threatening" is subjective.

People can reasonably be threatened by things that weren't intended as malevolent.

I know that malicious and threatening messages abound on the internet. I simply don't think that "are you naked?" messages qualify.

[redqueen]

16. I hadn't assumed that that's the type of message they characterized as threatening. (nt)

[agentS]

6. Ah, so THIS IS WHERE Rimjob spends those "Administration fees"

<10:43> Do u need money? Looking for someone who does not mind providing personal intimate services. $150/hr. Serious offer. 178 74 male 29 here. Interested pls intro?)

Sounds like this is where the Freeper in chief gets his game on.

[valerief]

7. It's probably the same rate "in person." nt

[Stinky The Clown]

8. These same engineers have determined that water is wet, ice is cold and that the REALLY ......

...... gregarious engineer is the one who looks at *your* shoes when he speaks to you.

[TexasObserver]

9. The good news? Most "female" chatters are really men!

[Stinky The Clown]

10. You're an old AOL veteran, huh?

Heh

[TalkingDog]

11. Captain Obvious reporting. Hence the ambiguous name.... n/t

[redqueen]

12. Oooh I'm so shocked.

:sarcasm: