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Social media is often used as a tool of abuse and coercion. One method that essentially weaponizes social media is catfishing. Catfishing is when a person sets up a fake online identity and uses it to trick and control others, to scam people out of money, blackmail them or harm in some other way.

Sweet Bobby is a multipart podcast that discusses one of the world’s most elaborate catfishing scams. Kirat Assi fell victim to a complex fraud that lasted for over a decade and involved an entire cast of sixty characters.

The scam first began in 2009 when Kirat was contacted by her cousin's ex-boyfriend JJ. In 2010, JJ passed away and Kirat was given his brother, Bobby's contact details to express her condolences. Kirat and Bobby quickly formed a close friendship, which in 2015 after much pressure and emotional guilt tripping turned into a romantic relationship despite never meeting in real life.

Bobby gave many excuses as to why he could not meet Kirat in real life, and these excuses were aided by the complex characters created to validate each other’s and Bobby’s story.

Over the years Bobby became quite manipulative as he began to monitor Kirat’s movements and dictated her choices. In 2018, Kirat discovered that she was a victim of a major catfishing scam and reported it to the police. Kirat’s cousin, Simran Bhogal subsequently confessed to the entire scam, where it was evident that she had been drifting in and out of harm. When the police were informed of this Kirat was told she was not the victim, as the real Bobby was.

However, Kirat did win a substantial settlement in her civil case against Simran for harassment, misuse of private information and data breaches.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to prosecute the act of catfishing as there is no specific criminal offence of catfishing in Australia. One of the most common responses to catfishing is to have the offender's social media profile removed, however, this is an inadequate solution as it does little to denounce or deter the offender to prevent the harm from reoccurring. However, some offences that flow from catfishing may be prosecuted including stalking, fraud, and using a carriage service to menace, harass, or cause offence which would serve as a punishment and ideally deter and denounce the act.

Due to instances like the case of Sweet Bobby and many other catfishing cases where the victims are often told that what happened to them is not a crime, there has been a call for a specific catfishing offence. It is important to note that these laws would focus on the perpetrator rather than victim shaming which was evident in the Sweet Bobby case.

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Episode 1: Sliding Doors | Sweet Bobby | Full podcast episode

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Hacking is a pure cybercrime where the offender gains unauthorised access to a computer or computer system, usually with the intent to cause harm or damage. These types of hackers are referred to as 'black hat hackers' as they break into networks with malicious intent and are motivated by self-serving reasons such as financial gain, revenge or simply to spread havoc.

One widely known data breach is that of the Medibank hack, which comprised the data of 9.7 million current and former customers of Australia’s largest health insurance provider .

On the 12th of October 2022, Medibank first determined that there were malicious actors on their network. Consequently, Medibank undertook investigations and worked with various agencies to ensure that these malicious actors were taken off their network and assured Government that no data had been stolen in this breach.

However, this changed when the criminals claimed to have a significant amount of Medibank customers data and demanded to enter into a negotiation with Medibank, where the data was essentially held for ransom.

When Medibank refused to pay the ransom, the data was consequently leaked which contained the personal health information of customers including their names, addresses, phone numbers and other identifying data such as medical diagnoses and procedures undertaken.

A month after the initial breach was detected it was discovered that the hack originated from a Russia-backed ransomware gang ‘REvil’, a group of cybercriminals who are likely responsible for other major cyber-attacks around the world” who gained access through stolen credentials of Medibank staff with high authority within the organization’s network.

This case demonstrated the ability of cyber criminals to cause widespread disruption and harm to broad sections of the community. Thus, companies and the police must continue to develop effective responses to prevent and combat cybercrime. Despite the current laws, policies and approaches to cybercrime it remains difficult to police as these police units are under-resourced and the skill level of most unit members is not high enough to address the growing complexities of investigating cybercrime.

In this instance, Medibank failed to protect its customer's private information and has now implemented a cyber response support program which includes mental health and wellbeing support, identity protection and financial hardship measures, as well as introducing multifactor authentications and smarter cyber security systems.

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Image-based abuse is when someone shares, or threatens to share, an intimate image or video of a person without their consent. An intimate image can be real or altered and may be sent, posted or shared using an online social platform, a website or via emails etc.

These images are being used in highly diverse and complex ways as a form of control, abuse, humiliation and gratification which can have serious mental and physical impacts on the victims.

Married At First Sight’s most talked-about storyline involves Bride Olivia Frazer finding and sharing an intimate image of her co-star Domenica Calarco to five co-stars without Calarco knowing. Frazer initially claimed that she did not have any ill intentions when she found the image on Calarco’s OnlyFans account. Although OnlyFans is a platform that allows creators to create content and willingly share images of themselves and charge for it, there are rules regarding the content being shared beyond the platform. However, Frazer later claimed that she had sourced the image from Calarco’s public Twitter account, and this left many questioning if what happened legally amounted to image-based abuse as the image was sourced from a public domain.

The responses to image-based abuse in Australia often start with the victim reporting the abuse to eSaftey. As per the Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth), eSaftey can consider a range of formal compliance and enforcement options when investigating image-based abuse and, where appropriate, may consider making informal requests as well.

There are also different legislations implemented depending on each state where the police may assist the victim by determining the relevant laws and investigating the offender, as well as getting a protection order from the court if necessary.

In the case of the Married at First Sight scandal, the show was filmed in NSW where there are offences that address the non-consensual sharing of intimate images which state that a person who intentionally distributes an intimate image of another person without the consent of the person is guilty of an offence that is punishable by up to 3 years imprisonment or the issue of a monetary penalty.

It was clear that Frazer’s actions caused Calarco harm, however, it remains unknown as to whether Calarco continues to pursue legal action against Frazer. An informal method of justice referred to as viral justice was pursued which is a form of online shaming that aims at obtaining remediation through an online post ‘going viral’ and remediated by large numbers of social media users. In this instance, Calarcos followers started a petition against Frazer to make it clear that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable. Although the petition was rejected by eSaftey this response did result in Frazer losing her job, as well as her reputation being tarnished.

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MAFS expert grills Olivia over nude photo scandal | Today Show Australia

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Cryptocurrency is an encrypted digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a digital trading platform. Through this platform, people can buy one coin and trade for another, as well as convert the cryptocurrency into cash or flat currency.

FTX was one of the largest digital currency exchange platforms for buying and selling cryptocurrencies. Sam Bankman-Fried started FTX in 2019, and the popularity of the platform rose rapidly after it launched due to aggressive marketing campaigns and misleading promises. By January 2022, the company was worth $32 billion, and in November 2022 the FTX crashed due to a mismanagement of funds and a large volume of withdrawals where it was discovered that billions of dollars were lost by customers and investors.

Following this discovery, Crypto boss Sam Bankman-Fried blocked customers from withdrawing money out of the platform and when the FTX could not pay the $8 billion gap, the company filed for bankruptcy. Within a month, Bankman-Fried was arrested and faced multiple fraud and money laundering charges. On November 2nd, 2023, Bankman-Fried was found guilty on seven federal counts with sentencing scheduled in the new year.

The FTX fallout has rattled the entire crypto industry, raising serious questions about the future of digital assets and the lack of global regulation. This is because there is essentially a lack of stability when it comes to cryptocurrency. After all, if the exchange platform files for bankruptcy there is no backup as these transactions are not refundable, unlike traditional banks where the funds are insured up to a certain amount.

It is also important to note that the crimes committed in the aforementioned case are referred to as cyber-enabled crimes, as fraud or money laundering could be committed without the use of a computer. However, committing these crimes transferred to a whole new level through the invention and use of the internet which is where matters dealing with cryptocurrency come into play. Crimes related to cryptocurrency are also quite difficult to police due to the anonymity of cryptocurrencies, as well as jurisdictional matters.