One thing that reached new heights of both stupidity and tragedy in 2010 was the trend of online impersonation. If you're shaking your USB-enabled cane and shouting "there oughta be a law" in between pre-NYE shots of Metamucil, then you're in luck.
As of January 1, 2011, California's first online impersonation law – SB 1411 – goes into effect, making malicious digital impersonation a misdemeanor that comes with fines up to $1000 and/or up to a year in jail.
Hey, in Texas it's a third-degree felony. But, mystifyingly, that's only for social networking sites.
For a long time, online impersonation was mainly thought of as identity theft, or as something done occasionally by pathetic exes or total dicks, but it happened mostly when your credit got hijacked and you found yourself the proud owner of a $5K phone bill and a receipt for swampland in Florida. This past year saw a sharp spike in a much more personal kind of impersonation: when people abuse the anonymity of the Internet to cyber-harass individuals.
It was only a year ago that a California based Marine posed as his ex-girlfriend on Craigslist and via email to set her up for a brutal rape in her own home. Sentenced to 60 years, the punishment was clear.
Most cases are not this extreme, and they go unpunished. SB 1411 is being hailed by those facing a tsunami of legitimate cyber-harassment cases that come up empty-handed for legal recourse to stop, deter, or create consequences for impersonation attacks.
