I feel that when it comes to stalkers, having someone show up at your house is not an issue.
That is to say, crazy guys have and will show up at your doorstep. But your attention should not be focused on them.
You should be worried about information protection online.
Right now there are at least two active threads (that I can think of off the top of my head) in the Model's Only area of models asking for help after their information was spread publicly. These threads are not uncommon, we see new ones fairly consistently.
However, I have never heard any model share an instance where she was physically (not over the phone, but face to face) tracked down by a man on MFC who discovered her hidden information and went to her home or other location seeking her out. I have never even heard any stories or rumors of this happening, except for one time when I first joined ACF (supposedly, a man flew to Australia to meet a model without her being any the wiser).
Does someone knowing your real town put you in danger? I would say probably not. But it's a slippery slope.
The danger of stalking is not having someone waiting in your driveway, but having an Internet obsession with you where spreading information about you becomes a passtime. There are plenty of active forums and websites where harassing cam models is all good fun. And while I don't believe sharing something as innocent as your town will lead to physical harm, it is a very slippery slope.
The Internet has proved what it can do with a little information.
Anonymous, 4chan, and other groups have displayed this with their treatment of a couple different people who posted videos of themselves torturing animals on the Internet (in one case, I believe, one guy's entire
town was harassed).
The simple truth is, I highly doubt any of us will be fully protected if a group of very serious people decide that we are going to be outed.
Fortunately, it usually doesn't come to that.
All the information in this thread is good. I can't remember if I've contributed before but here are a few things I believe to be vitally important.
When people show signs of obsession, don't encourage them. Most importantly, if you decide to start ignoring someone,
never give in and communicate with them. It's widely regarded that the best way to train animals is to reward them only every few times. If you give your dog a treat every time he rolls over, the first couple times you stop giving him a reward, he'll get bored and stop. If you give your dog a treat the first time, the third time, the fifth time, the ninth time... he'll keep rolling over as much as you want, because he knows if he keeps performing, eventually he'll be rewarded. For fuck's sake, my mother is a teacher and it's a popular "training" technique for elementary school students!
If you make it clear to your stalker that if he keeps bugging you enough, you'll eventually give in, then he will never stop because he knows that you will give him what he wants eventually. Ban him from every facet of your online life immediately and never ever look back or respond to him.
Witty comebacks, being mean, or attacking people counts as positive attention. When someone is obsessed with you, all attention is good attention. Don't fool yourself that screaming at someone or making painfully sharp remarks to them is going to deter them. They love it.
Understand the psychology of what's going on. When I was in the junior high and high school, I was highly antisocial. In the summer months I would spend usually 12 to 14 hours a day on the Internet. Because I had no analogue relationships, my digital relationships became very important. Because I was emotionally immature (at least, more than I am now) I became very angry when people ignored me or were mean to me on the Internet, and I learned that I could force them to pay attention to me when I continually sent them messages, talked about them, or publicly attacked them (yes, I was a little bitch... what can I say? I was 12 and lonely). To these people, you can easily become their life. They thrive on your attention because it's all they have. They find it thrilling that a beautiful sex pot will pay attention to them whenever they want, while all those other members have to pay up for her affections. In other cases, they find it exciting that they can force a beautiful and popular woman to pay attention to them and feel pain (yup, I'd guarantee a big section of stalkers are guys who ignored pretty or average girls who loved them and obsessed over gorgeous women they "deserve" to have, and now they're punishing you because they finally found a way to get control). I'm not saying those are the only two possible situations, but you need to know that these guys feel
entitled to you, and you can't stop it. All you can do is ignore them until they're forced to move on.
Delete your Facebook. I haven't used FB in months, and I haven't lost any important friends over it. If for some reason you would rather ruin your life than delete a social networking account, make your friends list private, remove all of your profile information, remove all photos of yourself, and change your name to something else (a nickname people know you by, whatever). You can still communicate with people you know.
