To whom it may concern ::: F43.2 :::
In the last months, I have been getting several requests for reviews of scientific work, publications, workshops, invitations for being a speaker/delegate at conferences, and reading material at my personal Email address. My private phone number was shared, services are supposedly bought in my name, and I am registered in journals and subscribed to mailing lists and groups without my consent. Lately, I also get EMails that are as if I participated in events that I did not. The harasser/stalker started by hiding behind the confidentiality of reviews and publications in scientific journals, so it is very unlikely that he/she come from another field or another application, as some want to present. He/she is engaged mostly in cyber-stalking and approaches through third persons; that is typical of his/her character, not to lose face in the society which has only one benefit: some safety in the physical world. Sometimes my official academic and dev profiles show inaccurate information that was not created by me; the harasser/stalker has gone so far that he/she also changed my profile image. Periodically checking all my profiles/emails/bank accounts/cards is very timely consuming and psychologically draining (hypervigilance).
For that reason, I cannot have an official EMail or phone number for professional/networking purposes because it will highly likely be overloaded. My Email, phone, career success, and social visibility with friends or colleagues provoke/arouse the harasser/stalker. The only way people can contact me is through LinkedIn: Linkedin and through Instagram: Instagram. For the first time in my life, I’ve made most of my Facebook content private to protect my family and friends.
I resigned from my PostDoc position at the BOKU university on 30.04.2024; the unrequested and unnecessary reference letter is declined. I only provide IT/AI Engineering/programming services to my employer in the industry.
Please stop sending me emails for reviews and/or publications, reading material, workshops, seminars, and invitations for being a speaker/delegate since I will (generally) not do them. Stop registering me without my consent (see below) in journals, groups, mailing lists, and buying things in my name, since this constitutes identity theft and is illegal.
Sharing my personal telephone number without my consent is also illegal.
I appreciate your understanding.
I also inform that:
– I don’t accept inappropriate messages and approaches at inappropriate times by anyone in any workplace. I will never accept that my code is “checked” only in a remote private office. Mentioning potential job loss in this context inflicts survival fear and leaves physical and psychological effects that are almost as serious as those of a more severe attempt. If anybody claims that the code of a person with my knowledge and experience is not running properly, they have to be able to prove it in an open office space with protocol. Similarly, if no errors/bugs are found, then the person is highly likely an ignorant, who is not even aware of Quality Management or even worse, the Halting Problem.
– To be a member of a Scientific Committee or a reviewer, I need a
clear set of tasks; I don’t accept harassing messages with nude imagery, bad characterisations, mansplaining and DARVO during a professional discussion. I kindly advise these types of professors to appeal to the corresponding paid services. Not informing me that people higher in the hierarchy are not being invited, and a lack of clear tasks could constitute a bribe attempt (favour). A mere claim of good intentions for a non-requested and unnecessary “career boost” (which does not necessitate the exclusion of higher hierarchy colleagues) is not enough.
After consulting two lawyers, the acceptance of a bribe — even without the scientific researcher’s knowledge — may place the researcher in a disadvantageous position, forcing him/her to face its legal consequences. It may also give an opportunity to anyone who knows about it, or even organised it behind the scenes, to blackmail the researcher for many years (in Austria, for five (5) years), while still maintaining their own good standing in society. The conference organiser may argue that the superior(s) were invited but did not respond to his/her invitation (they did not receive or read an email he/she sent) and that he/she had not yet received the scientific papers, since, technically, they are not known until they are submitted. However, the reason why an organiser cannot — or avoids — sending an email describing them, even approximately, cannot be explained. The same goes for the fact that the organiser does not send a second Email or does not call the superior(s). Perhaps the organiser is himself a victim of blackmail; if he/she does it voluntarily and/or to gain something money-wise/career-wise, I have only one thing to say: he/she is entitled to live his/her life as he/she chooses; to impose a lifestyle of prostitution, bribery and coercion on others is against every democratic value. In either case, I pity him/her because of the lack of freedom his/her life has.
– Academics (so-called ”flying monkeys”) who start a conversation, invite me to collaborations, and perform professional ghosting/hoover to discard after they infer my location and/or job are/will be blocked. People who ghost me/don’t talk back to me don’t need to be in my contacts list. The communications that dealt merely with the location were particularly puzzling to me, since I was posting regularly that I was in Vienna on my social media. The phone numbers that called my private phone and my Greek residence(s) and hung up, creating fear in my family members—particularly small children—are noted and reported. It would be better if those people practice with ChatGPT first. I was advised by the authorities not to be scared by those intimidating practices. I feel deeply sorry – even pity – for all those who feel they have to balance the fact that I left first; if that weren’t the case, then those invitations wouldn’t be necessary. Each time a known/new person writes to me, I have to overcome the so-called “fear of abandonment” (not be afraid of being discarded/ghosted again), and by that lose genuine approaches. As if that was not enough, every time a discussion starts, I doubt if this is the real person or somebody who has also been a victim of identity theft, like me. Nonetheless, it seems that I am handling all this pretty well, and I can assure everyone that I will overcome it every time.
As far as those who do continue the conversation, so that they take some information about what metrics should be used in a classification problem, or what is my opinion about xAI of LLMs – particularly the ones that came around my birthday – while at the same time trying to inflict fear that AI will replace my job in the private sector, thereby implying that the state sector is safer, I have the following things to say:
– If you are afraid, stay in the state sector. Anna Saranti is not afraid. Anna Saranti can initiate her resignation process without having a new job.
– If you want to learn about the xAI of LLMs, sit down and learn about it. I would never demean myself so much that I send other people collecting information that I need for my papers, while at the same time presenting myself as an all-knowing being that has read everything and says, “It’s easy, isn’t it”? If it’s easy, then do it. If you can’t, and you can’t even evaluate it, then don’t say anything.
– I firmly believe that the ones who will lose their jobs first are the ones that have no idea about AI, can’t understand a causal model, still write about SVMs, or what is possible *but never do it themselves*, never showing *how*.
– People who repeatedly look at my LinkedIn profile and cannot answer why are/will be blocked. It occurred to me and other people that at times when some of them participate in publications, our profiles are repeatedly looked at. It is natural to expect that I will look at their profiles back; nonetheless, it’s just wishful thinking that I regret anything. I feel very sorry for the unhappiness of those people (or those who impersonate them) and their compulsive need to inflict negative feelings on others. I could never believe that some people are so plagued for months/years; what they do shows that every time they have a success, instead of purely celebrating and enjoying themselves, they think of us.
– Emails and verification codes for purchases that I’ve never performed are saved/backed up.
– Fake, empty, identity theft and sexual services providers’ profiles that approach my social media are/will be blocked and reported, as well as any profile/conversation that is re-traumatising (trigger).
– Calls from anonymous numbers are also blocked – by me, my friends and family. At times when we have made an online reservation, they are receiving anonymous calls, which they, of course, don’t pick up. Furthermore, they have also started receiving an abnormal amount of spam Emails; the harassment/stalking is likely extended to them, too. Thankfully, they are all informed about this unbelievable situation that has never happened in my/our life(s) before, nor has it happened to anyone we know.
– The harasser/stalker continues to create fake/empty profiles that approach me with references to personal/private discussions that he/she can only have gotten by data interception/phone hacking. I deny feeling any guilt for the fact that I slowly managed to connect with other people *consentually*, and that I’ve overcome the fear of death every time I leave the house. Victims have the right to heal at their own pace, and the fact that they eventually do is a testament to their hard work; it does not eradicate what they have gone through by the abuser(s). What is more, I also got EMails that threaten me with sextortion and blackmail; the harasser/stalker claims to have videos of private moments that can only be acquired by interception/hacking. I don’t accept any projection of shame or promiscuity feelings. In the words of Gisèle Pelicot, who has been through so much more: “it’s not for us to have shame – it’s for them”.
Screenshots of the experiences:
I decide which messages/reference letters I am accepting and for how long
because
I am a free individual with integrity who thankfully lives in a democracy.
I will never work for/with harassers (to put it *very* gently) and/or stalkers.
Those who think (or pretend that) there is no difference between free consent and the subtle, hard-to-prove coercion that can cost not only one’s professional advancement but even one’s survival have a profound problem with democracy and free will. Particularly, those who are married should question their ethical values first before they imply anything about mine. I was, am and will be free.
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In case the identity theft continues, and people experience unprofessional/rude behaviour by a profile that impersonates me, or even mine, because I cannot exclude phone hacking at this point:
– It’s not in my creed to create compulsively many fake/identity theft profiles. If I want to contact somebody, I will do so directly. If somebody says they don’t want to be contacted/bugged by me, I accept it after some time, depending on how long the relationship was.
– You will most likely never be ghosted by me unless I forget our conversation while being absorbed by something else. I close conversations properly, and when I go No Contact (NC), then it’s because I have strong indications that the person has narcissistic tendencies. Even in this case, I make an effort to explain why.
– I also look at other people’s profiles often – yes! I’m also curious, and I remember people. The difference is, I don’t do it *intrusively* – I only look at what is public. There are lots of ways to look even at instagram stories online, without disturbing anyone. If I ever click on something, it will be accidentally; I apologise for that and can assure you that it is highly unlikely that it will happen again. If you see lots of clicks, then remember that repeated/compulsive behaviour is characteristic of other people – not my style