Misuse of web cameras to manipulate children within the so-called webcam trolling

• The term ‘webcam trolling’ refers to a risky communication phenomenon associated with the misuse of a web camera.
• Numerous authors warned of the risks associated with using video chats such as Chatroulette, etc.
• In many of the documented cases, webcam trolling was also used to blackmail children.
• The basic strategy of protection against webcam trolling is to observe the basic principles of safe behaviour in virtual environments.

This article presents an overview of the phenomenon of Internet trolling and, in particular, on the so-called webcam trolling (misuse of web cameras to attack other Internet service users). Alongside the succinct summary of the approaches to individual forms and variants of the so-called online trolling, the contribution describes how the misuse of web cameras works in practise and what attack strategies are used by the attackers within webcam trolling. The authors’ intention is an in-depth analysis of the ways of misusing webcam trolling to attack a child with the aim to wheedle intimate material from him/her and blackmail him/her thereafter. The article also contains exemplary cases of web trolling dealt with by the online consulting room ‘Centre for the Prevention of Risky Virtual Communication’ of the Palacký University in Olomouc between 2013 and 2015.