If you've heard of Eric Trosch, then you'll know what I'll be talking about next.

Two days ago, a friend IM-ed me, 'guess what, I don't know how to tell you this but just go to Friendster and search for my name - but leave out the spacings, though.'

I know her too well - from those exact words, I knew trouble brewed and I could smell its strong stench - and that it's been brewing for just a short while.

My jaw literally detached itself from my face (In this case I insist on both written and mental-form of exaggeration) upon seeing such a familiar profile: it was complete with her real name, photos of herself and her friends, housing info, and worst of all - her cell phone number - complete with country code. Written on her profile were heinous words that are not that hard to imagine what could they be. And she has more than 24 'friends', and I'm very sure more than half (or could be all) of those 'male friends' are fully aware that it's not a real profile - come on, it about due dinosaurs' time we 'graduated' from those profiles already.

I know I shouldn't be surprised at all because I have seen these things before - many, many times. I felt sorry for them (mostly celebrities, corporate figures, religious leaders and the list of influential personalities goes on) and I moved on within the next hour of my OCD-Internet browsing. But never have I ever thought that these kind of 'pranks' could be carried out by acquaintances and friends of friends whom I come to know as adults (I bet some of you had expected me to write 'could have happened to a loved one - my best friend).

"I know it's human nature to have conflicts in life but this time they had gone way too far", I said to her. I don't wish to delve into details but whatever happened between those girls and her were really 'junior high' issues. But that's life, a harsh, truth.

My advice to her was plain simple - ignore them, move on and just let them prey. Let them prey. My so-called 'advice' was solely based on my 'key learnings' from watching all those made in Hollywood movies. The more you react, the happier they'd be. The more you try to stop it, the more they'll try to 'stop' you (reminds me of Sly Stallone in First Blood).These 'pranksters' are merely trigger-happy people with simply one agenda (from the movies, most only have one agenda), to seek and destroy.

We are barely living individuals that do not have the money and spiritual strength to have this undone.

And so I wonder, what is this? Prank, or harassment? What can we, as individuals, make do with damaging comments that appears to be real? These 'pranksters' know you, they will hunt you down and they will make sure it will hurt you; all this in the name of a medium that is going through many sorts of courtroom battles - The Internet.

We live in a a digital era where issues like fake profiles and flogs continue to creep into our lives and try to stop us from progressing to the next step. And, it is not easy to accept that many straight-forward issues (for instance, this case is straight forward because it's personal, doesn't involve the mass media's attention, and has no need for a major crisis communication strategy) can't be solved with the vast variety of communication tools which we have today.

On a lighter note, however; my girl friend has taken a brave step to manage this personal crisis: she is communicating by walking away. If there's no crowd, if there's no gossip, if there's no response from the victim who has a solid chain of support from her true friends - I guess I'll leave you to craft the possible outcome.

Communication should not be complicated. In this case, she is doing the right thing - well at least she thinks it's right, that's all that matters now.