Ask Slashdot: How Do I Recover From Doxxing? 370
An anonymous reader writes: I've been doxxed on a popular forum, by one of the moderators no less. The forum owner doesn't care, the hosting company doesn't care. I'm getting bombarded by email and social media, even via GitHub. How does a person recover from this? I don't want to create a whole new identity or shut down all my web sites, social media etc. Can't really change my real name either, at least not without an incredible amount of hassle. The police don't care, and since the forum owner is on the other side of the world it's unlikely there could be any legal consequences, and even if they were they would probably only draw more attention to me. I've tried to clean up Google's search results about me. How do I fix this? What does a fix even look like?
Police? (Score:4, Informative)
The police don't care,
If you want to get the police to do anything in this world, don't contact them yourself, have your lawyer contact them.
Re:Police? (Score:4, Informative)
Unless this doxxing contained anything beyond public records what are they police going to do even then? It's not illegal to post public information on someone (barring things like victim shield laws, etc.).
Re: Police? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Police? (Score:5, Interesting)
Questioner here. By publishing my details on this forum they have started off a campaign of harassment. I also have to keep checking Google and bing to make sure I'm not going to be screwed next time I apply for a job, and that it won't stop people contributing to my open source projects.
The worst part is that although I'm not the one doing it, at a casual glance it makes me look childish. Like some 4channer who pissed off other 4channers.
Re: Police? (Score:5, Insightful)
AC nailed it.
Remember when Google insisted that everyone use their real names on G+? I never did offer my real name. Google contacted me three or four times about it, threatening to terminate all services if I didn't supply my name.
I told them that I'm almost sixty years old, and that I've made enemies in my lifetime. I wasn't willing to publish my name and address, so that one of those enemies could find me and murder me.
It was a bullshit story - but it made a point. It is stupid and potentially dangerous to post your real life contact information randomly all over the internet.
Re: (Score:3)
Remember when Google insisted that everyone use their real names on G+? I never did offer my real name.
Yep. My response was "FUCK NO!!", and yes they kept pestering me for months. I never gave them a damn thing.
I was, frankly, amazed that the bliss-ninnies at Google never stopped to consider the downside of posting your real name and linking to all the other stuff you have online. (What could possibly go wrong, eh?) Or maybe they did and just said, "Eh, tough shit."
Re: (Score:3)
Yep. My response was "FUCK NO!!", and yes they kept pestering me for months. I never gave them a damn thing.
Lucky you, they just terminated my G+ account after a couple weeks of pestering (and at the time you could not use a lot of services without G+), but now G+ is dead, and Vic Gundotra has been fired while I'm still alive and I still have my job.
Re: Police? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ben Dover, Max Imum, I.P. Daily, Fuq Q. Googel....and the list goes on. :)
Re: Police? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm Luke A. Boyd, and I work as an ornithologist.
I'm Imelda Czechs, and I work in payments.
I'm Turner Luce, and I work in animal control.
I'm Lisa Carr, and I work in car sales.
I'm Otto DeLupe, and I'm a CIO.
I'm Picov Andropov, I work as a chauffeur in Moscow.
They? (Score:2)
" yes they kept pestering me for months"
Pesky algorithms. They should know when to shut up.
Seriously, I thought Google's "customer service" and whatnot was merely (mostly?) sophisticated spam, Turing-contest bots, and that you had to write a really nasty, threatening letter to get past the filters to a human.
Re: Police? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yup. I may have G+ profiles under my real name and the name I go under when dealing with internet-stuff. My domains point to PO boxes. Good luck mailing shit to a PO box.
Doxx'ers get their stuff from public Whois first, Phonebooks second, legal records third, and insiders of Verizon/AT&T or other Utility companies. Sometimes even having a cop or someone who works at the DMV in the state is leaking the information.
It's very hard to figure out who leaks your information, thus every time you change physical address, you should change utility providers (gas, internet, electricity, phone, tv/cable) until you figure out which one leaked the information. Unfortunately it's usually the phone companies that do this. Good god, when I first got a landline out here in the city, I was getting a dozen calls per day of telemarketers, that I just stopped answering the phone. My Mobile phone, other than the random "obviously fake same NPA-NXX" calls, I get no calls whatsoever. When I briefly subscribed to the Cable Company's digital phone line... I got no phone calls whatsoever than one day I got a call... from the Phone company trying to sell me on switching to them. What does that tell me? The Cable Company sold a list, or is abusing their LNP database.
So... to the OP...
Your best bet if you really want to get away from this crap is to change your physical name (costs about 300$ here and a lot of document replacement costs thereafter) , physically move, even if it's to another unit in the same building (but better if you move to a different city altogether,) change your mailing addresses on everything to a PO box, if you have a job, get a new one under the new name. Delete your facebook/twitter/linkedin/etc profiles and stay off those sites going forward.
I've actually done all of this after I had a falling out with an insane roommate who is one of those 4-chan types. I needed to disappear just enough that I couldn't be found in Google, but anyone who followed the bread crumbs long enough would only come to old contact information. My cell phone number changed as a result of moving to a different area code, so that wasn't even a possibility for stalkers to find me.
But end result is that I've generally not had to worry about assholes doxx'ing me. At worst, I've had assholes that I sent DMCA requests to attempt to destroy the email address sent from with mailbait + botnet, but jokes on them, that email address is only used to SEND DMCA requests.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Had a friend have the same thing happen from a horri-bad breakup. Said ex was known to go to veteran forums and show "Old Glory" being pissed on with the person's name. Of course, there is a point where going too far will step into felony-hard territory and the popo will start going after IP addresses, which is what happened to the ex once the ex thought their reign of terror was unstoppable.
As for E-mail addresses, thanks to tons of free sites, all it takes is a burner phone (bought anywhere) and an E-ma
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
NAME THE FORUM!!!! We can be of more help if we know who it is.
Re: (Score:3)
NAME THE FORUM!!!! We can be of more help if we know who it is.
Yes. Out the outer. Then you will be even and can let it drop.
Re: (Score:2)
It was reddit obviously.
That'd be my guess, but any well-traveled site could be the culprit here.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Police? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Do you still french kiss your dog every day?
I mean, if we're asking inane questions I'd like to at least get a laugh out of the answers.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe you could post the specifics on a different site, of course only if you think the average person would be understanding of your situation (I'd recommend not trusting your own judgement on this, ask a friend). I know a few people who got doxxed over some joke got lots of sympathy over here. If the doxxers think of themselves as righteous, they'll have second thoughts if a large group of people think they're overzealous assholes. Of course, if the doxxers are trolls, they'll love any reaction they get.
Re: Police? (Score:5, Insightful)
Realistically, do nothing. This will end up falling off the bottom of the page, and people will lose interest / forget. The way to ensure that the problem continues is to respond to it.
Remember the "Bring back our girls" campaign. Had everyone from Michelle Obama down making public statements of support. Go and have a read about how the # tag and search results basically disappeared after a month.
While it sucks now, the people who send you stuff based on a forum are not really invested in you, and once the next object of their hatred arrived it will move on. Keep you head up and weather the storm.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Know your place, shut your face.
Don't you just love our brave new world?
Re: Police? (Score:5, Insightful)
I see this argument a lot and it's pretty stupid. Phone books were usually only distributed to the local area, where everyone who got one probably already knew you (or your family) and if they tried to harass you via phone the call was easily traced and police would take care of it.
Doxxing on the Internet is different. Over a billion people suddenly have easy access to your info, most of them strangers and many of them out of reach of the law. It's a completely different scenario.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You have to be quite stupid to equalize a phone book in "the good old days" to doxxing on the Internet.
What next: claiming a DDOS is like someone knocking on your door?
Re: Police? (Score:5, Insightful)
I see this argument a lot and it's pretty stupid. Phone books were usually only distributed to the local area,
And they didn't contain links to a million other bits of data on you, either. There wasn't much you could do with a phone book back then, really (at least not compared to present day maliciousness).
Really, though, I blame social media and the "Cult Of Sharing Everything" for this shit. It all seems so innocuous to share and share and share and then one day you get doxxed...and by that time it's waaaaaaaaay too late to do a damn thing about it.
I've worked hard to keep a low profile. You won't find squat online about me, even though I have a very unusual last name. Very very few pics, no direct links to my "real life" from my online life, and I stay the hell off of facebook, twitter, linked in, etc etc etc.
If other people want to share their personal info I think that's fine, have at it....it's just not for me. And there have been more than a few times that I've been thankful that I was so paranoid and/or careful.
Re: (Score:2)
I see this argument a lot and it's pretty stupid. Phone books were usually only distributed to the local area,
And they didn't contain links to a million other bits of data on you, either. There wasn't much you could do with a phone book back then, really (at least not compared to present day maliciousness).
Really, though, I blame social media and the "Cult Of Sharing Everything" for this shit. It all seems so innocuous to share and share and share and then one day you get doxxed...and by that time it's waaaaaaaaay too late to do a damn thing about it.
Exactly. They didn't dox you. YOU DOXXED YOURSELF!
Re: Police? (Score:5, Informative)
I worked at one of those background check companies for a while. It's amazing how much information people will give up for the chance of winning a contest, or even just asking.
The credit headers have some good information, but it's nothing in comparison to people filling out random forms for free shit.
Re: Police? (Score:5, Insightful)
As others are pointing out, this is a poor argument and should not be modded up.
Re: (Score:3)
Publishing information with intent to threaten or cause distress is illegal in most places as far as I'm aware. It's a bit like carrying a big honking hunting knife in public, you won't get arrested if you have a good reason for carrying it but there aren't many good reasons.
Re: (Score:2)
"popular forum" (Score:2, Insightful)
Which forum exactly is this so we can avoid going to that trash heap?
Re: (Score:2)
SA is left wing SJW material? The name alone could've fooled me...
Re:"popular forum" (Score:4, Informative)
Yep, Zoe Quinn originally was a helldump poster (their doxing board) over at SA.
You mean Chelsea van Valkenberg. (Score:2)
...a known harasser of others.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
She posted on a board on which people called out others' bad behavior online. Doxxing was against that board's rules. Calling for online-only raids on other sites was against their rules, as I recall. That was around 2004, so it's hardly representative of her current behavior.
Do at least a modicum of research before repeating lies, please.
Re:"popular forum" (Score:5, Informative)
She posted on a board on which people called out others' bad behavior online. Doxxing was against that board's rules. Calling for online-only raids on other sites was against their rules, as I recall. That was around 2004, so it's hardly representative of her current behavior.
Do at least a modicum of research before repeating lies, please.
Said board also bragged about harassing people, including proudly announcing they had one "confirmed kill" -- they were mentioned in someone's suicide note, which they took as a badge of honor. And Zoe Quinn bragged about being part of that community -- until she decided to start playing the Feminist Victim card.
But remember, poor widdle Zoe Quinn is an innocent pure princess and you should give her patreon funbux, plz. And ignore that nasty man she admitted to raping 5 times, he's just a mean old jilted ex.
Oh and definitely ignore that time Zoe and her friend, DailyKOS Intern Margaret Pless swatted a free speech lawyer [crimeandfederalism.com] who had the wrong politics. Remember: Zoe Quinn is a feminist and a girl -- ON THE INTERNET -- which means she's an innocent victim and should be coddled no matter how vile she acts. I mean, pure and innocent. Not vile. Girls can't be vile, that would be as if they were human beings and capable of fallibility -- or responsible for their own actions.
And besides, that Cernovich guy's a conservative, he probably has bad thoughts that make it ok to try to have him killed by the police.
Posting as AC because when you talk about Zoe Quinn, her psychotic supporters (who are currently busy defending Sarah Nyberg, a self admitted pedophile and child pornography trafficker) tend to doxx you, swatt you, and send dead animals to your house. Then act like they never did nuthin' but by god you're evil so you did deserve what they didn't do, and besides, didn't you know white men are the cause of all the evil in the world?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In the new reality, Ronald Reagan was an SJW.The term has lost all meaning.
Paranoid's Bible. (Score:5, Informative)
Start Here. [tumblr.com] Unfortunately there's really not much you can do if the webmaster doesn't care other than maybe try to go over their head somewhere in that chain.
DMCA to the rescue? (Score:2)
Re:DMCA to the rescue? (Score:4, Interesting)
OP said the forum owner was not within the US, so it's a fair guess that the hosting site isn't either. A DCMA request will be met with either a "Aww, how cute. [delete]" - or a new round of "Hey everyone, check out Op's attempt to stop us! Let's get him!"
In either case, a DCMA takedown request has done nothing positive.
Re: (Score:2)
OP here. The host us in the US but doesn't take much interest. They ignore TOS violations like the prohibition on hacking and copyright infringement. It's Bluehost, FWIW.
Re: (Score:2)
If you can show it's copyrighted work, they'll take notice when you file a DMCA. But I believe this has to be under penalty of perjury.
If they do ignore it, file a DMCA on the ISP's provider.
However, the info posted is likely not copyrighted.... which falls under other rules of anti-harassment and state laws. Unfortunately, there's still not a lot you can do about it in that case, due to the annoyance of having to deal with a company across the world.
Re: (Score:2)
Buy an hour or two of a lawyer's time to send a nasty letter to Bluehost's lawyers. They'll listen to them.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
OP here. The host us in the US but doesn't take much interest. They ignore TOS violations like the prohibition on hacking and copyright infringement. It's Bluehost, FWIW.
What steps have you taken with Bluehost? As someone who works there, I'm pretty sure we don't ignore TOS violations...
Re: (Score:2)
The OP already said they're not in the same country. DMCA doesn't have much reach outside the USA.
Golden rule! (Score:2, Insightful)
Time (Score:5, Informative)
That's the only real solution. All of those people who are hassling you now, will be hassling somebody else in the future. I hope that the "popular forum" you mention isn't something that's vital to your life; if it isn't then abandon it. If it is, it's a more interesting question.
If you need to continue to participate in that forum, I would suggest you just be yourself. Say what you believe, and don't get too fussy about it.
I've heard from a lot of women who participate in public fora that this kind of abuse is not just commonplace, it's ubiquitous. You might also think of the 34,000,000 people doxxed last month. It's just a common thing, it's going to happen to everybody sooner or later.
Re: (Score:3)
99% of the abuse you will be receiving will be from dickheads who don't really care about you. Just wait them out.
Re:Time (Score:4, Informative)
If I had any mod points, you'd be being upvoted for this - time normalises everything, and whether someone is getting kudos or negative attention, eventually people forget, whether it's the teeming masses or troll groups. Plenty of us have been victims at least once, and it sucks (and can be scary) at the time, but it gets better.
Wait it out? (Score:2)
Not sure how to attack this problem, but a couple ideas:
Like you said, you can't change your name, and you probably don't want to move. Said information is therefore static. If you fight it, you risk the Barbra Streisand effect. Raising a ruckus and loudly complaining will only draw more attention.
I think your best bet is to wait it out. The best way to become invisible is to be boring. Lay low, wait for the mob to some some new, more interesting person to bother.
Well, your first mistake was (Score:5, Insightful)
trying to live on the web, a "place" that does not really exist. The internet is a great thing for communication and to go looking for information, but there is really no reason for most people to have a "web presence" and people who do not (like 99.99% of all people in human history) do not end up with these sorts of totally artificial and unnecessary problems.
Your first question therefore should be: "why do I care?" followed shortly after by "what does it REALLY matter?"
People who actually know me know what I am like and no amount of online dirt about me would convince them otherwise. People who do not know me could be easily convinced to believe anything about me they might find online - but they do not matter to me; since I do not know them I do not care if they know me or if they imagine they know me. I do not know the internet reputations of any of the people I deal with in the real world, I do however care very much about their actual reputations in the real world and I know who I can trust on their word or a handshake.
This silly mental disorder of the Twitter generation that thinks that an online reputation or identity matters at all need to seriously contemplate what really matters in life and need to remember that NOBODY on Earth in all of human history even had an online reputation before about 20 years ago. In most places, the people you actually need to interact with in the real world care nothing about your internet identity/presence.
Sometimes it matters (Score:3)
Block, filter, ignore (Score:5, Interesting)
If you go to a user page on GitHub, you can report abuse and/or block users.
Even if they are using an alt account, reporting abuse is a good first step because if they create more alts, GitHub may eventually block those, and even the main account if they have one.
On email, mark the sender as spam, for the phone if you can just disable voice mail for a while and whitelist calls.
It's probably just a handful of idiots so if you ignore them and carry on eventually they will tire of getting nothing out of their efforts.
If the moderators of a forum are against you not much you can do except carry on and complain to the web site owners. But do be really sure about what you are complaining about and present evidence of what you are claiming they did.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Get a google voice number. Then follow the instructions on google voice to change the voice mail on your real phone to use google voice instead. Start blocking numbers. A block on google voice plays the not in service tone to anyone you have blocked.
In the future, pass out your google voice number. Then you'll not only be able to trivially block voice mail but the entire call itself.
The iPhone can block calls also (Score:2)
I don't know how it comes off on the callers end, but you can also opt to block callers on an iPhone also and then they cannot reach you - just go to the recent call list, press "i" and you get an option to block that caller.
Google voice might let you block ranges of numbers though? That might be helpful if you were under some kind of robo-attack (I had one call bank that tried to reach me with three sequential numbers, luckily after that they gave up [or ran out of numbers])
Someone doxxes me, I doxx them (Score:3)
This is a stupid word in any case. There is tons of publicly available information on people, just the municipal tax roll for starters, then the business registry.
No special leet skills required.
If your info is out there, it's out there (Score:5, Insightful)
There is only prevention
Besides the obvious tip of not using the same password:
- Never use the same username
- Never register on any website using the same email address you use to receive bills and bank statements
- Never use 3rd party authentication (facebook, twitter, google+) to log in to other sites, much less multiple sites
Bury it. (Score:4, Interesting)
You're not going to be able to wipe stuff off the internet. You need to bury the bad with something good. Here's an article that might help [businessinsider.com] about how the woman whose tasteless joke picture was taken out of context and blown out of proportion got her life back together.
Good luck and God bless.
Rule # 1 of Forum Posting (Score:2)
Re:Rule # 1 of Forum Posting (Score:5, Interesting)
Serious question. Why?
I always use my real full name. My slashdot account is an exception now (it was my email address back in '97) but my email is real. I don't see the benefit of total anonymity--as a free software developer both as a hobbyist and professional programmer, I don't want to participate in development behind some random handle, I want people to know who they are interacting with both in real life and via email/usenet/forums/bugtrackers/whatever. And vice versa Hiding behind anonymous handles is the exception rather than the rule, and while there are sometimes reasons for it, it's unusual. For whatever subconcious reason, I also tend to prefer to know who I'm dealing with--I'd be more likely to ignore or postpone dealing with a bug report from an anonymous person, for example. For some random unimportant forum it might not matter, but when you're participating in development with others over an extended period (years to decades) it would be a bit weird to be anonymous. While I think "doxxing" sounds like childish bullying, I don't see that hiding my name would help much should someone single me out. If they cared enough, they'd find out anyway.
That said, while my name and email addresses are not kept secret, I do value the privacy of my actual personal details etc., and I wouldn't be amused if they were published, but as mentioned in this discussion, stuff like phone numbers and addresses are "public" if you know where to look. Mine is in the paper phone book and you can look it up online. While it would be nice if idiots didn't abuse this, it's not realistic to keep secret stuff we need to communicate with each other. If you do a google image search for my name, three of the first two rows of images are me; two take you to my work profile page and my work contact details (email, phone, address), the other is my github profile. It would probably only take a few more minutes to work out my home address as well for a determined person. Occasionally I do get people contacting my via all these work details for legitimate purposes. While it would be nice to not have idiots abusing these things, we equally can't wall ourselves off from the world in an isolated bubble.
Regards,
Roger
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Rule # 1 of Forum Posting (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but I'm a mature adult and a professional. I'm not going to "hide" just on the off chance that some nutter is going to take exception to something--that's their problem, not mine. You don't see Larry Wall, Guido van Rossum or anyone else vaguely serious hiding behind a pseudonym for this reason. I've used my real name from the start as a free software developer, Debian developer, and professional scientist and professional software developer; I've also been involved in some heated discussions in my more youthful days, but that's never been escalated into anything outside being flamed by someone. There's a tradeoff here, and I don't think being anonymous/pseudoanonymous is sufficiently beneficial to warrant it; there's a certain loss of trust in doing so, and it hasn't been a problem for me in the last 18 years of free software- and software development-related activity. I don't think it's realistically possible to reconcile being a professional without being completely transparent as to your identity.
You're right that maybe different accounts are in order for different things. I certainly use separate accounts for "work", "free software development" and "personal" stuff, though I use my real identity for all of them in any case. Though in practice the latter two are somewhat blurred--I don't do much "personal" stuff online anyway--it's pretty much restricted to software-related stuff with personal things being primarily offline "real life" activities.
Check out Crash Override Network (Score:3, Funny)
you can find them at http://www.crashoverridenetwork.com/
they also have a guide on what you should do after you've been doxxed (http://crashoverridenetwork.tumblr.com/post/114270394687/so-youve-been-doxed-a-guide-to-best-practices)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean that website that was created by a person that started doxxing left and right and then claimed to be the victim when people told said person to stop?
Yeah, thanks but no thanks.
This sounds familiar (Score:5, Insightful)
"OMG! Like, Tiffany? She totally told Heather that I had sex with Trevor. I mean, no way! He's such a dork! Anyway, Heather told Megan who told Sierra who wrote a note and passed it around 7th hour band and now everyone in the school thinks Trevor and me are an item! My life is like totally ruined! Now I'm afraid no one will ask me to the prom because they're all gonna think I'm a slut!"
That's what you sound like, and your doxxing problems are going to be about as meaningful a year from now. Your life will suck for a short period of time, then everyone will forget about you and move on to the next bit of juvenile drama.
If you're honestly concerned about your safety (not just your reputation, that damage will blow over and be forgotten) take the evidence to the police and get real legal advice instead of asking a bunch of jerkwads on a random tech web site.
Do Nothing (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
.
The more you fight it, the more attention you'll bring to it, and the longer it will last.
Post fake doxx and fake info (Score:2)
Post fake doxxes and enough fake info mixed with real info, that google searches dont reveal anything real. If you are up for it, kill you public accounts (emails, social media), and start a fresh.
Become someone new on the Internet. (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't become someone new in real life, but you can become a new person on the Internet, someone nobody cares about anymore. There are probably millions of doxx out there, and nobody has time to SWAT all of them. If your old identity disappears, people will stop caring.
Change your email, create new logins for your forum and social media sites and give the new identity only to people you absolutely trust. And stop going to the forum that doxxed you (or if you insist on being a moron, create a new login).
Two comments: first, this only works if people are interested in you because of who you are on the Internet. If you're somebody in real life, you're screwed, but you can probably get the cops to care. Second, yes, this is totally letting the doxxers win. But once your info's out there, it's not about being right on the Internet [xkcd.com], it's about keeping your house from burning down.
Sue. Sue fast, sue everyone., (Score:3, Interesting)
It isn't a prank, it's not a joke, it's a serious invasion of your privacy that puts you at real risk of physical and financial harm - not just mental.
You need to hire a lawyer and start suing them. Don't send warning letters and requests, send subpoenas and court orders.
Re: (Score:2)
If you sue, the media will not think "oh, this random stranger is being a shmuck, lets talk about it. Instead they will say "X corp. is being a shmuck, let's talk about THEM.
But frankly, the media is not likely to talk about it at all. Instead, what is most likely to happen is that once the people get court o
How to put a stop to it (Score:2)
The police don't care, and since the forum owner is on the other side of the world it's unlikely there could be any legal consequences
You can make it go away with enough cash. Either bribe the forum owner, Or hire some people who are within a stone's throw of the forum owner to make the problem post go away through any means necessary, up to and including physical force and violent coercion.
If they're outside the reach of the law, and they're doing serious harm to you, then I guess you could possibly
Ask Barbara (Score:2)
I think Barbara Streisand probably has some good advice on this subject.
Seriously, though, once your information is out, what do you hope to do? It's like complaining about spammers - get a better anti-spam system. Be prepared to filter aggressively. Do not engage.
Are You an Asshole? (Score:2)
Live your life like you don't care what people know. And if you need to keep secrets your opsec better be perfect.
What did you do that this is such a problem? If you've been an asshole maybe you'll reconsider future behaviors. But tell us the grand story about how the forum mods and owners were unjustified.
Double down. (Score:3)
SJW trying to do research? (Score:3, Insightful)
Something doesn't smell right about this. They're asking for advice in a potentially unfriendly forum (read: it doesn't purge material) and may not be fully honest about their intentions.
If the Anonymous Reader is honest in their intentions for seeking advice, I hope they will understand the reason for suspicion.
Keep your digital footprint as small as possible.. (Score:3)
My solution is to "DOX" myself (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously. Anonymity is a legal fiction and an illusion, and almost nothing you say anyone gives a damn about anyway. I mean, my God, seriously, what do you think is going to happen? Being embarrassed because you hold some sort of unpopular opinion? Currently in the U.S., the big news is that Carly "HP rose 6% when I was fired" Fironina, is considered to have "won" the Republican debate over Trump the Clown, because she brazenly lied multiple times about Planned Parenthood! And you think you're going to be affected by some pro- or anti- Gamergate opinion?!?
The problem, ultimately, is that people really don't know who is wrong or right - so as a shortcut, they look to see if someone "caught" acts as if whatever it is they've been "caught" doing is embarrassing. This is why Trump is leading right now. No matter how wrong he is, or stupid, he never acts like it's important. So instead of clutching your pearls over some opinion you have, trying to "erase" someone DOXing you, when you really should be posting the entire DOX, saying "See what assholes these people are, trying to DOX me instead of actually engaging in a contest if ideas? That's because they're wrong and they know it. They can't fight my ideas, so they attack me. I guarantee that you will get an outpouring of support for whatever you believe in.
TL/DR: I don't censor my opinions. I call 'em as I see 'em. Under my own "brand", as you will. And I guarantee you, I'll never be embarrassed being myself. You shouldn't either.
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Doxxing, by definition, is the public release of private information. Op didn't release the info. Nefarious 3rd parties did.
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Doxing is releasing personally-identifiable information. Pretty much all of what is part of "doxing" can be bought from public records sites for like $15.
Re:Don't... (Score:4, Interesting)
More often than not, 'doxxing' is just compiling information that is already available on the internet. People think they've been 'hacked' or 'stalked' but they often forget that they posted the information in some forum/comment section using the same username they use everywhere. I once had a guy ask me to do it to him because he didn't believe that I could. He'd posted 6 times on the forum in question using that username. I was able to identify 2 or 3 other anonymous accounts he'd used on that forum, pictures of not only the exterior but the interior of his house, his real name/social media profile and all the troves of information that provides. It took me about an hour to tease out his data from a woman in Florida. Why? Because he'd mentioned his cats names in one of those 6 posts. That lady in Florida had the same names for her cats, otherwise it was the only thread I needed to pull to unravel exactly who this guy was.
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More often than not, 'doxxing' is just compiling information that is already available on the internet. People think they've been 'hacked' or 'stalked' but they often forget that they posted the information in some forum/comment section using the same username they use everywhere.
Also don't forget that once you're circling a target, you can find what someone else has posted. Like if you know someone comes from a particular place or goes to a particular school, just crawl through everyone else's social media feeds until you find the person you're looking for even if they're not tagged or named but they're at some event or class or group or whatever. A lot of "doxxing" is basically casting a big dragnet and have your own personal army sifting through it until you find the person you'r
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Social Security numbers are most assuredly NOT supposed to be public records. Businesses try to treat them as if they are, because they like the idea of having a unique identifier for every person in the US.
Don't ever provide your SSN to a website.
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Until the 90s Massachusetts used social security numbers as License numbers as a default. In the 80s they started giving the option to use an "S" number instead. I jumped at it, and when I did a bunch of unpaid parking tickets disappeared from my record.
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You actually have to for a variety of finance services.
If they're sending you interest income, they have to send out a 1099-INT with your SSN on it. The IRS also gets a copy, which they use to verify that you didn't lie on your tax return.
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You actually have to for a variety of finance services.
Any service (financial or otherwise), where you might be paid money or given consideration, will require the SSN for the W-9 form, and the SSN is used to complete 1099-* forms.
Basically... any service that facilitates monetizing or generating a profit for the customer, such as Ads for your Blog, or Uber where there is Cash exchanged for giving rides.
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Re:Don't... (Score:5, Insightful)
In a perfect world one could be honest and use their real identities online. But we live in this world where shit's messed up at the moment.
Unless you need a public persona for your job, or are really committed to being on the front line of an info-war, you are a naive fool if you don't carefully take all prudent measures to preserve your privacy. The "social" fad has just created human cannon fodder for trolls, corporate identity mining operations and nation state surveillance.
So it is with regret that I must inform you: we need more people like you to keep getting doxxed and screwed as collateral damage until enough people wake up and realize that privacy is a pivotal component of a civilized and free society. Good and honest people have the MOST to hide if they want to avoid getting taken advantage of. Don't buy the lies of the "if you have nothing to hide" argument.
Whatever you were doing on the website which screwed you: it should not have required any link to your true identity. If you provided personal info out of free will, then you only have yourself to blame. Sorry for the sour grapes, but there's no recourse. Take the black eye. Soldier on with your life with lessons learned.
Signed your's truly,
{any name I sign with is false}
P.S. Get a password manager and lots of disposable email accounts. If you feel compelled to participate on a forum (hello Dice), do not reuse credentials, emails or nicknames. And even if the administrator is your best friend who you trust with your life, FOLLOW THESE RULES! It's the blackhat who p0wns his website or the troll who abuses it, who you need to protect yourself from, not your friend.
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Accept the fact that you allowed your personal information out into the world and are now facing the consequences of that decision.
Bingo. Whether careless or willfully complicit, the results are the same. Now you're screwed.
Re:An armed society is a polite society (Score:4, Insightful)
the fear of someone showing up on your door step with a weapon is the difference between a genuine doxxer epidemic and your typical interwebs asshats.
No, that's exactly what happens [youtube.com].
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I'm sorry, by telling this story were you under the mistaken impression that the story puts you in a good light?
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Your first mistake was being an asshole. How do I know? Because people, as a rule, are lazy. I'm lazy. You're lazy. We're all lazy. So why, I'm forced to ponder, are so many people intent on fucking with you that it overcomes their natural laziness?
The only answer that makes sense is that you were a raging asshole.
Also likely is that he gave responses that made him an entertaining target. Seeking entertainment also overcomes peoples natural laziness.
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Inquiring minds want to know:
Was your friend an LGBT activist who got trolled by the opposition, or an opposition activist who got trolled by LGBT activists?
Internet Attention Span (Score:2)
Yeah. Let's get this guy. I tell you what we ought to do, is .....
Oooooo! Cat videos!
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If you turned your computer off now, and never turned it on again, would you notice any ill-effects?
sudden, immediate, and complete loss of all income, but otherwise no
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I read that as "Second Life is over. Suicide is the only course of action left to you, sorry." well, either way.