Talk:Doxing/Archive 1

Archive 1

reddit

The rules of a particular website, with regards to doxing, aren't really relevant to this article. I've removed this section. C p mcdowell (talk) 11:23, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Gamergate slander

Some moron added a false claim that Gamergate harasses its opponents and cited The Guardian as proof. Notably absent is any of the thousands of times that social justice nazis have harassed and doxxed anyone who questioned their monstrous ideology. 67.186.249.102 (talk) 23:45, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

For the benefit of editors who are actually WP:HERE:

• Be WP:CIVIL and avoid name-calling (such as 'moron').
• Relatedly we have a policy of WP:No personal attacks which specifically deems it unacceptable to refer to others as 'nazis'.
• Wikipedia strives for WP:Verifiability, not truth so whether a claim may actually be true or false is beside the point.
• Relatedly, Wikipedia relies not on proof, but rather on sources that are WP:RELIABLE.
• Talk pages such as this one are WP:NOTAFORUM but rather for discussing improvement of the article.

As such editors are welcome to suggest reliable sources with information relevant to the topic at hand. Happy editing. Lklundin (talk) 12:39, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

There's an easy way to fix this. Just find WP:RS that either states that GamerGate does not dox, or counter with evidence that anti-GG/Feminists/etc do. Wikipedia is bound by their own rules, or at least, they claim to be... so it should be easy enough to counter the bull shit with reliable sources of our own. It's not like feminists/anti-GGers look for factual sources, just "reliable" ones anyway... --Lithorien (talk) 03:21, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

etymology

This has come up before. There are sources for "document tracing" (despite them not being cited here), but I think those are a minority and may have a single origin that isn't at all connected to those who first began using the term. I think we can all agree "doxing" involves some version of "documents" ("docs"), but everything beyond that seems like speculation. Until we can figure out if there's an intelligible origin or consensus emerges about what the body of reliable sources say, I've just gone ahead and cut it out. The version I removed also included the part of speech (that it's "the verb form..."), which might be appropriate as part of an etymology section, but not the lead because Wikipedia is about concepts not, as a general principle, words. --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:09, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Doxing: An Etymology has relevant information, including the verb form. The Atlantic is an RS. The article claims information was gleaned from Know Your Meme, which I consider pretty reliable but is maybe not a reliable source by WP. There is also an On the Media article THE PROBLEM WITH "DOXXING" that has useful information. --Mark viking (talk) 23:33, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I've added a reference that is vetted by Oxford University Press, so no need to depend upon KnowYourMeme. The Atlantic an On the Media sources could be used for a short WP:WORDISSUBJECT etymology section that expanded on that aspect of the topic, though; those references show that there's some encyclopedic "social or historical significance" for the word itself. Diego (talk) 17:05, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

I've added a reference that is vetted by Oxford University Press, so no need to depend upon KnowYourMeme. The Atlantic an On the Media sources could be used for a short WP:WORDISSUBJECT etymology section that expanded on that aspect of the topic, though; those references show that there's some encyclopedic "social or historical significance" for the word itself. Diego (talk) 17:05, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

I'll vote here to submit that this term may have originated from the software industry, there's a rather popular tool that developers sometimes use which allows "official-looking" documentation to be automatically created by directly feeding the source code in and out comes the code description ALMOST immediately suitable for publishing. (Most developers HATE "wasting time" generating documentation, and this tool was viewed as a godsend.) It's called "Doxygen" and it's still available up on sourceforge.net, and it certainly got lots of people referring to creating documents as "doxing" and in approximately the correct timeframe, but at best it's an "educated guess" that it's where this term originated, but I believe it's better than most that I've heard. Jlawton11 (talk) 02:55, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Definition?

"Doxing (from dox, abbreviation of documents[1]) or doxxing[2][3] is the Internet-based practice of researching and broadcasting private or identifiable information"

I stopped right there because my bullshit threshold had already been exceeded. Anything that can be researched by an unprivileged person on the internet is by definition not private.

49.196.0.121 (talk) 09:20, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Please add best practices or defense section (or direct me to appropriate resources or ongoing discussion)

I would like to see a new section added that either provides advice about protecting yourself from doxxing and online harassment (if an article already exists already perhaps important points could be moved in and then a see also template placed at the top of the section--I'm new here and haven't found this yet) or at least a link within the see also section to said article. Additionally, if this article exists, I would love to see it. I want to do some research for appropriate sources that cover this topic to help Wikipedians stay safe on here. Here is one suggested source, although I think that the nature of its URL may make it not meet neutrality requirements (please advise):

Friedman, Jaclyn; Anita, Sarkeesian; Sherman, Renee Bracey (July 5, 2018). "Speak Up & Stay Safe(r): A Guide to Protecting Yourself From Online Harassment". Feminist Frequency. Archived from the original on November 25, 2018. Retrieved November 28, 2018. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

I'm getting this from their own news coverage links, so perhaps this isn't adequate evidence of widespread coverage in reliable third party sources to give this page more authority, but here is a list of third party coverage which may give credence to this as a potential source to write said section:

• Reynolds, Emily (December 10, 2015). "This Feminist Frequency guide helps you fight harassment". WIRED. Retrieved November 28, 2018.
• Ravenscraft, Eric (December 9, 2015). "This Site Teaches You to Prepare For and Deal With Online Harassment". Lifehacker. Retrieved November 28, 2018. - (seems to be arguably a one-paragraph mention basically a "retweet" of someone else's coverage listed next in the list).
• Opam, Kwame (December 8, 2015). "Feminist Frequency launches practical guide to defend against online harassment". THE VERGE. Retrieved November 28, 2018.
• Frank, Allegra (December 8, 2015). "Feminist Frequency launches online harassment safety guide: Best practices for staying secure on the internet". Polygon. Retrieved November 28, 2018.
• Dupere, Katie (December 11, 2015). "New guide for feminists shows how to handle haters and trolls". Mashable. Retrieved November 28, 2018.
• Jusino, Teresa (December 9, 2015). "Feminist Frequency Joins Fellow Activists in Creating a Guide to Defend Against Online Harassment". The Mary Sue. Retrieved November 28, 2018. - I've never heard of this one, but it's a similar "retweet" of the The Verge coverage above.
• Collins, Terry (December 24, 2015). "Online abuse isn't going away, but you're not helpless to fight it: Anita Sarkeesian, who has gotten death threats since calling out sexism in video-game culture last year, has teamed up with two other women to create a guide to combat online harassment". CNET. Retrieved November 28, 2018.
• Bracey Sherman, Renee (December 15, 2015). "Finally, Someone Created a Guide to Help Protect You from Noxious Trolls: Three women who have weathered doxxing, harassment, and rape and death threats are now helping others stay safe online". Broadly. Vice. Retrieved November 28, 2018.
• Beschizza, Rob (December 9, 2015). "How to stay safe online". Boing Boing. Retrieved November 28, 2018.
• Frank, Allegra (September 25, 2015). "Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn and more take aim at cyber harassment against women". Polygon. Retrieved November 28, 2018. - Quote from this one: The Broadband Commission Working Group on Gender gathered at the United Nations yesterday to present its findings on what they consider to be a 'rising tide of online violence against women and girls.' in which the authors spoke at the UN to help advise them on protecting women and girls from online harassment and offer their point of view.

There's also a handful of interviews with them, but I realize those are primary sources and less appropriate unless they're providing full clarification for what third-party, authoritative, secondary sources are articulating (if I understand this all correctly--I'm new here).

Sincerely, Shashi Sushila Murray, (message me) 03:56, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Should this page (and similar pages) contain best practice guidelines for protection from doxxing (or harassment online and offline)? See above for my specific proposal. Sincerely, Shashi Sushila Murray, (message me) 03:57, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

No, WP:NOTHOWTO. Also, why has this gone straight to a full-blown thirty-day formal RfC? Have all of the suggestions at WP:RFCBEFORE been exhausted? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:23, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Redrose64, I'm new here, so if you like I can delete the RfC and use the edit history to ping other editors of this page to begin with. Sincerely, Shashi Sushila Murray, (message me) 19:37, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Tired. I realize I'm asking for something that's against the content policies, since Wikipedia is not a how to. Therefore, including said information--even the intended parroting of what others say--is not OK. I'm going to ping anyway with the assumption that this is just a no go, but with the intention of additional clarification and feedback or dialog being provided by others who may know more about the project than me and have fruitful suggestions of over areas I can contribute along these lines. Sincerely, Shashi Sushila Murray, (message me) 19:59, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

As per page stats on https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Doxing I'm pinging a handful of the main contributors to this page (except for the scary one that's banned for harassment omg): Rhododendrites, Tutelary, Adrian J. Hunter. Sorry to bother you, but I'm trying to get some redirection or clarification in line with the above short discussion I had with Redrose. Is there somewhere else where this content would be appropriate (for instance, about a month ago I think I recall seeing a page that gave advice to Wikipedians, "internally", on how not to have your public identity exposed)? I expect that the answer is 'no' (but I'm a new editor and learning here) unless either of us have misunderstood each other. Sincerely, Shashi Sushila Murray, (message me) 20:09, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Only time for a cursory response now; I'll follow up later. I think we should separate doxing and harassment in terms of this thread, since "protection against harassment" is a massive subject that reaches into legal, psychological, sociological, etc. topics. Figuring out a single encyclopedic subject that would encompass that seems difficult outside of discussing the subject of harassment itself and the various subtypes linked from that article. Doxing is more specific, though, as one form of harassment. We wouldn't want just a list of best practices, as Redrose64 said, or a how-to guide. That's just not what Wikipedia is for (there are lots of things that are useful but lie outside of the scope of the Wikipedia project). That said, there are a whole lot of sources on related subjects that we should cover somewhere (if we don't already). We do have articles like Internet privacy, information privacy, and cyberbullying, for example. Think about how you would frame the subject if we were explaining to a general audience about the topic, not trying to tell someone what to do or how to do it. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 01:04, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, Rhododendrites, for taking the time to help me think through this critically. I'm going to take the time to reflect on this, read the articles you linked to, and jot down some notes. Looking forward to your followup. Sincerely, Shashi Sushila Murray, (message me) 02:59, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

homoyms and antii christianisim. (two sections to add)

rymes with "boxing" as in 'beat them up'. in modern vigilantisim there is no provision for measure or forgiveness.

this makes doxing typical of anti christian radicalism in which forgivness ot tolerance are forgotten in favpr of primitive sensational blood lust. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.94.232.100 (talk) 16:42, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Notable examples

Ordering

Just curious as to whether there a reason behind the order the entries are listed. It doesn't seem to be alphabetical or chronological. Is it by relevance? If not, then perhaps it would be best to list them chronologically. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:31, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Marchjuly: Thanks for your Wikipedias contributions :) I was wondering the same thing. It is usually much easier if the items are sorted in some way. Easier to read, easier and much faster to search, and add context. To remain objective, my contributor vote goes to chronological order. I suggest this chronological order I did a few minutes ago at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxing#Notable_examples

@Francewhoa :) Note to myself. This is a summary of the chronological order as of today Oct 4th, 2018:

4.1 Don Denkinger

4.2 Hit lists of abortion providers

4.3 Human flesh search engine

4.4 Anonymous

4.5 Boston Marathon

4.6 Journalists

4.7 Curt Schilling

4.8 Alondra Cano

4.9 Lou Dobbs

4.10 Erdogan emails

4.11 Michael Hirsh

4.12 U.S. Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity

4.13 Democratic House Intern

---

Democratic House Intern?

I suggest to add a paragraph about this significant doxing example. Which occured during the high profile and widely covered hearing of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh. How about the draft paragraph below? The suspect was arrested and charged with doxing. I tried to keep the name of the arrested suspect anonymous for now. I also included sources about all of this.

On October 4, 2018 a 27-year-old House intern for the Democratic party was arrested by the US Capitol Police (USCP). He allegedly posted private, identifying information of several Senators to Wikipedia. According to the USCP, after the personal information of Republican Senators Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee and Orrin Hatch was anonymous posted to Wikipedia the week before on Thursday September 27, 2018. The information included home addresses and phone numbers. All three lawmakers with the Senate Judiciary Committee. The suspect was initially charged with witness tampering, threats in interstate communications, unauthorized access of a government computer, identity theft, second degree burglary and unlawful entry. The suspect was fired after his arrest. The alleged doxing occurred during the hearing of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Sources

Francewhoa (talk) 20:29, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

---

^ How long until this gets deleted? ^ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.11.66.115 (talk) 02:58, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Legality

Is this practice illegal in any jurisdiction?

The first link on Google claims it is but if you follow the sources it takes you to this random blog. I've got to say, I'm not convinced. The example given, Barret Brown, was charged because the victim was a federal employee (in the US). The reasons stated "Common sense would tell you that bullying or jeopardizing another would be illegal in some way" sounds pretty ignorant of how law works.

edit:

It appears to be legal in the US. “You can post it as long as there is nothing nefarious about it,” says LAPD cyber crimes detective Andrew Kleinick. “They are public figures and that kind of thing happens. It’s not right, [but] I know of no crime.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/13/doxxing-it-s-like-hacking-but-legal.html --46.208.42.218 (talk) 01:07, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Another page says:

Doxing is always illegal, whether it is done against a federal employee, a state employee, or a regular person. There are federal and state laws that specifically address doxing government employees. With regular citizens, doxing falls under various state criminal laws, such as stalking, cyberstalking, harassment, threats, and other such laws, depending on the state. Since these doxing threats and activities are made on the internet, the law of any state may be invoked, though most often an investigator will look to the state in which the person making the threat is located, if this is known, or the state in which the victim is situated. A state prosecutor can only prosecute violations of the laws of his or her own state, and of acts that extend into their state. When acts are on the internet, they extend into all the states.

The "About Me" for the blog says "Susan Basko is lawyer in the bars of California, Illinois and is an Attorney and Counsellor of the Supreme Court of the United States of America."

That last part ("When acts are on the internet, they extend into all the states.") wasn't my understanding, I thought it differed based on what state the person was in, which would mean there are a wide variety of laws depending on what state the person was in. Of course, I'm not a lawyer. --Hirsutism (talk) 21:53, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

In the UK, it is illegal: [1] [2] --Hirsutism (talk) 22:16, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

By now, it quite clearly runs foul for GDPR in the European Union. Not sure about the legal situation in post-Brexit UK, though. --Ehitaja (talk) 19:24, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Pre-Internet doxing?

An article on SupChina brings a nice "prehistorical" example of doxing: "Doxing is a tradition that goes back to at least the 18th century, when Voltaire made public Rousseau’s abandonment of his children, and was a common feature of early internet Usenet and IRC feuds." 1 Maybe it does not strictly belong into the history of doxing but it could still be included as a proof that doxing as a behaviour is not historically unique. --Ehitaja (talk) 19:37, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

"Cyberbully"

Hello. Welcome to my page. At this moment, this is a research for prevention purposes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NedaGhaffari (talk • contribs) 16:08, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Chris-Chan

I have tried to add a little bit about the doxing of Chris-Chan, but NorthBySouthBaranof has kept reverting me and has left an angry message on my talk page. I am scared to add it back in, could somebody please do it for me? DiAsNW (talk) 18:25, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

• @Bbb23:Why did you revert my edit? My edit was fine. DiAsNW (talk) 18:52, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Human flesh search engine

Doxing and Human flesh search engine deals with the same issue (revealing of personal information). Kiteinthewind ^{Leave a message!} 22:34, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Oppose - These two subjects are partially-overlapping but not synonymous. As a careful reading of both articles (in their present form) shows. To put it simply: Doxing is one type of activity that Human flesh search engines might engage in, but it is not their only activity. 23.91.234.76 (talk) 10:33, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Oppose - I also strongly oppose this for the same reason -- as can be seen in the article on the human flesh search it has been used for positive results, such as exposing scientific fraud and attacking government corruption, not just for revealing person information. It also presaged a number of crowd-sourcing activities that spread from the Orient to the Western world which, again, have little or no interaction with doxing.

Oppose - Human Flesh Search Engine is a concept that involves transferring offline knowledge readily into the online world, and for this reason, it perfectly fits Chinese cultural, technological, and social developments, in a country rapidly transforming from peasant, agrarian society to modern, urban, post-industrialized society, and the human flesh search engine is a unique phenomena occurring during this transition. (A modern, recent journal series, Chuang 1 and Chuang 2, document this urban-rural conflict that persists until today.) Like many social developments, it is culturally unique, but unlike doxing, it is certainly not bad or immoral. Due to its uniqueness, I oppose merging. Uprisingengineer (talk) 03:18, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I suggest that both Human flesh search engine and Cyber manhunt in Hong Kong be merged to Doxing, for both are no longer neologisms and can be considered regional variants of doxing. They were just given different names separately in separated regions and don't really have much difference among each other. Some online dictionaries, like Youdao, even explain doxing as 人肉搜索 (which exactly means "human flesh searching"), vice versa. If merged, the definitions and explanation of both name could be merged to #Etymology and #History sections, and the cases merged to #Notable examples. --H₂NCH₂COOH (Talk) 02:38, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Support also here. Zezen (talk) 09:02, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Support, provided extensive sections are created in the Doxing article detailing how it manifests in other cultures. Meticulo (talk) 03:53, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Oppose, since both pages are substantial, and simply shelving them to "notable examples" does not give them justice. RBolton123 (talk) 08:49, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Correct Spelling?

I'd like to start a discussion on the correct spelling of the word. I've heard it used in both 'doxxing' and 'doxing'. Though I suppose it's arbitrary, I think it's valuable to try to settle the ambiguous spelling.

I've removed it. The two sources in the lead make no mention of the variant. Ging287 (talk) 21:45, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

And I've put it back in. BBC News (a fairly major source) has published at least one article using the 'xx' spelling (link) so there is clearly an issue here. Mrstonky (talk) 13:40, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I've personally never seen it spelled with "xx" in its natural context (by someone who might be seeking/posting such information) and it were just the BBC article, I don't think that would be sufficient (just like if a single source called it "ddox1ngz0r" that wouldn't be worth bolding in the lead). Regardless, it's certainly been spelled that way enough in the media to merit the alternative spelling: On the Media (NPR), Daily Beast, Aljazeera, Poynter. --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  13:55, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I feel like I've seen "doxxing" at least as frequently as "doxing" but don't prefer either spelling as long as the use is consistent. FWIW, Google has "doxxing" with 1,080,000 hits and "doxing" with 408,000. However, consulting Google Trends, the first blip appears for "doxing" in May 2010 and "doxxing" doesn't appear until July 2012, over two years later.-Ich (talk) 02:58, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Of the two sources used for the "doxxing" spelling, the On The Media link added correction at the top:

I did a Google Trends search on usage of "doxing" vs. "doxxing" and found that "doxing" is by far the older and more common usage. I will leave this article as is, but will use the single X version of the word from now on.

I don't think it's a good source for the alternate spelling and should be removed. Deadname (talk) 10:54, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

"Boxing" not "boxxing", "fixing" not "fixxing", "waxing" not "waxxing", etc. "Doxing", not "doxxing". English words don't end in "xxing". Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 06:28, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

The neologism commonly appeared in the the doubled XX form, and single X "dox" has the problem that it clashes with the prefix and suffix dox as in "doctrine" (doxology, orthodox, doxastic, etc). If "doxxing" has twice the Google hits as above, why should we not use the distinctive XX version as the article title and primary form? 73.89.25.252 (talk) 16:17, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

References

Examples of Doxing

We should include some examples of different forms of doxing in this article==

Here is one example of doxing we can use below:

If you know the personal addresses of Hong Kong Police Officers or Court Justices Please display them here: — Preceding unsigned comment added by Webbroman21 (talk • contribs) 23:49, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Clarification requested regarding use of the word "likeliness" in the section about criminal law in South Korea.

The word likeliness is used as follows: dissemination of private information such as full name, birth date, address, likeliness, and any other information that is deemed sufficient to identify specific person(s) when viewed in summation, regardless of intent.[61]

What is meant by likeliness? Is this a probability?

I looked at the cited English translation, and article 49 is extremely brief, not going into the specifics shown in this section of the Wikipedia article. Perhaps the contributor means a visual (photographic or sketched) likeness(?).

Thank you.

72.185.56.48 (talk) 11:42, 24 February 2022 (UTC)