Īccording to The Atlantic, from 2014 to 2020, "the doxxing conversation was dominated by debate around whether unmasking a pseudonymous person with a sizable following was an unnecessary and dangerous invasion of their privacy." In 2014, when Newsweek attempted to search for the pseudonymous developer of Bitcoin, the magazine was accused of doxing by cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Caroline Sinders, a research fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said that "Gamergate, for a lot of people, for mainstream culture, was the introduction to what doxxing is". Participants in Gamergate became known for releasing sensitive information about their targets to the public, sometimes with the intent of causing the targets in question physical harm. In the mid-2010s, the events of the Gamergate harassment campaign brought the term into wider public use. In 2012, when then- Gawker reporter Adrian Chen revealed the identity of Reddit troll Violentacrez as Michael Brutsch, Reddit users accused Chen of doxing Brutsch and declared "war" on Gawker. Also in the late 1990s, a website called the Nuremberg Files launched, featuring the home addresses of abortion providers and language that implied website visitors should stalk and kill the people listed. One of the first documented doxing events was the publication of a "Blacklist of Net.Nazis and Sandlot Bullies" which listed names, email addresses, phone numbers, and mailing addresses of individuals the author objected to. Outside of hacker communities, the first prominent examples of doxing took place on internet discussion forums on Usenet in the late 1990s, including users circulating lists of suspected neo-Nazis. Ĭonsequently, doxing often comes with a negative connotation because it can be a means of revenge via the violation of privacy. Hackers operating outside the law in that era used the breach of an opponent's anonymity as a means to expose opponents to harassment or legal repercussions. The term dox derives from the slang "dropping dox", which, according to a contributor to Wired, Mat Honan, was "an old-school revenge tactic that emerged from hacker culture in 1990s". Essentially, doxing is revealing and publicizing the records of an individual, which were previously private or difficult to obtain. It originates from a spelling alteration of the abbreviation "docs", for "documents", and refers to "compiling and releasing a dossier of personal information on someone". It also may be associated with hacktivism. Doxing may be carried out for reasons such as online shaming, extortion, and vigilante aid to law enforcement. The aggregation and provision of previously published material is generally a legal practice, though it may be subject to laws concerning stalking and intimidation. Historically, the term has been used interchangeably to refer to both the aggregation of this information from public databases and social media websites (like Facebook), as well as the publication of previously private information obtained through criminal or otherwise fraudulent means (such as hacking and social engineering). ( April 2023) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)ĭoxing or doxxing (originally spelled d0xing) is the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the Internet. You may improve this article, discuss the issue on the talk page, or create a new article, as appropriate. The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States, with some coverage of other countries, and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.
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