Doxing: “The practice of investigating and revealing a target subject’s personally identifiable information, such as home address, workplace information and credit card numbers, without consent.” (Source: Know Your Meme.) From docs (short for documents). Sometimes spelled doxxing.
From “Reddit’s Doxxing Paradox,” a February 4 post on the legal blog Popehat:
You might recall that popular social media site Reddit doesn’t like doxxing — that is, the public identification of online speakers and revelation of their personal information. Gawker’s public identification of vile Reddit creeper and troll Violentacrez was controversial to many Redditors, condemned by Reddit administrators, and has led to some Reddit mods engaging in a long-term ban of links to Gawker media sites.
So — Reddit’s culture is strongly against doxxing. Right?
Well — sort of.
Doxing was also in the news this month in connection with security breaches at the Federal Reserve and Department of Energy in which personal details about employees and contractors were grabbed. “Such an information leak, known as doxing, is a popular way among hacktivists to embarrass a target,” reported the information-technology publication EWeek.
According to the Know Your Meme entry, “doxing” was originally used in the early 2000s by computer hackers involved with the distribution of pirated software. (Urban Dictionary’s earliest entry is dated October 6, 2003.) In the late 2000s, “it grew into a harassment tactic used by members of Anonymous” – a loosely organized hacktivist group – during operations against the white nationalist Hal Turner, the Church of Scientology, and other targets.
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