This whole concept of “doxxing” has spun way out of control.
Every house in the country used to get a giant paperback book every year with the name, address, and telephone number of everyone that lived in the community. This information has never been considered secret.
Doxxing specifically refers to unmasking a pseudonym. That’s it. If there’s no pseudonym, it’s not doxxing.
- The data companies collected about me was effectively non-existent, and wasn’t globally accessible
- My phone had no information about me, didn’t know my minute-by-minute whereabouts, and if somehow you organized a DDOS against it, I could just take it off the hook and walk away
- My employer didn’t have social media, and couldn’t be bombarded with accusations against me
- Swatting was less likely, because there weren’t 8 billion people with easy access to my data
I could probably go on for a while. None of the above is me “opening myself up” except by virtue of owning a smartphone, which is difficult to avoid.
You could not do anything with that information nor did you know anything or could you reasonably find out anything about 99% of names in the book without effort, so this is just disingenous
The current regime decided lawlessness was beneficial to them. Cuts both ways. I suppose people should consider carefully whether signing bonuses and the chance to abuse marginalised people with impunity is worth it. I'm fine with people making it riskier to throw in with corrupt authoritarians for personal benefit.
I don't know if every state is like this, but in my state, all state employee salaries are public information that anyone can look up. Why should federal employees have their information hidden? They're supposed to work for us.
Same reason that FBI agents' identities are classified - so that people who disagree with what a democratically established agency is doing to uphold the law don't go out intimidating or killing them.
This whole concept of “doxxing” has spun way out of control.
Every house in the country used to get a giant paperback book every year with the name, address, and telephone number of everyone that lived in the community. This information has never been considered secret.
Doxxing specifically refers to unmasking a pseudonym. That’s it. If there’s no pseudonym, it’s not doxxing.
The resources needed to harass and target people from an address book has been reduced significantly since phone books.
Society has really not adapted well to this.
Disagree.
The ways people have opened themselves to harassment and targeting have been increased significantly since phone books.
People were not hard to target and harass in those days.
Really.
When I used phone books:
- My banking accounts weren’t globally accessible
- The data companies collected about me was effectively non-existent, and wasn’t globally accessible
- My phone had no information about me, didn’t know my minute-by-minute whereabouts, and if somehow you organized a DDOS against it, I could just take it off the hook and walk away
- My employer didn’t have social media, and couldn’t be bombarded with accusations against me
- Swatting was less likely, because there weren’t 8 billion people with easy access to my data
I could probably go on for a while. None of the above is me “opening myself up” except by virtue of owning a smartphone, which is difficult to avoid.
You could not do anything with that information nor did you know anything or could you reasonably find out anything about 99% of names in the book without effort, so this is just disingenous
> Every house in the country used to get a giant paperback book every year
If you did that in Europe you'd get fined 4% of annual turnover.
Wild how much basic practices have changed in 2 decades.
We got those giant books here too.
The current regime decided lawlessness was beneficial to them. Cuts both ways. I suppose people should consider carefully whether signing bonuses and the chance to abuse marginalised people with impunity is worth it. I'm fine with people making it riskier to throw in with corrupt authoritarians for personal benefit.
Alternative discussion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50280864
142 comments right now. Go there instead.
I don't know if every state is like this, but in my state, all state employee salaries are public information that anyone can look up. Why should federal employees have their information hidden? They're supposed to work for us.
Same reason that FBI agents' identities are classified - so that people who disagree with what a democratically established agency is doing to uphold the law don't go out intimidating or killing them.
Same where I am.
This calls for the world’s tiniest violin.
If those employees didn't do anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about.
I'm sure this line works well with doxx'ing victims.
Public servants? It’s the line the government uses to justify dragnet mass surveillance.
No harm in knowing who is working for you.
> It’s the line the government uses to justify dragnet mass surveillance.
Agreed. But I don't see how that justifies your original comment.
The original comment is clearly an expression of schadenfreude.
Do those doxxed victims have significant power over an average person?
With great power comes greater responsibilities
Yeah Spiderman is such an influence over real life.
The whole epitome of this thread is that my enemies got doxx'd and so now I shall jump through dozens of logical hoops in order to justify it.
Oh, also, if you're not happy with this, you obviously must agree with everything they are doing.
> If those employees didn't do anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about.
That's the line I responded to, in case you didn't read it.
That is the line govt uses/used to justify mass surveillance. OP is just flipping the table?