Doxing (Global)

Doxing 🌍
Location: Global
Definition: Releasing targets’ private and personal information online
Keywords: Global – Internet – Cyberinformality – Data – Computer networks – Personal information – Reputation – Vigilante justice – Revenge
Author: James Morgan
Affiliation: Alumnus, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK

By James Morgan, Alumnus, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK

Doxing, or doxxing, is most often understood as the act of releasing into the public domain a target’s private and personal information, such as their address, email, or telephone number. An abbreviation of the phrase 'dropping documents', the term was coined around the turn of the twenty-first century to denote the practice employed by so-called internet hackers of publishing other hackers' personal information. Doxing has sometimes been used to describe the mere uncovering of a person’s identity. For example, when Newsweek revealed the supposed identity of the founder of Bitcoin, the event was largely reported as a doxx[ing], e.g. in the Economist (2014). In any case, the practice almost always compromises the target’s safety and is often used as a tool to attack the target. Anonymity is perceived to be an important factor in online interactions, and thus the threat of revealing someone's identity has taken on a greater significance. At the same time, the internet aids doxers, whose ‘research’ often consists of following the data trail left by the target through their numerous online accounts.

Doxing only works in a world where people’s personal information is not directly available to everyone else. The practice can be divided into the publication of legally and illegally obtained material. In the case of legally obtained material or information that is on the public record, its publication only has an impact if a small group is targeted. If everyone’s address were to be posted online at once, it would mean much less than the publication of information pertaining to a select few.

In the US, high profile cases of doxing include Anonymous’s alleged release of the identities of Ku Klux Klan members in 2014, the aforementioned identification of Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin, in the same year, and the failed identification of one of the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing the year before. In Belarus, doxing has been employed to expose riot police officers who have been in conflict with protestors (Tass, 2020). In recent demonstrations in Hong Kong, the practice has been utilised by both sides of the conflict (Guardian, 2019).

Doxing involves the unmasking of an individual, and the existence of the mask in question is not necessarily a consequence of anonymity provided by the internet. Physical masks, such as those donned by riot police or KKK members, can be removed through this largely online practice. Part of the process of doxing also happens offline, as is shown by research into the “Human Flesh Search”, a crowd-sourcing community serving as the main platform for the practice in China (Wang, 2010).

The website Doxbin.org provides a platform on which to anonymously post, or ‘dump’, other people’s personal information. On a given day there can be beyond 50 new posts to the website; on the 18th January 2021 there were 63 new posts. The average age of targets was 21 years old, and the ratio of male to female came to 16:3. 89% of posts revealed the target’s address; 71% revealed the target’s phone number. In this sense, doxing is understood by users of the website as the release of information that provides access, whether virtual or physical, to the target.

57% of posts included information about the target’s relatives. The involvement of family members increases the severity of the act. However, the seriousness of such actions does not correlate to the seriousness of the allegations: only 42% of posts attempted to provide a reason for the doxing, a reason which was not always clear, and a negligible amount attempted to provide evidence. The justice system erected on such a website is far from transparent and yet reaches far in its potential impact on doxing targets.

Even those acts of the practice purportedly carried out by recognised groups are shrouded in uncertainty because of the anonymous nature of their activity. For example, the aptly-named collective Anonymous, which on the surface presents itself as a distinct group with recognised rules, is ridden with internal strife surrounding the true nature of its mission and common enemy. It simultaneously embodies socialist values, in that its targets often include corporations, government agencies, and other centralised institutions, and at the same time engages in doxing for the lulz (a corruption of LOL, the phrase somewhat synonymous with 'for the fun of it').

Groups like Anonymous serve to direct the public’s attention towards the most deserving targets. In turn, people look to such groups for direction and purpose, and a way to get actively involved in contemporary ‘problems’. Doxing attempts to harness the power of the people; it attempts to make it easier for people to be activists by presenting them with a clear action plan.

Analogous forms of extra-judicial justice, or punishment, can be found in the practices of lynching and samosud, in the United States and Russia respectively. Like doxing, the term lynching is semantically charged, but whereas the former connotes criminal, malicious activity, the latter explicitly evokes violence: it always refers to extra-judicial execution. The two practices differ greatly in their breadth of engagement: whilst lynching, a historical practice rooted in the 19th and 20th century United States, is limited to the local, doxing is theoretically open to any user of the internet.

The revelatory aspect of doxing links it to the practice of whistleblowing: doxing can carry the same vigilantist connotation of serving the public interest. But whilst the whistleblower is seen to be a known individual (e.g. Edward Snowden), doxing is carried out by an unknown number of unidentified people. The doxer can of course be doxed himself, but he is perceived to be anonymous. Doxing does not seek the credibility or heroism that a real human face provides.

Doxing is permeated by the symbol of the mask: the masks worn by the perpetrators; the masks removed from the targets. The mission of doxing is entirely reliant upon the target's desire for anonymity or privacy. And the mask of the perpetrator not only serves to obscure their identity, but also symbolizes the play inherent in their act. As much as doxers try to hide their identity, they will equally try to hide their intention and motivation.

References

Economist. 2014. ‘What doxxing is, and why it matters: The Economist explains’, 10 March

Guardian. 2019. ‘Hong Kong protests: tech war opens up with doxxing of protesters and police’, 20 September, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/20/hong-kong-protests-tech-war-opens-up-with-doxxing-of-protesters-and-police

Tass. 2020. ‘Personal data of about 300 Belarusian police officers doxed on Internet’, 16 September, https://tass.com/world/1201397

Wang, F. et al. 2010. ‘A Study of the Human Flesh Search Engine: Crowd-Powered Expansion of Online Knowledge’, Computer, Vol. 43, No. 8, August: 45-53