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Doxxing defense: Remove your personal info from data brokers

computerworld.com

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Re: Doxxing defense: Remove your personal info from data brokers

#2
"Many women gamers and developers, as well as those who support them, have lately come under attack from online trolls"

Please don't whitewash the GamerGaters who have also experienced such attacks. (For example, one was "doxed" and mailed a knife with a suggestion to kill himself - which I'd argue a far worse "attack" than any online threats. The anti-GamerGate media of course doesn't report on this.)

Re: Doxxing defense: Remove your personal info from data brokers

#3
Just because a data aggregation site does not show your data on the front-end, does not mean they deleted it from the back-end. So now you can charge 50$ for people to search in the "special" data pile, where people took the effort to remove it from the front-end.

These data brokers crawl publicly available information. Telling them to remove your data, only slows down the doxxer, it does not stop them at all, since the data was already shared. It is not plugging the leak, it is mopping up some of the water. A false sense of security and a clear sign to the doxxer that you care about your anonymity (so more "lulz" to be had).

A proper doxxing is also much more than entering a name in some search engines. Especially hackers do not like to be doxxed. For internet civilians who already put this data out there (on social media) a simple data broker doxxing is a mere reminder that such data is public to everyone, not just friends.

Doxxing defense is guarding your anonymity online. Everywhere. Doxxing defense is knowing when to change persona's, and when to log off. That is: If you care about it at all. If you care about keeping your identity a secret online, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XaYdCdwiWU (The Grugq - OPSEC: Because Jail is for wuftpd).

Re: Doxxing defense: Remove your personal info from data brokers

#6
Abine's DeleteMe[1] service will take care of removing you from these sites, though it's not cheap. They will keep re-checking and re-removing. I've been using it for a few years, and it seems to work pretty well. IIRC there was still one site that I had to call and deal with myself.

1. https://www.abine.com/deleteme/

Re: Doxxing defense: Remove your personal info from data brokers

#7

Just because a data aggregation site does not show your data on the front-end, does not mean they deleted it from the back-end. So now you can charge 50$ for people to search in the "special" data pile, where people took the effort to remove it from the front-end. These data brokers crawl publicly available information. Telling them to remove your data, only slows down the doxxer, it does not stop them at all, since…

Slides from that talk: http://www.slideshare.net/grugq/opsec-for-hackers

Edit: and discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5729860

Re: Doxxing defense: Remove your personal info from data brokers

#8

"Many women gamers and developers, as well as those who support them, have lately come under attack from online trolls" Please don't whitewash the GamerGaters who have also experienced such attacks. (For example, one was "doxed" and mailed a knife with a suggestion to kill himself - which I'd argue a far worse "attack" than any online threats. The anti-GamerGate media of course doesn't report on this.)

What about a source for that?

Re: Doxxing defense: Remove your personal info from data brokers

#9

"Many women gamers and developers, as well as those who support them, have lately come under attack from online trolls" Please don't whitewash the GamerGaters who have also experienced such attacks. (For example, one was "doxed" and mailed a knife with a suggestion to kill himself - which I'd argue a far worse "attack" than any online threats. The anti-GamerGate media of course doesn't report on this.)

I will optimistically assume I am being downvoted for off-topic rather than further whitewashed.

Re: Doxxing defense: Remove your personal info from data brokers

#10

"Many women gamers and developers, as well as those who support them, have lately come under attack from online trolls" Please don't whitewash the GamerGaters who have also experienced such attacks. (For example, one was "doxed" and mailed a knife with a suggestion to kill himself - which I'd argue a far worse "attack" than any online threats. The anti-GamerGate media of course doesn't report on this.)

It's just an example, not an exhaustive list.
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