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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

#91

Post by tempVariable »

ghayes wrote: post #89
ryan-c wrote: post #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/

I would also add Safe Shepherd [0]. We remove your information from the standard data brokers, and also give you guides on how to remove yourself from a large universe of sites yourself. Message me if you have any questions. Edit: The service costs $13.95/mo, but you can get started with a 10-day free trial where we'll kick off all of the removals. You can (fully) delete your account at any time if you'd like. [0] ht…

Dude, there is absolutely no mention of price, cost , whether it's FREE or NOT anywhere on that site, before I give you my information, and that includes the terms of service copy. I looked and the only headline in the ToS that kind of address it is "You have to pay us in order to use some of our Products". If that is a base-case you start with for new customers, then thanks but no thanks.

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

#92

Post by grecy »

wtbob wrote: post #82
ams6110 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ususal stance is against punitive incarceration for crimes like drug posession and maybe even sex trade activities. Crimes where someone is actually harmed? I don't think you see a lot of arguments againts punishment for those.

> Crimes where someone is actually harmed? Is doxxing actual harm, or merely the threat of actual harm? (Not that it's not bad; not that it shouldn't be illegal; but it's not the same as assault)

Actually, assault is defined as "the threat of physical harm". (no physical contact is required)

Battery is the actual physical harm.

This is very common misunderstanding.

http://www.northvanpac.org/p/bccpac.html

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

#93

Post by anigbrowl »

byerley wrote: post #76
Someone1234 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you well know the topic at hand is people using that data to "stalk/harass/intimidate" as the OP said verbatim. Which is not protected by the 1st amendment.

I read it differently; "this stunt" is ambiguous in context. In any case, I think you're misunderstanding the nature of the problem. The danger of "doxxing" is that people get overwhelmed by a flood of negative attention from many different people. In most cases, none of the "harassing" individuals actually do enough individual harassment to make the action illegal. You can't go after the doxxer because releasing the…

I think you're misreading this. Doxxing is the online equivalent of incitement to riot; as in a real riot, the chances of any individual participant doing anything blatantly illegal are low, it's the cover that the crowd provides for lawless activity and the intimidatory factor that's problematic. So if you're unpopular with some group in your town, and someone says 'Let's go to Byerley's house at 123 Quiet Street and make some noise' that could count as incitement to riot even if your name and address are widely available.

The problem is not the mere repetition of publicly available information, but its strategic use to focus the anger of a crowd upon a relatively defenseless individual. That creates a dangerous power asymmetry with the explicit or implicit function of intimidation. It's not a big deal if people peacefully protest in front of the White House - the President and his family live there but there's a bunch of secret service people to keep him safe due to the nature of the office, same way there are police permanently stationed outside the official residence of the UK prime minister. If you're Joe or Jill Ordinary and a large crowd shows up on your physical doorstep, you have a serious problem.

Virtual harassment is not immediately threatening in the same way but it depends on how far it goes. If I write something controversial and make it public and get a storm of hate email in my inbox, that's annoying but not really worrying. But if I start also getting telephone calls or snail mail (or seeing such things quoted in emails) then it's quite a bit more worrying.

There's a limit to which people can control the amount of their personal data that becomes public. For example, I own a house which means I have to pay property taxes, and where I live property ownership is a matter of public record. So I was surprised after buying the home to suddenly receive a huge amount of junk mail from companies who obviously subscribe to lists of property tax payers. I can't take back that information. Should everyone be expected to set up a shell company in order to purchase real property and still maintain some privacy?

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

#94

Post by [deleted] »

mason240 wrote: post #75
eli wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what "whitewashed" means in this context, but you are definitely off topic and your comment reads like you are trying to justify some pretty terrible actions. The fact that other bad things happen to other people in no way excuses the bad things that happened to female game developers.

Did you feel any cognitive dissonance when typing that?

[deleted]

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

#95

Post by ci5er »

michaelochurch wrote: post #78

What creeps me out is that there are now salary databases that people can use to see someone's prior salary history, job titles, and (in some cases) details of separation. It shouldn't be legal for those to exist, nor for companies to use them. I actually checked myself in one ("The Work Number") in 2012 and it had an accurate title and salary history, which I hadn't made public. Scary, creepy stuff going on. How the…

> How the fuck are they able to know that?

This is a good question, that I'd like to see answered too -- if anyone here knows.

On a related (only to me) note: Is there any way that I can set a watcher on your comment to notify me if there is a response to it?

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

#96

Post by codezero »

giarc wrote: post #42
Someone1234 wrote: post #18

The US really needs something akin to the EU's Data Protection Directive[0]. I've seen tons of businesses hide some tiny clause in their T&Cs (page 30, subsection 15, paragraph 11, etc) which allows them to resell your data to whoever will pay. For example the National Geographic Store sold my personal data when I purchased something from them (even with no check-box opt out, etc during checkout), and I've been recei…

I know you can enter email addresses as x+y@example.com where x=your regular email and y=some word/phrase to indicate who might have sold your email. For example, if you register bill+NG@example.com with national geographic, and you find yourself getting to: bill+NG@example.com from spam, you know who sold your info. My question is, do you think companies know this trick and just remove the portion following the "+"?

Personally I self host a domain that accepts anything@ and file it into a special inbox. This lets me give real addresses to specific sites and blacklist them as needed.

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

#97

Post by hackuser »

blauwbilgorgel wrote: post #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…

> 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

Do you have evidence of aggregators doing this? It's plausible, but I haven't heard about it happening.

> Telling them to remove your data, only slows down the doxxer, it does not stop them at all

I think you have a good point overall but let's not dismiss the solution in the ComputerWorld article, which is valuable. All security solutions do the same thing: They increase the attacker's costs, which stops attackers unwilling to pay the price. There is no perfect security.

For example, we tell users to use strong passwords on their Windows logons, but that only raises the cost of an attack and does not completely secure the machine.

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

#98

Post by eli »

mason240 wrote: post #75
eli wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what "whitewashed" means in this context, but you are definitely off topic and your comment reads like you are trying to justify some pretty terrible actions. The fact that other bad things happen to other people in no way excuses the bad things that happened to female game developers.

Did you feel any cognitive dissonance when typing that?

Not at all. Maybe you misunderstood me? Violent threats are totally unacceptable and cannot be justified by pointing to other instances of violence.

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

#99

Post by grecy »

logfromblammo wrote: post #81
grecy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're telling me it's my first amendment right to mail a knife to your home address and suggest you kill yourself?

The protection prevents the government from denying you the ability to make the threat. It does nothing to prevent them from pursuing a criminal prosecution after you have made it, or to prevent your victim from litigating a tort claim against you for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

I suppose the 2nd amendment prevents the government from denying me the ability to use a gun to shoot someone too... but saying that isn't constructive to the discussion of how to do we stop people shooting each other with guns.

Yes, I have the right to threaten someone because it's free speech, but I should still be punished for doing it.

(i.e. I have the right to have a gun and use it to shoot someone, but I should still be punished for doing it)

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

#100

Post by badgersandjam »

dghughes wrote: post #79
giarc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you can enter email addresses as x+y@example.com where x=your regular email and y=some word/phrase to indicate who might have sold your email. For example, if you register bill+NG@example.com with national geographic, and you find yourself getting to: bill+NG@example.com from spam, you know who sold your info. My question is, do you think companies know this trick and just remove the portion following the "+"?

We had a meeting about privacy at work and the presenter told a story about his ISP who messed up his name when he signed up something like Roge rJones instead of Roger Jones. The ISP stated they do not sell customer information to 3rd parties. Within a week after signing up he was getting spam and junk mail addressed to Mr. Roge rJones just copied and pasted right from the ISP customer database. Indirectly in a way…

I get junk mail for Mr qweqwe asdasd a lot as confirmation of your point :)
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