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> It's about the fact that doxing is way too easy, because companies are ridiculously lax about keeping people's private information safe. Even more that peopl
by Nadya 11y ago
> It's about the fact that doxing is way too easy, because companies are ridiculously lax about keeping people's private information safe.
Even more that people are terrible at keeping their own information safe. A collection of one-off facts over the past 8 years of a person's internet life can paint a rather vivid picture. You can tell how many relationships they have been in, if they have a new job, what country they live in, what town they might live in, what their pet's name is, who their friends are, and more.
With enough metadata it becomes trivial to find their social profile (where they often speak about bits of information contained in the metadata) and then you have their full name, family, friends, etc. At that point it becomes trivial to find more information on them.
Informing people is rarely enough to get people to understand. On the contrary - they'll blast all the info you need to know on their Facebook or Twitter. They'll take pictures of local parts of town and post them on Instagram, etc.
It's extremely hard to be doxed unless the user shares information with the public. It's extremely rare to be publicy doxed due to leaked credit card information or a company being hacked and a database being released.
- ksenzee 11y agoSchneier really isn't using "doxing" the way you and I would. He's using it to refer to what happened to Mat Honan[0], when someone managed to social engineer Amazon customer service and Apple tech support to take over Honan's accounts. Honan didn't do anything wrong, or release too much data to the public. He simply made the "mistake" of owning @mat on Twitter. Someone wanted the username, so they tricked Apple tech support (using data they got by calling Amazon) into thinking they were Honan, hacked into his account and took what they wanted. The point of the article is that in a case like this, Apple and Amazon are both at fault, and should be held legally responsible. [0] http://www.wired.com/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/ http://www.wired.com/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/
- Nadya 11y agoSo after all the years of misusing and redefining "hack" they are now jumping ship to "doxing" to misuse that when their redefined version of "hack" is acceptable? Gah! Thanks for the explanation. I do agree companies should be held responsible when they are too lax on identifying people as who they claim to be. OTOH, I can see customer complaints about slow service and constantly having to prove identity w/ 4 last of SSN and such. It's an area where idealism and reality don't meet very well.