Hacker News

Leak website releases data on DHS employees(reuters.com)

134 points by wondersky 1 day ago | 40 comments

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.

[–] kgujdtjof 1 day ago

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.

[–] MadrasTh0rn 1 day ago

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.

[–] DANmode 1 day ago

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.

[–] macintux 1 day ago

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.

[–] DANmode 7 hours ago

> My employer didn’t have social media, and couldn’t be bombarded with accusations against me

Yes, you could. They took a phone call or showing up instead, but you absolutely could be - both real and false.

[–] DANmode 7 hours ago

> - Swatting was less likely, because there weren’t 8 billion people with easy access to my data

Ah yes, my mom randomly gets swatted all the time!

(What are you talking about?, lol: this is again an intentionally-prominent-person’s problem, not a general societal shift.)

[–] DANmode 7 hours ago

> except by virtue of owning a smartphone, which is difficult to avoid

But carrying one with you at all times, and giving it all of your attention, giving attention to notifications and tags on multiple wide-open-to-public platforms - that’s not a spectrum of choices?!

C’mon.

We can just take it off the hook and walk away. We succumb to pressures.

[–] eithed 16 hours ago

Don't think that I would be able to find information in the phone book whether given person is right leaning, or left; whether they said something racist or not, etc

[–] gmerc 1 day ago

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

[–] EricBetts 1 day ago

You could choose to be unlisted, or only use initials

[–] paulddraper 1 day ago

> 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.

[–] duttish 1 day ago

We got those giant books here too.

[–] paulddraper 15 hours ago

Not anymore though.

(In fact, even a stiff fine, which is my point.)

[–] NDlurker 1 day ago

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.

[–] SoftTalker 1 day ago

Same where I am.

[–] jojobas 1 day ago

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.

[–] NDlurker 1 day ago

What's the difference? BCI is the state equivalent of the FBI. Do you think people are going to go out and kill them just because their identities are public? That's absurd.

https://govsalaries.com/salaries/ND/north-dakota-attorney-ge...

[–] sampli 1 day ago

Yes, they will

[–] jojobas 23 hours ago

No, of course no drug cartel, gang or disgruntled citizen would ever do such a thing, they are definitely not doing that in Mexico already after all.

[–] NDlurker 18 hours ago

Why isn't it happening to state employees? Why do you think federal employees are special?

[–] jojobas 7 hours ago

Because of course it is sometimes, despite state level agencies typically dealing with somewhat lesser crimes and not-so-controversial topics, and don't attract neither as much organized crime attention nor a movement to dox and harass its members.

https://www.clarksvilleonline.com/2016/12/14/tbi-charges-mur...

https://fox59.com/news/indycrime/indy-man-charged-with-intim... - note the state won't disclose who the victim was

Also it seems like states tend to hush it down to not expose their agents further.

[–] NDlurker 5 hours ago

Crime happens. I don't think they're at a higher risk than anyone else.

[–] ljf 1 day ago

Alternative discussion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50280864

[–] fn-mote 1 day ago

142 comments right now. Go there instead.

[–] cdrnsf 1 day ago

This calls for the world’s tiniest violin.

[–] iAMkenough 1 day ago

If those employees didn't do anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about.

[–] aliasxneo 1 day ago

I'm sure this line works well with doxx'ing victims.

[–] iAMkenough 1 day ago

Public servants? It’s the line the government uses to justify dragnet mass surveillance.

No harm in knowing who is working for you.

[–] aliasxneo 1 day ago

> It’s the line the government uses to justify dragnet mass surveillance.

Agreed. But I don't see how that justifies your original comment.

[–] bobthepanda 1 day ago

The original comment is clearly an expression of schadenfreude.

[–] dpkirchner 1 day ago

It's the line that folks on a certain side of the political divide (typically aligned with DHS) tend to bring out whenever we talk about the harms of surveillance.

[–] parthdesai 1 day ago

Do those doxxed victims have significant power over an average person?

With great power comes greater responsibilities

[–] DeluluDon 1 day ago

Yeah Spiderman is such an influence over real life.

[–] aliasxneo 1 day ago

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.

[–] aliasxneo 1 day ago

> 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.

[–] parthdesai 1 day ago

That is the line govt uses/used to justify mass surveillance. OP is just flipping the table?

[–] terminal-bloom 1 day ago

“Welp, couldn’t have happened to nicer people.”