Hacker News

points by kgujdtjof 1 day ago | 0 comments

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 16 hours ago

Not anymore though.

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