Steve Smith talks about what happens to your information when you are doxxed, what can be done to minimize the damage, and how to prevent identity theft.
Episode #6-17 released on January 10, 2016
To Dox a person is to search for private information, and publish it publicly. This can be achieved through many means. Some of the means people have gone to publish, and humiliate people include hackers obtaining and publishing the account information of web-sites, including but not limited to Ashley Madison, Sony, Steam, etc.
Now, let us think about it for a moment, the reason some hackers dox users is to prove the existence of security flaws in company data retention security, but ultimately, it is the end user who pays, each and every time. So, is doxing a web-sites entire inventory of users, or a single person ethical. No, it certainly is not. Whether a web-sites has security flaw or not, disclosing private information is a blatant, black hat hacker approach at the Internet.
Other cases that include doxing may terminate in being swatted by other players. This is when a person calls the cops to have SWAT raid the other player's home. People may, also, send pizza deliveries to your home without permission, register you to web-sites you didn't intend to join, etc.
Now, is it possible for a person to protect themselves?
The answer is yes, if you never registered to a single web-site in your entire life, but chances are, it is too late. You can only minimize the damage once you have been a victim of an attack that results in you being doxxed. And, even if you have never been online, if people have ever posted information about you on the Internet, it can be just as bad, as registering yourself, since you have no control on the information to begin with.
What are some of the steps to minimize the damage after being doxxed, and what can you do to further rectify the issue in the future?
Do not post personal information, and pictures on the Internet. Your address information, birthday, mother's maiden name, etc. can be used to commit identity theft, which can result in a far more detailed doxing for you. As I have previously mentioned in a past episode, a picture, also, has a lot of information in it that can be used to track you. If you know the time and the date the picture has been taken you can find the geographical location of the person from the picture, and if there are several pictures from the same period of time, like you Facebook profile, then it becomes easier to compare for accuracy. The pictures themselves may, also, contain meta data that can indicate such things as lens, camera type, GPS coordinates, etc. There is a lot of information stored in a picture as metadata.
It is, also, important that you check your credit history annually make sure you haven't already been a victim to doxing, identity theft, etc. And make sure you use services like PayPal to minimize the risk of credit card fraud, because proving you haven't bought something can be complicated, in itself. Also, it is, also, of some importance to note that journalists, and private investigators are and have been able to dox people for many years, while the morality of that is up to debate.
Host : Steve Smith | Music : Jonny Lee Hart | Editor : Steve Smith | Producer : Zed Axis Productions