The Rise of Political Doxing (schneier.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Security guru Bruce Schneier predicts a new trend in hacking: political doxing. He points to the recent hack of CIA director Jack Brennan's personal email account and notes that it marks a shift in the purpose of email hacking: "Here, the attacker had a more political motive. He wasn't out to intimidate Brennan; he simply wanted to embarrass him. His personal papers were dumped indiscriminately, fodder for an eager press." Schneier continues, "As people realize what an effective attack this can be, and how an individual can use the tactic to do considerable damage to powerful people and institutions, we're going to see a lot more of it. ... In the end, doxing is a tactic that the powerless can effectively use against the powerful."

Comments

Political Doxxing has been going on forever

[jmac_the_man]

This isn't the rise of political doxxing, simply because it has been going on forever.

Going through Sarah Palin's emails (either the official ones the judge ordered released and the New York Times attempted to crowdsource finding embarassing stuff OR the ones that the 4chan hacker whose father was an elected Democrat released) was an attempted doxxing.

What Bradley Manning did was a doxxing. Hell, so was the release of the Pentagon Papers.

Jumping even further back, the XYZ Affair was revealed by a doxxer leaking details to the (partisan) press.

Releasing your opponent's embarrassing documents has probably been going on for as long as we've had written language.

Re:Simple counter-measure

[LaurenCates]

I always said to myself that if I were to ever run for office, that I would create a website that listed all my dirty laundry. Anything that might be considered something that someone, somewhere might use to say "she's got something to hide" goes on there. Nothing off-limits. Because I've made mistakes like any dumb kid might have.

Point I would be making in such a site would the line I'd put at the end:

"Okay, now that we're done with bullshit that has nothing to do with the job I'm applying for, let's get to talking about things that are relevant."

Re:Simple counter-measure

[gurps_npc]

Wrong. On so many levels.

Ever hear about Bridget McCain? She is the very dark skinned adopted daughter of John McCain. His wife found her - a child with a facial deformity and a serious heart condition. They adopted this wonderful girl in need and gave her all the love and medical help they could. Mr. McCain was never embarrassed by her. But during the 2000 election, George Bush's lying scumbag allies sent out a phone poll asking:

"Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?"

McCain lost the South Carolina primary in part because of this bold faced lie. In this particular case, they never hid anything about her, but the point is fairly clear - there are lots of things that LOOK bad but aren't bad. Politics is a game of perceptions.

Merely not doing actually bad things isn't enough. You also have to avoid doing anything you can stretch and deform into an attack.

So no, actual innocence is not enough of a protection, we also need legal rights to privacy.