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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."
I guess this is why Bruce Schneier is a guru and gets the big bucks....
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
In the end, doxing is a tactic that the powerless can effectively use against the powerful.
...Or keep the powerless in their place.
We have secrets and embarrassing things on Facebook and other places online that will never go away and can be found if you look hard enough. Most of us don't have the luxury of being groomed from birth to be politicians and avoid these pitfalls.
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.
When the CIA director has his AOL account "hacked", it is a demonstration of his utter incompetence, not "doxing". And the inability of top government officials to control even their own, valuable private information is politically highly significant, given how much information the US federal government is increasingly collecting about us: detailed financial and banking information, medical records, detailed census information, and lots more.
There's a simple counter-measure - don't be ashamed of anything you do. Kind of hard to exert pressure on someone by revealing their personal stuff if they don't give a sh*t.
Interesting. This is effectively the same as the argument put forth by the surveillance hawks who want to monitor everything. "Don't do anything that makes you look guilty, and there's nothing to worry about."
The fact is that it's not just about personal shame. People have been pilloried over things they didn't have any problem with personally, but which in turn caused massive backlash...with real consequences...from the public. And also noteworthy is that in this case, personal information (like SSNs, names of family members, etc.) were also put out in the open. So it's not just about shame.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
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."
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
There are things in E-mail that I don't want out, even though I'm not ashamed about them:
1: Password change/requests. This is easily identifiable info for ID thieves.
2: Personal items from family/friends. Why does the world need to know that my RV leaks from the cabover and I'm having a carpenter in to rip out the interior and rebuild it?
3: What I buy from Amazon. Again, nothing illegal, but I don't care to have the fact that my taste (or lack of) in music and literature be for all to see.
4: I don't want all and sundry to know my work schedule or what type of alarm I use for my house.
Yes, it is easy to say, "what do you have to hide?", but privacy is still necessary.
The CIA wants to read my email, know what websites I visit, etc. turn about is fair play.
that's such an ignorant comment! Everybody knows that CIA is prohibited from taking action on domestic soil and can only work in foreign countries.
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.
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