Doxing (or doxxing) is the act of collecting and publicly exposing someone's personal information without their consent, often with the intent to shame, embarrass, intimidate, or harass the individual
. The information revealed can include home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, workplace details, social security numbers, financial data, photographs, and more
How Doxing Is Typically Done
Doxers gather information from various sources, including:
- Publicly available social media profiles and posts, where people often share details about their lives, workplaces, friends, and locations
- Government databases and public records such as DMV records, marriage licenses, voter registrations, and business licenses
- Data brokers who collect and sell personal data obtained from multiple websites and public records
- Network attacks like packet sniffing to intercept data transmissions and extract sensitive information such as passwords or credit card numbers
- Reverse phone lookup services to identify owners of phone numbers
- Hacking or phishing attacks to gain access to private accounts and information
Ethical and Legal Considerations
While doxing often involves information already publicly accessible, the act of exposing it with malicious intent can be unethical and sometimes illegal, particularly if it leads to harassment, stalking, or threats
. For example, doxing government employees is a federal offense in the U.S.
Protection Against Doxing
To reduce the risk of being doxed, individuals can:
- Keep social media profiles private and avoid sharing sensitive personal details online
- Use strong, unique passwords and consider password managers
- Employ virtual private networks (VPNs) to encrypt internet traffic
- Regularly monitor and remove personal data from data broker sites
- Avoid using public Wi-Fi or disable network sharing on devices when using it
In summary, doxing involves gathering and exposing personal information from public and sometimes private sources, often to harm or intimidate the target. It is a form of online harassment with serious ethical and legal implications
