information imbalance - The Rise of Plitical Doxing [ bonus points for contrast with AP! :]

[oshwm]

On 01/11/15 03:53, coderman wrote:
> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-rise-of-political-doxing
> 
> Last week, CIA director John O. Brennan became the latest victim of
> what's become a popular way to embarrass and harass people on the
> internet. A hacker allegedly broke into his AOL account and published
> emails and documents found inside, many of them personal and
> sensitive.
> 
> It's called doxing—sometimes doxxing—from the word "documents." It
> emerged in the 1990s as a hacker revenge tactic, and has since been as
> a tool to harass and intimidate people on the internet. Someone would
> threaten a woman with physical harm, or try to incite others to harm
> her, and publish her personal information as a way of saying "I know a
> lot about you—like where you live and work." Victims of doxing talk
> about the fear that this tactic instills. It's very effective, by
> which I mean that it's horrible.
> 
> Brennan's doxing was slightly different. 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. This doxing was a
> political act, and we're seeing this kind of thing more and more.
> 
>     Lots of people will have to face the publication of personal
> correspondence, documents, and information they would rather be
> private
> 
> Last year, the government of North Korea allegedly did this to Sony.
> Hackers the FBI believes were working for North Korea broke into the
> company's networks, stole a huge amount of corporate data, and
> published it. This included unreleased movies, financial information,
> company plans, and personal emails. The reputational damage to the
> company was enormous; the company estimated the cost at $41 million.
> 
> In July, hackers stole and published sensitive documents from the
> cyberweapons arms manufacturer Hacking Team. That same month,
> different hackers did the same thing to the infidelity website Ashley
> Madison. In 2014, hackers broke into the iCloud accounts of over 100
> celebrities and published personal photographs, most containing some
> nudity. In 2013, Edward Snowden doxed the NSA.
> 
> These aren't the first instances of politically motivated doxing, but
> there's a clear trend. 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.
> 
> On the internet, attack is easier than defense. We're living in a
> world where a sufficiently skilled and motivated attacker will
> circumvent network security. Even worse, most internet security
> assumes it needs to defend against an opportunistic attacker who will
> attack the weakest network in order to get—for example—a pile of
> credit card numbers. The notion of a targeted attacker, who wants Sony
> or Ashley Madison or John Brennan because of what they stand for, is
> still new. And it's even harder to defend against.
> 
> What this means is that we're going to see more political doxing in
> the future, against both people and institutions. It's going to be a
> factor in elections. It's going to be a factor in anti-corporate
> activism. More people will find their personal information exposed to
> the world: politicians, corporate executives, celebrities, divisive
> and outspoken individuals.
> 
> Of course they won't all be doxed, but some of them will. Some of them
> will be doxed directly, like Brennan. Some of them will be inadvertent
> victims of a doxing attack aimed at a company where their information
> is stored, like those celebrities with iPhone accounts and every
> customer of Ashley Madison. Regardless of the method, lots of people
> will have to face the publication of personal correspondence,
> documents, and information they would rather be private.
> 
> In the end, doxing is a tactic that the powerless can effectively use
> against the powerful. It can be used for whistleblowing. It can be
> used as a vehicle for social change. And it can be used to embarrass,
> harass, and intimidate. Its popularity will rise and fall on this
> effectiveness, especially in a world where prosecuting the doxers is
> so difficult.
> 
> There's no good solution for this right now. We all have the right to
> privacy, and we should be free from doxing. But we're not, and those
> of us who are in the public eye have no choice but to rethink our
> online data shadows.
> 

Political figures in most countries have been using their personal email
accounts to conduct business 'under the radar' in order to avoid
information being subject to oversight, most probably because its
illegal, unconstitutional or at the very least not good for the image of
governments.

When they started to do this, they threw the book on ethics in the bin
and opened themselves up to any abuse of their personal life that may
happen.

If people in power act properly in their professional dealings then
their is an argument against d0xing their personal information but once
they start to try to hide information then it's open season on every
aspect of their life.


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