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

intelemetry intelemetry at openmailbox.org
Sun Nov 1 10:17:40 PST 2015


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Where is the OPM link in .7z format?

- - intelemetry

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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