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Comment by stedaniels | Hacker News Reader

Doxxing? Hardly. Looking at the Twitter thread, he did far less than a lazy casual fan of a TV star would do on an average Google/Facebook search.

> Doesn't seem quite as sensational once you know the backstory.

Though your summary was sensationalised by the addition of the term doxxing (usually negative connotations there), whether you meant it to be or not. It is all about how the spin is put on it. An innocuous situation can be played up, or down, by either side.

P.S. @Spivak, it's your 1024 days anniversary on HN! :-)

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actually if you read the attachments at the end of the referenced complaint[1] the FBI is claiming he did a bit more then look up the agent and his family. He also sent various semi-threating messages to them on facebook.

Still not sure why that gives them grounds to subpoena everyone on the thread.

[1] https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4116064/Shafer-Co...

Darn it. Apologies for going off with my half baked facts ;-)

DOJ's insanely broad subpoena aside, this is the real lesson. If you're going to harass, even in a joking way, an FBI agent and their family, don't do it using your real name!

First definition of "dox" that came up for me on google:

> search for and publish private or identifying information about (a particular individual) on the Internet, typically with malicious intent.

Sounds appropriate, doesn't it? If you still disagree, here's a thought experiment: If someone were searching and posting that info about you, or anyone else reading this very thread, wouldn't we call that doxxing?

Isnt it private information only if its not plastered all over facebook and Google? How is it doxxing if the information is willfully exposed by the person online? Isnt it then just linking the results of a Google search? Doxxing usually involves posting information that person is trying to hide. If theyre posting it online themselves, it hardly counts as doxxing

Private or identifying. This case is the identifying side of that, not necessarily the private side.

Doxxing is a bit more than just posting information someone’s trying to hide. It’s identifying that person to basically aid in harassment. If the doxxers provide private info to aid in the harassment, even better (for the doxxers/harassers), but the doxxing doesn’t need to be private info to b doxxing.

Years ago, I was contacted by a person who was very upset I "published" his name in connection with a domain name.

It was information I obtained from "whois".

I also wonder how many people are unaware that many counties in the US make property records available over the Internet. It is, after all, public information.

The FBI takes counterintelligence really really seriously and their job involves protecting their agents. And I'd bet those dudes don't have much to do most of the time, at least compared to their supposed importance. So if anything it's largely the side effect of a bureaucratic system rather than some malicious attack.

I'm sure they'd say they take any 'threats' against their agents seriously, even seemingly benign ones. It's possible most of this stuff is automated anyway, so they can do deep searches with all identifiers into their NSA-fueled databases on anyone talking about FBI agents on social media.

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