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Comment by bsamuels | Hacker News Reader

what use does this tool have outside doxxing

I just ran it against my own (typical) nickname and found a couple of instances where it was free on websites that I could see myself using at some point in the future so I went ahead and reserved them for myself.

So, it’s useful for both doxxing and namesquatting. What a marvellous invention.

Maybe the twitter mob could make itself useful for once...

This tool as for namesquatting has been around for over decade. I don't see a problem if you are setting up a brand and wan't to pick one that's free across the board (or make sure someone wouldn't over-squat you).

If your justification consisists of 'the other guy might do it first and reap the benefits', maybe you should rethink how you apply ethics in everyday life.

By 'reap the benefits' did you mean 'extort you based on your brand value'? Sure, there are laws now that prevent domain name squatting, and most platforms would give your brand to you anyway (provided you are big enough). But why go thru expensive hassle when you can solve this proactively?

All companies do that by registering their trademarks. I don't see how this is different.

Picking a project name that doesn't clash with something that already exists.

Good for intel if you're on a redteam.

Promoting yourself / your personal brand?

Apologies for this off topic reply but in an old thread you asked me about a particular episode and it's old enough I couldn't reply there. Here it is: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0647497/

It helps you screen for yahoos—priceless when you’re hiring!

Finding old accounts that one forgot to delete.

its good for demonstrating the dangers of doxxing

If someone has no email listed on their github or twitter and doesn’t have open DMs but you need to contact them privately for whatever reason (eg a security issue in a repo they control).

GitHub doesn’t have private messaging.

There are tons of legitimate uses. The point of a username is to identify someone.

If you really want to email a GitHub user, find any of their commits and look at the raw details (hint: add “.patch” to the URL). The email address will be in the author field.

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