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Comment by bawolff | Hacker News Reader

> The prefece to the story is, that I in a kind of roundabout and (I think) humorous way published "my two favorite numbers" by spelling out a 10 diget and a 8 diget number with letters. I didn't tell what they ment, but they where prime minister Mette Frederiksen's social security and phone number

Umm, so was he arrested for doxing the prime minister? Is there more to the story than that?

As someone who cares about privacy, arresting people who dox other people seems like a good thing. Obviously i want that to apply to everyone not just the rich and famous, but still at the end of the day i have trouble objecting to someone getting arrested for doxing people.

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That same prime minister supports the warrant-less use of medical records in police work and the ban of encryption through chat control. She wants to prevent the Danish population from having privacy, but demands it herself. Sorry, but that's not the Western way.

Just because you disagree with someone does not make it ok to dox them.

That's a bit simplified, isn't it? He's pointing out precisely that "doxing" the entire population of Denmark shouldn't be acceptable to her, and that she's literally not accepting herself being "doxxed." If it was about, I dunno, pizza toppings or school budgeting, then obviously the actions would have been different.

> That's a bit simplified, isn't it?

No, i dont think it is.

> He's pointing out precisely that "doxing" the entire population of Denmark shouldn't be acceptable to her

Denmark is a democracy, that is a decision for the electroate to make during an election. In general we give governments rights and abilities that normal people do not have. Where the line should be is up to the voters to decide.

> and that she's literally not accepting herself being "doxxed."

Not really equivalent. I'm pretty sure the Danish survelience plans, whatever you think of them, intend to have some sort of controls against misuse. (Im not saying that makes them good or ok, just that they aren't equivalent to doxing people)

The lifes of powerful people must be transparent.

Having their business transparent makes sense but by restricting people's personal lives like this would disincentivize good people from rising to power, which is not what we want.

Good, I don't want people rising to unlimited, uncheckable power and creating oppressive hierarchies in general.

It won't prevent bad people from rising to power. After all, i'm pretty sure Putin doesn't have this problem. He just throws people who do this sort of thing out the window. The only politicians that have something to fear from this type of activism is the non evil ones.

People that want to be powerful for personal gain will be filtered. People that legimitely want to give their all for their country will be encouraged.

The most powerful people are those who are billionaires

Is it "just disagreeing with them" or is it taking away privacy _from those publicly renouncing the right to privacy_, with goal of protecting the right to privacy of everyone else, who didn't renounce it, by pointing out the hipocrisy and that it actually is important, even to those who claim otherwise trying to take it from others?

Actually it does, and much more.

Politicians these days are expected to have harder and harder skin. I've seen lots of stories in the news lately of (in particular young) politicians from scandinavia who dropped out of politics due to harassment, anonymous threats etc. And even more people who never get into politics, because of hearing about such stories. I sure as hell would not get into politics today.

I fear for what our political system will look like when only those who have become completely numb to such threats remain. What kinds people are they, those who can live with hundreds of daily hate messages and death threats, doxing of oneself and family members, having to live with security guards and secret addresses? What are we losing by allowing this kind of "freedom of speech"?

If your morals consist of eye-for-an-eye retribution, then maybe his actions make sense. But I do not believe that that gives us a better society.

> If your morals consist of eye-for-an-eye retribution

It’s still preferable to doing nothing when that politician is publicly declaring their support of indiscriminately violating inherent personal freedoms on an unlimited scale.

This politician dropping out of politics would be a good thing? That's the point?

> Obviously i want that to apply to everyone not just the rich and famous

Do you really want armed and masked police to break down the doors of people who dox others, disable their cameras, and arrest them while refusing to tell them the charges? Because without these details this would have been a non-story.

Most of the time i would want the arrests to proceed in a more civil manner unless the situation warranted otherwise, but ultimately yes, i think doxing/harrasment is a crime and people who commit it should be arrested and tried.

Both sides are not looking too pretty here.

I think what is much more important, is that it exposes the shortcomings of the Danish SSN system.

It was introduced in 1968, when Denmark was a high-trust society. It was used as a sort of password and key for looking up your information. If you wanted to create a bank account, you told them your SSN. If you wanted to buy a car, you told them your SSN. If you had any contact with the authorities, you told them your SSN. And so on.

The usage has changed, but not that much. So today, when trust in Danish society is not as high, the system falls short. Identity theft. Privacy. Scamming. They have to be detected and stopped by other means.

The proper path forwards would be to radically change the system (or the society).

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