Anti-Doxing Services

 

Anti-doxing services

[edit]

Parallel to the rise of doxing has been the evolution of cybersecurityinternet privacy, the Online Privacy Alliance, and companies that provide anti-doxing services. Most recently, high-profile groups like the University of California Berkeley[28] have made online guidance for protecting its community members from doxing. Wired published an article on dealing with doxing, in which Eva Galperin, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, advised people to "Google yourself, lock yourself down, make it harder to access information about you."[29]

Legislation

[edit]

Australia

[edit]

In 2024, the Australian government announced they would introduce new legislation to criminalise doxing due to an anti-semitic incident in which the personal details of over 600 people from a WhatsApp group of Jewish Australians was leaked. Some of the people whose details were leaked received threats to harm their reputation as well as death threats.[30][31] Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stated that "Now these people have a range of views about the Middle East. What they have in common is they are members of the Jewish community...And that's why I've asked as well the attorney general to develop proposals to strengthen laws against hate speech."[30] The proposed legislation, which includes a law that makes doxing punishable by jail time, has received bipartisan support.[32]

Mainland China

[edit]

From March 1, 2020, the People's Republic of China's "Regulations on the Ecological Governance of Online Information Content" has been implemented, clarifying that users and producers of online information content services and platforms must not engage in online violence, doxing, deep forgery, data fraud, account manipulation and other illegal activities.[33]

Hong Kong

[edit]

As of 2021, it is a criminal offense in Hong Kong to dox, where doxing is defined as releasing private or non-public information on a person for the purposes of "threatening, intimidation, harassment or to cause psychological harm". Persons convicted under this statute are liable to imprisonment for up to 5 years, and a fine of HK$1,000,000 (US$128,324.40).[34]

Netherlands

[edit]

In 2021, due to increasing doxing incidents targeting Dutch activists, politicians, journalists and others, a new law against doxing was proposed by then Minister of Justice and Security Ferdinand Grapperhaus. The law states it is a felony to share personal data with the intent of intimidation, harassment or work-hindering and carries a maximum penalty of a two-years prison sentence or a fine of €25,750 (US$28,204). The penalty shall be increased by a third when targeted at certain public figures.[35] The proposed law passed both houses of parliament and went into effect on 1 January 2024.[36][37][38]

Russia

[edit]

Under the Article 137 "Invasion of Personal Privacy" public sharing of personal information, using mass media, Internet,[39] even public events, is considered a crime and shall be punishable by a fine of up to eighteen months in wage, or by compulsory labor for a term of up to three hundred sixty hours, or by corrective labor for a term of up to one year, or by forced labor for a term of up to two years. with deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities for a term of up to three years or without it, or arrest for a term of up to four months, or imprisonment for a term of up to two years with deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities for a term of up to three years.

Copying the information, obtaining it illegally are separate offences as well [39]

South Korea

[edit]

South Korea is one of the few countries with a criminal statute that specifically addresses doxing. Article 49 of "Act on promotion of information and communications network utilization, and information protection" prohibits unlawful collection and dissemination of private information such as full name, birth date, address, likeliness, and any other information that is deemed sufficient to identify specific person(s) when viewed in summation, regardless of intent.[40] In practice, however, due to the ambiguous nature of "unlawful collection" of private information in the statute, legal actions are often based upon article 44 from the same act, which prohibits insulting an individual with derogatory or profane language, and defamation of an individual through the dissemination of either misinformation or privileged factual information that may potentially damage an individual's reputation or honor (which often occurs in a doxing incident). This particular clause enforces harsher maximum sentences than a "traditional" defamation statute existing in the Korean criminal code. It was originally enacted partially in response to the rise in celebrity suicides due to cyberbullying.

Spain

[edit]

The Spanish Criminal Code regulates penalties for the discovery and revelation of secrets in articles 197 to 201. It establishes, in its article 197 § 1, that "whoever, in order to discover the secrets or violate the privacy of another, without their consent, seizes their papers, letters, e-mail messages or any other documents or personal effects, intercepts their telecommunications or uses technical devices for listening, transmission, recording or reproduction of sound or image, or any other communication signal, shall be punished with prison sentences of one to four years and a fine of twelve to twenty-four months". Per article 197 § 2, the same penalty punishes those who "seize, use or modify, to the detriment of a third party, reserved personal or family data of another that is registered in computer, electronic or telematic files or media, or in any other type of file or public or private record".

Those who "disseminate, disclose or transfer" the aforementioned data to third parties face a penalty of two to five prison years (one to three years of prison and fines of twelve to twenty-four months, if not directly involved in their discovery but "with knowledge of its illicit origin"). These offenses are particularly severe if made by the person responsible of the respective files, media, records or archives or through unauthorized use of personal data, if revealing of the ideology, religion, beliefs, health, racial origin or sexual life of the victim, if the victim is underage or disabled, and if it is made for economic profit.[41]

As established by the Criminal Code's reform in 2015,[42] to "disseminate, disclose or transfer to third parties images or audiovisual recordings of the one obtained with their consent in a home or in any other place out of sight of third parties, when the disclosure seriously undermines the personal privacy of that person", without the authorization of the affected person, is also punished per article 197 § 7 to three months to a year in prison and fines of six to twelve months. The offense is particularly severe if the victim is linked to the offender by marriage or an "analogous affective relationship", underage, or disabled.[41]

United States

[edit]

In the United States, there are few legal remedies for the victims of doxing.[43] Two federal laws exist that could potentially address the problem of doxing: the Interstate Communications Statute and the Interstate Stalking Statute.[44] However, as one scholar has argued, "[t]hese statutes ... are woefully inadequate to prevent doxing because their terms are underinclusive and they are rarely enforced".[44] The Interstate Communications Statute, for example, "only criminalizes explicit threats to kidnap or injure a person".[45] But in many instances of doxing, a doxer may never convey an explicit threat to kidnap or injure, but the victim could still have good reason to be terrified.[45] And the Interstate Stalking Statute "is rarely enforced and it serves only as a hollow protection from online harassment".[46]

According to at least one estimate, over three million people are stalked over the internet each year, yet only about three are charged under the Interstate Stalking Statute.[46] Accordingly, "[t]his lack of federal enforcement means that the States must step in if doxing is to be reduced."[46]

In late 2023 and early 2024, during a rash of swatting of American politicians, it became widely used as a way of encouraging attacks, as the United States possesses weak laws surrounding data privacy, with its citizens' personal information often easily accessible online due to various data brokers.[47]

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Cult Of Intellect : DX9

doxing

perangkat input dan output