How to deal with being doxxed?

[spartaman64]

Just now, Letgomyleghoe said:

the easiest way out of this is just to change your online identity, there's very little chance of you actually getting a court case out of this, as there is nothing technically illegal, until there is threat of physical harm. also as said above, clean up what info there is about you on the internet, until that person makes a physical threat, nothing illegal is really going on.

idk why you guys are so keen to victim blame and defend the harasser. she will consult an attorney and they will know better whether theres a case or not than any of us. i think its a clear case of harassment and since he is asking for money its extortion also. there is an implied threat and sure im not sure if thats enough to charge him in court the lawyer will decide that but if implied threats are not illegal then how do people like the mafia get charge when they ask for "protection money"

https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/extortion.html 

this article here mentions such a scenario. the person never explicitly says a threat but his language is clearly threatening 

[Letgomyleghoe]

I'm not trying to victim blame, It's fucked up that they're asking for money, and that your friend got doxxed in the first place, but what I'm trying to do is tell you that there's little to go off of for a civil case. 

 

good luck.

 

[spartaman64]

2 minutes ago, Letgomyleghoe said:

I'm not trying to victim blame, It's fucked up that they're asking for money, and that your friend got doxxed in the first place, but what I'm trying to do is tell you that there's little to go off of for a civil case. 

 

good luck.

 

cyberstalking and harassment is a crime and asking for money in this context is extortion just like people asking shops for "protection money" an attorney is going to advise her on her options and whether they think theres a case

[IkeaGnome]

14 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

cyberstalking and harassment is a crime and asking for money in this context is extortion just like people asking shops for "protection money" an attorney is going to advise her on her options and whether they think theres a case

Best of luck to her! I've been all for punishing people like that since before SWATting. I hope they can do something to the people doing this to her. On the flip side of that, good luck finding them.

[SpikeSpiegel]

Since 2013 I've been doxxed, harassed, and photoshopped.  One person tried to threaten me by flying over to my state and find me.  However he never show.  But he was from Spain and the coward didn't even keep his word and find me.  I contacted a local DHS guy that I knew and he gave me info what to do.  And I filled a police report, FBI complaint, and DHS/ICE report just in case.  Also the contacted the Madrid, Spain U.S. Embassy.  And they confirmed he wasn't on a Visa.  

 

 After that I'm basically blocking all contacts on my Facebook account.  Only made invited people to visit my blog and keeping a low profile in games.   So people can't harass me.  So far it's working but there's a few of them are still doxxing me.  One of them dox me in the LTT Discord and said my full address in a game a few years ago.

[Beowulff83]

27 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

ive said over and over civil court.

So your friend can go this route.  But basically they will be paying $$$ in hopes to scare the person off with civil action.  Civil court itself will probably not do anything but make your friend broke from attorney fees.  It may be worth paying an attorney to draft up an official letter and have them send it to the person causing problems but i would not actually pursue and further action after that.  The attorney would be the only winner in that situation.

[spartaman64]

1 minute ago, Beowulff83 said:

So your friend can go this route.  But basically they will be paying $$$ in hopes to scare the person off with civil action.  Civil court itself will probably not do anything but make your friend broke from attorney fees.  It may be worth paying an attorney to draft up an official letter and have them send it to the person causing problems but i would not actually pursue and further action after that.  The attorney would be the only winner in that situation.

obviously we are going to try the cease and desist option first but we will be talking about legal options if that doesnt work and i think this is a clear case of harassment and extortion. 

[SpikeSpiegel]

1 minute ago, spartaman64 said:

obviously we are going to try the cease and desist option first but we will be talking about legal options if that doesnt work and i think this is a clear case of harassment and extortion. 

I tried that with a gaming company and they warn me that I send them anymore cease and desist orders they will ban my account.  And the Game Masters refuses to do anything and these harassers are still doing it.

[spartaman64]

7 minutes ago, CalintzJerevinan said:

I tried that with a gaming company and they warn me that I send them anymore cease and desist orders they will ban my account.  And the Game Masters refuses to do anything and these harassers are still doing it.

yeah a lot of game companies dont take it seriously but hopefully a letter straight to the harasser will yield some results.

[SpikeSpiegel]

15 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

yeah a lot of game companies dont take it seriously but hopefully a letter straight to the harasser will yield some results.

Sad but true...However in my case it's people who are overseas doing this nonsense.  And hiring an International Lawyer isn't worth the money.  

[straight_stewie]

The only way to completely undo the damage done from a serious doxxing incident is to make the now public documents useless.

This can mean anything from changing some login information on a few accounts, to changing domiciles (as is the case here), to having to close/switch/move bank accounts (including credit cards).

What all will need to be changed depends on what all was revealed. This is not the same as determining what all the doxxer has released so far, rather, it is determining what information the doxxer might still have.

This means that your friend needs to conduct a full analysis of her previous security policies and determine exactly what information could have been leaked, and only then can your friend make all of the changes necessary to make the leaked information useless. Assuming that she is an average mid 20 somethings adult, this might involve maybe 50 man hours if she is efficient about it.

If your friend is a minor, then I would suggest that you advise her to bring her parents in on this.

[spartaman64]

3 minutes ago, straight_stewie said:

The only way to completely undo the damage done from a serious doxxing incident is to make the now public documents useless.

This can mean anything from changing some login information on a few accounts, to changing domiciles (as is the case here), to having to close/switch/move bank accounts (including credit cards).

What all will need to be changed depends on what all was revealed. This is not the same as determining what all the doxxer has released so far, rather, it is determining what information the doxxer might still have.

This means that your friend needs to conduct a full analysis of her previous security policies and determine exactly what information could have been leaked, and only then can your friend make all of the changes necessary to make the leaked information useless.

yeah hopefully this will at least get them to stop causing further damage

[SpikeSpiegel]

3 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

yeah hopefully this will at least get them to stop causing further damage

Doxxing can turn into SWATTING later on once they start getting too serious about it.

[SpikeSpiegel]

The problem is that private information in the U.S.A. is a joke.  People from overseas can track, dox, and even use it against someone.  While the E.U. and other countries forbids them to leak out personal information.  

[SansVarnic]

18 minutes ago, CalintzJerevinan said:

The problem is that private information in the U.S.A. is a joke.  People from overseas can track, dox, and even use it against someone.  While the E.U. and other countries forbids them to leak out personal information.  

Kinda.

If you own land, land ownership is public information and only includes name and address of property. Outside that nothing else is.

[LogicalDrm]

6 hours ago, CalintzJerevinan said:

The problem is that private information in the U.S.A. is a joke.  People from overseas can track, dox, and even use it against someone.  While the E.U. and other countries forbids them to leak out personal information.  

There are lots of records which are public to access. For free or for small payments. In here you can get information of any registered company or organization for free, including address of it. And since the address can't be P.O. box, it means home addresses. Same goes to land owners, vehicle registration and other things. Exception when there's court ruling that personal details are market as secret. You can apply for that for 5 years at the time, and have good reasons on why. For example higher governmental officials, police etc. where learning ones name could cause trouble in retribution.

 

@spartaman64, laws and how internet celebs are seen within them aren't really up to date. Where someone working for some other public job (lets say TV host) would get much more attention, the internet is still seen as harmless in eyes of those working with the law. The UK streamer/youtuber Sweet Anita brought this issue up in the summer because of her stalker/harassment. She interviewed other personalities who have had issues with stalking/harassment/doxxing in past. It probably won't give any answers, but watching her video on it, and maybe also full interview with Destiny, could give some comfort that the issue is real, and really should be more up and center than it is.

Replay of Destiny's stream with Sweet Anita

[WkdPaul]

* thread cleaned *

 

So, when we ask to follow the Community Standards, we mean it.