One Thing To Do Today: Take steps to prevent doxing

TL;DR: Follow the advice at the Crash Override Network to prevent and prepare for possible doxing. 

It happens in so many movies and TV shows. Our fearless hero, tied to a chair, mid torture yells at the villain of the week, “Do whatever you want to me! I won’t help you!!”  To which our villain replies “Oh, I’m not going to hurt…. YOU!” and whips out whomever or whatever has been set up as the hero’s One-Big-Weakness.

Threatening to dox someone serves as the online equivalent of putting them in that chair.  A power move meant to gain submission or silence, it shows a willingness to take the fight into the “real world” by revealing information like home addresses and/or financial information about you and your loved ones. Whether it’s launching a activist twitter account, pursuing investigative journalism or even running for office, please have conversations with the people you love about what kinds of behavior you will be engaging in and the possible consequences to your family unit. Then plan how to face them together.

The Crash Override Network has created a step by step coach to lock down information to make it harder for people to get at you.   If you’ve been able to follow along with these posts you will have already done things like changed privacy settings, so getting through the first steps will be a breeze. Skimming through the guides on preventing doxxing and what to do if you have been doxxed gives a nice overview of what to expect from the coach tool.  Examples include checking that domain registrations aren’t leaking your address and clearing personal information out of data broker sites to help keep where you live off the map. Ask the people you care about to go through the same steps.

Preventing certain activity from ever being linked back to you in the first place might help boost your courage. Psuedonymity remains vital to the internet.  Follow a guide or two or three on setting up an alter ego.  How far you’ll need to go will depend on how high up the food chain your big bad lives.

Contending with the baddies who treat others, at best, as Non Player Characters in their game of conquest require special precautions. Making things just a little bit harder for them to trace me or my loved ones back home, or having a plan in case they do, makes standing up and standing out all that much easier to do.