How to Dox someone | What does it mean to Dox Someone?
How to Dox someone | What does it mean to Dox Someone? No one wants their home address on the internet. That is personal information we typically only give out to friends, family and maybe our favorite online stores. Doxing can have serious implications for your security. Find out how to avoid doxing & protect yourself from malicious doxers.
Doxing attacks are real. And it’s hard to completely hide your identity online. You may think that creating fake identities gives you the ability to express any opinion, no matter how controversial, without anyone ever being able to trace it back to you.
What does it mean to dox someone?
Doxing a person is a form of cyberbullying that entails using sensitive or secret information, statements, or records for the harassment, exposure, financial harm, or other exploitation of an intended person. This involves taking specific information about someone and then spreading it around the internet or via some other means of getting it out to the public.
Is Doxing illegal in the USA?
No. Doxing tends not to be illegal if the information exposed lies within the public domain, and it was obtained using legal methods. However, in the US, doxing a government employee falls under federal conspiracy laws and is seen as a federal offense.
How do I protect myself from doxxing?
- Adjust your social media settings:
- Ensure that your profiles, usernames/handles are kept private.
- Set your posts to “friends only”.
- Remove any addresses, places of work, and specific locations from your accounts.
- Avoid discussing personal information that could be used against you, as well as anything that can identify your address, workplace or contact information.
- Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) and aIf you must use public wi-fi, turn off the public network sharing functionality on your device.
- Use strong passwords.
- Use different usernames and passwords across different platforms.
- Hide domain registration information from WHOIS (a database of all registered domain names on the web).
What is Doxing?
Doxing is the act of finding one’s personal information through research and discovery, with little to no information to start with. You may have seen doxing in the news. Doxing can be useful for finding the address of a coworker, or simply investigating people on the internet. The tutorial I will provide to you now will teach you the basics of doxing and how you can protect yourself against malicious people on the internet.
How Does Doxing Work?
Doxing is based on the fact that nearly everyone has data about them floating around on the internet, protected by varying levels of security – and in some cases, barely any at all. Once this data has been found, it is weaponized and used against the target.
1. Stalking Social Media
If you make your social media accounts available to the public, any information you post about yourself or have in your profile can be seen by everyone.
2. Tracking IP Addresses
Doxers can figure out your Internet Protocol (IP) address and then use the fact that it is linked to where you are physically to execute an attack. For example, they could reach out to your internet service provider (ISP) and pretend to be you, asking them questions that provide them with more information about you.
3. Phishing
If you either fall for a phishing scam or someone can infiltrate your email, they can either grab sensitive details about you or go through your account and use your emails for a doxing attack. With a phishing scam, you are prompted to click on it.
4. Tracking Usernames
People often use the same or similar usernames on different accounts for a variety of websites and web applications. It is relatively easy therefore for cybercriminals, activists, or others to use the usernames you have to pinpoint data that belongs to you
5. Reverse Mobile Phone Lookup
As soon as a hacker knows your mobile phone number, they can dig to find more information about you.
6. Data Brokers
As the name suggests, data brokers collect information and then sell it to others for a profit. A data broker will gather information about potential targets by going to several websites that house public records. This may include loyalty card websites, which keep track of your online habits or your search history, to obtain the data they need about you.
7. Packet Sniffing
When doxing someone, attackers can use packet sniffing to their advantage. Data is organized in packets as it travels across the internet. When a packet is sniffed, the attacker can tell what kind of information is within it.
8. Sifting Through Government Records
Government websites like the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and those that hold county records, business licenses, marriage licenses, and voter registration information all have data that could be used in a doxing attack.
How to Dox someone?
The thing about doxing that makes it a skill is that you must be prepared for many different situations, as no two people will have their social profile setup in the same exact way. You must be prepared to only have the resources of a name, email, username, or even phone number to find out all of the other information about a person.
If you have an email, you are all set. An email is connected to social media (names) work (phone numbers) and accounts (information about the person).
1. Usernames
Usernames are extremely difficult to make connections with. If you have a username you can use some websites to see other accounts and profiles connected to those usernames. These websites are not always correct, but you should check with a couple of them before proceeding to mark down information about a person.
2. Addresses and Phone Numbers
Truecaller is an iPhone/iPod application that can get people’s addresses just with a phone number! Very few people know about this, and it’s amazing. If you acquire somebody’s phone number, you can type it into Truecaller on your iPhone/iPod touch device, and It will give you the city they live in, and even possibly the address.
It doesn’t guarantee an address, but it will at least always give you their city! Another amazing way to get people’s addresses from their phone numbers is a website. It’s ISearch.
3. Familysearch
FamilySearch is a website where you can get birth, marriage, death, probate, land, military, IGI records, and more! This website also allows you to find the SSN (social security number) of a deceased person. This site is amazing and isn’t that known. You can get addresses, and so much more information from it.
You can call your target with your mom or dad’s phone number, and they’ll think that you’re their son! It means you need to know what your target sounds like and think of a story or strategy to get something out of him or her.CallerIDFaker is the app for this purpose.
What happens when you get Doxxed?
When a person gets doxed a lot happens, first the person is devastated, ashamed, and barely can face the public, because his or her private information is exposed.
Is threatening to DOX illegal?
First of all, threats are not acceptable in society as you are seen to be putting a person’s life in danger, therefore threatening to release vital information of a person is illegal.
How can I avoid getting doxed?
- Don’t Provide Personal Information: When signing up for social media platforms, do not provide any personal information such as date of birth, hometown, high school, or employer information.
- Use different usernames on different social media platforms: If you visit different social media sites, don’t use the same username on each one.
- Strong Passwords Are Key: Keep snoops away from your most personal information by using strong passwords on sites like your online bank account, credit card portals, and the work dashboard.
- Certain information should never be shared: Promise to never publish certain information online, such as your social security number, home address, driver’s license number, and information about bank accounts or credit card numbers.
- Use more than one email address: You can improve your privacy by creating separate email accounts for different types of correspondence. You can create an account that you only use to sign up for streaming services, music sites, forums, message boards, and other services.
- Use a VPN: Signing into a virtual private network, or VPN, helps protect your private information from doxers. When you connect to the internet by signing into a VPN first, your real IP address is hidden.
- Don’t Share Too Much: Don’t share too much on social media or online forums and message boards. Sharing personal information could easily give Doxern too much to work with.
- Change your privacy settings: make your posts on social media sites private so only selected people can see them.
