How to be a Jerk from home
Doxing
What is doxing?
Doxing is the act of publicly revealing previously private personal information about an individual or organization, usually through the Internet. Methods employed to acquire such information include searching publicly available databases and social media websites, hacking, and social engineering
Doxing allows people to gain access to a lot of personal data. Things like addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, anything that would be kept private by the owner of the information. The concept of sharing information that was meant to be kept private has existed long before the internet was even a thing. But the term doxing became popular in the '90s with the emergence of hackers.
Rival hackers would drop docs on each other when they would get into fights over the internet. It has now grown to just mean anyone who shares the information of someone else. Well-known people are the most in danger with doxing. When people are upset at the celebrity or journalist, they will release their information and open them up to the danger of possible death threats or stalkers.
Is it legal?
So, we know that it can open people up to dangerous situations, so it must be illegal right? For the most part no. Even though anyone being doxed could potentially get injured or even killed in some circumstances, there are not enough laws that protect people when they are doxed. In the United States, there are currently two federal laws that could potentially address the problem of doxing: the Interstate Communications Statute and the Interstate Stalking Statute.
But both of those don't have enough specific language to help people who have been doxed. The Interstate Communications Statute, for example, "only criminalizes explicit threats to kidnap or injure a person." 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.
The Interstate Stalking Statute "is rarely enforced and it serves only as a hollow protection from online harassment." To demonstrate let's look at the fact that over three million people are stalked over the internet each year, yet only three people are charged under the Interstate Stalking Statute.
Swatting
What is swatting?
Swatting is a harassment tactic that involves calling the authorities and making a false report of something dangerous enough to warrant a swat team response. The person making the call will often say that they are
involved or nearby as a witness to a home invasion, active shooter, or hostage situation, attempting to
muster the largest response possible. This originated from the bomb threats of the '70s. Those calls were made to incite as much panic as possible in public areas, like airports or hospitals. As the ways to conceal the caller's identity became more sophisticated, so did the calling.
Swatting can be costly at best and deadly in some circumstances. To mobilize a swat team to respond to a call can cost up to $10,000, all of which is to be paid for by the people of that city or county. But some scenarios go a lot worse.
In 2015, in Washita County, in Oklahoma, dispatchers received 911 calls from someone who identified himself as Dallas Horton and told dispatchers he had placed a bomb in a local preschool. The Deputies and Sentinel Police Chief Louis Ross entered Horton's residence by force. Ross, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, was shot several times by Horton. Further investigation revealed that the calls did not originate from the home and led Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents to believe Horton was unaware that it was law enforcement officers making entry. James Edward Holly confessed to investigators that he made the calls with two "nonfunctioning" phones because he was angry with Horton. Ross, who was shot multiple times in the chest and arm, was injured but was treated for his injuries and released from a local hospital.
But that was a lucky scenario believe it or not. In 2017 a man named Andrew Finch was shot and killed by a police officer entering his home. A series of screenshotted Twitter posts helped to give the Wichita Eagle enough information to suggest that Finch was the unintended victim of the swatting after two Call of Duty: WWII players who had gotten into a heated argument about a $1.50 bet. On December 29, 2017, the Los Angeles Police Department arrested 25-year-old serial swatter Tyler Raj Barriss, known online as "SWAuTistic" and on Xbox Live as "GoredTutor36," in connection with the incident. In 2018, Barriss was indicted by a federal grand jury along with two others involved in the incident. According to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister, the false hoax charge carries a maximum punishment of life in federal prison while other charges carry sentences of up to 20 years. On March 29, 2019, Barriss was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. The gamer that recruited Barriss in the bet plead guilty to felony charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to prison for 15 months as well as a two-year ban on playing video games.
Is it legal?
While doxing is technically illegal but hard to prosecute and only cover by vague and underutilized laws. Swatting has a lot more language about it. In the United States, swatting can be prosecuted through federal criminal statutes using some of the language like:
- "Threatening interstate communications"
- "Conspiracy to retaliate against a witness, victim, or informant"
- "Conspiracy to commit access device fraud and unauthorized access of a protected computer"
- An accomplice may be found guilty of "conspiring to obstruct justice"
- In California, callers bear the "full cost" of the response which can range up to $10,000
But the big problem that is happening is the retaliation that lawmakers experience once they start introducing legislation to stop swatting and doxing. For example:
In 2011, California State Senator Ted Lieu wrote a bill that would increase penalties for swatting. His own family then became a victim of swatting when the bill was proposed. A dozen police officers, along with firefighters and paramedics surrounded his family home.
In 2015 a New Jersey State Assemblyman Paul D. Moriarty announced a bill to increase sentences for hoax emergency calls and was then targeted by a hoax. The bill proposed prison sentences of up to ten years and fines of $150,000.
A 2015 bipartisan bill in Congress sponsored by Katherine Clark and Patrick Meehan made swatting a federal crime with increased penalties. Congresswoman Clark wrote an op-ed in The Hill saying that 2.5 million cases of cyberstalking between 2010 and 2013 had only resulted in 10 cases prosecuted, although a source for this was not provided. As revenge for the bill, an anonymous caller fraudulently called police to Rep. Clark's house on January 31, 2016.
Doxing
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3b4e1d52-f4b8-4906-9481-4020c9b64bd8
https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/what-is-doxing
https://dspace2.creighton.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10504/125944/CLR_53-1.pdf
Swatting
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