Leak website releases data on DHS employees

117 pointsposted 10 hours ago
by wondersky
(reuters.com)

28 Comments

kgujdtjof

4 hours ago

This whole concept of “doxxing” has spun way out of control.

Every house in the country used to get a giant paperback book every year with the name, address, and telephone number of everyone that lived in the community. This information has never been considered secret.

Doxxing specifically refers to unmasking a pseudonym. That’s it. If there’s no pseudonym, it’s not doxxing.

MadrasTh0rn

3 hours ago

The resources needed to harass and target people from an address book has been reduced significantly since phone books.

Society has really not adapted well to this.

DANmode

3 hours ago

Disagree.

The ways people have opened themselves to harassment and targeting have been increased significantly since phone books.

People were not hard to target and harass in those days.

macintux

2 hours ago

Really.

When I used phone books:

- My banking accounts weren’t globally accessible

- The data companies collected about me was effectively non-existent, and wasn’t globally accessible

- My phone had no information about me, didn’t know my minute-by-minute whereabouts, and if somehow you organized a DDOS against it, I could just take it off the hook and walk away

- My employer didn’t have social media, and couldn’t be bombarded with accusations against me

- Swatting was less likely, because there weren’t 8 billion people with easy access to my data

I could probably go on for a while. None of the above is me “opening myself up” except by virtue of owning a smartphone, which is difficult to avoid.

EricBetts

an hour ago

You could choose to be unlisted, or only use initials

gmerc

3 hours ago

You could not do anything with that information nor did you know anything or could you reasonably find out anything about 99% of names in the book without effort, so this is just disingenous

paulddraper

2 hours ago

> Every house in the country used to get a giant paperback book every year

If you did that in Europe you'd get fined 4% of annual turnover.

Wild how much basic practices have changed in 2 decades.

duttish

2 hours ago

We got those giant books here too.

hexapus

6 hours ago

The current regime decided lawlessness was beneficial to them. Cuts both ways. I suppose people should consider carefully whether signing bonuses and the chance to abuse marginalised people with impunity is worth it. I'm fine with people making it riskier to throw in with corrupt authoritarians for personal benefit.

NDlurker

6 hours ago

I don't know if every state is like this, but in my state, all state employee salaries are public information that anyone can look up. Why should federal employees have their information hidden? They're supposed to work for us.

jojobas

2 hours ago

Same reason that FBI agents' identities are classified - so that people who disagree with what a democratically established agency is doing to uphold the law don't go out intimidating or killing them.

cdrnsf

5 hours ago

This calls for the world’s tiniest violin.

terminal-bloom

29 minutes ago

“Welp, couldn’t have happened to nicer people.”

iAMkenough

7 hours ago

If those employees didn't do anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about.

aliasxneo

6 hours ago

I'm sure this line works well with doxx'ing victims.

iAMkenough

6 hours ago

Public servants? It’s the line the government uses to justify dragnet mass surveillance.

No harm in knowing who is working for you.

aliasxneo

6 hours ago

> It’s the line the government uses to justify dragnet mass surveillance.

Agreed. But I don't see how that justifies your original comment.

bobthepanda

5 hours ago

The original comment is clearly an expression of schadenfreude.

parthdesai

6 hours ago

Do those doxxed victims have significant power over an average person?

With great power comes greater responsibilities

DeluluDon

6 hours ago

Yeah Spiderman is such an influence over real life.

aliasxneo

6 hours ago

The whole epitome of this thread is that my enemies got doxx'd and so now I shall jump through dozens of logical hoops in order to justify it.

Oh, also, if you're not happy with this, you obviously must agree with everything they are doing.

aliasxneo

6 hours ago

> If those employees didn't do anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about.

That's the line I responded to, in case you didn't read it.

parthdesai

5 hours ago

That is the line govt uses/used to justify mass surveillance. OP is just flipping the table?