Doxing

A fictional example of doxing. The victim's name and home address is shown.

Doxing is the process of finding or uncovering personal information about a person, group, organization or corporate entity. This information is collected for the purpose of publishing it online. The result of doxing is called a dox. Doxing is usually done with the intent to harm someone. Typically, a person is doxed for revenge-based reasons, motivating the person who is wronged or who has perceived a wrong to humiliate and expose their target. Doxing us illegal in many countries .

Doxing was originally started back in the 1980s to 1990s, by black-hat hackers and penetration testers of the time. They used it to silence and/or intimate their hacker rivals in the BBS and internet communities. Doxing is a form of vigilantism and many instances of doxing have led to swatting, years of harassment, people having to move out of their homes and change their phone numbers. Being doxed will also make you more vulnerable to identity theft. In the present day, specifically in the United States, doxing is used as a method of political dissent and political attack, primarily by left-leaning people against those with Conservative leanings. Doxing as well as deplatforming have become an integral part of "Cancel Culture."