Comment by Yokohiii
7 hours ago
Certainly, criminals also have a right to privacy. However, the limited publication of personal data of criminals by law enforcement is generally a legally legitimate measure. Doxxing, on the other hand, is generally a process that violates the fundamental right to privacy.
>criminals
>law
>legally
You keep using these words but it causes circular logic as those are all defined by the same entity that is acting unilaterally.
The action the government took was not a "good" action by any moral standard. But it was perhaps the least worse action available all things considered. Can't just whisk people off the street in a foreign country or drone them over such matters, those options would be worse.
Running a ransomware gang is immoral. Catching someone running a ransomware gang is good. If publishing their name helps catch them, it's also good. Not sure where do you see the gap between legality and morality in this case
People often forget that Threat Actors (TA) are the ones keeping the infosec alive. They are doing a good job of scaring people into implementing actual security protocols and thereby improving everyone's security posture. The whole infosec would collapse without TAs, let's not forget that. They create jobs.
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> You keep using these words but it causes circular logic as those are all defined by the same entity that is acting unilaterally.
It's not, in Germany we have separation of powers.
> The action the government took was not a "good" action by any moral standard.
Morals aren't binary. Morals have context.
Is it your position that privacy is a right regardless of any action you take? Many rights are dependent on circumstance and in tension with other rights. In this case I think you can make the case that their right to privacy is lost.
> Doxxing, on the other hand, is generally a process that violates the fundamental right to privacy.
It historically was used for this exact case: revealing someone hiding behind a pseudonym for purposes of law enforcement. The term dates back to the 90s, if not earlier.
This isn't something Gen Z made up. It's a Gen X term. "Hack the gibson" era. Wargames era.
Doxxing is basically a DDOS reflection attack but for real violence, or threat thereof, instead of 1s and 0s.
I might want to do violence upon you for some reason. Maybe I hate you. Maybe you're doing something that I don't like. If I'm lucky I can round up half a dozen buddies to help. But I don't have infinite resources and infinite reach, so my capability is rather laughable unless you live next door.
Buuuut, if I craft it just right, I can cause the state with it's practically infinite resources, infinite men with guns who kick in doors, etc, etc to choose to kick in your door and do violence upon you. (And the request usually looks a lot like doing their job for them "hey look over here there's this specific person doing this specific thing that you're supposed to go after", but that's beside the point.)
Same as how if I craft a request to a 3rd party server just right a few Kb of on my end can become dozens of Mb on yours.
The German police can't reach these guys. Hence why they're doxing them. They're hoping to structure things such that those who can reach them respond to the request (i.e. rounding up these guys will be a line item in some larger geopolitical context).