Feexit: Dox

DOX originally published in Spanish on September 15th,2014.

The personal information of any given person available online, includes real name, any known alias, address, email, phone number, Social Security #, Credit/Debit cards, etc.

@Feexitmx wants to make it perfectly clear that we DID NOT invent Doxing, in fact we are sure that many degenerates out there are reading our tweets & blog and are already Doxing (without knowing the name and probably against us... ha!… .I. ) The purpose of this article is to inform the community about some of the dangers out here; what are they called, how do they work, etc.

History Repeating:

The act of publishing personal information of any user (PI) online, started in the 90s in Usenet; back in the day, stories were shared in 4 episodes at the legendary newsgroup called "alt.folklore.computers".

Those stories were a somewhat limited (details) and did not exceed from the information that could easily be obtained at the profile/description of each Usenet user. This “trolling” practice received public attention when in 1999, Scott Abraham a.k.a. rec.skiing.alpine (yes, this was his username) was banned of the forum after the Court of Seattle found him guilty of violent conduct (virtually speaking)...

...and different death threats to other users (also virtual) during a “Flaming War”... that is how Scott Abraham became the Father of the Modern Trolling.

Back in the year 2000, the word “doxing” was associated to the action of filtering documents with personal and confidential information about a person or organization; those actions were of the Vigilante kind, seeking for justice through means such as the Internet.

Later on, collectives such as Anonymous and The Human Flesh Search Engine (China) stepped into the public eye.

Whatever...
In our world, internet has become the most convenient way to research, share information and socialize; many couples have met, married and divorced thanks to this awesome "tool". The Internet allows users to protect their identity, but somehow the trends (since webcams got cheaper and MySpace came out) are to "share" and to document everything around us to the machine… all this information becomes public and here is where Doxing comes into play.

What is Doxing?

Doxing is the process of collecting and deducting data by other users; such as name, age, email, address, phone number, photographs... nudes... etc. All this is done by using “open sources” like the Internet. In other words, Doxing is the use of the Internet to look for all possible pieces of information about one single person. The term Doxing comes from the word “document tracing (document tracking)” and it is done by using an initial piece of information, mainly the name or email.

“Le technique”

Internet has grown to levels in which almost everything can be found, the only thing needed is to know the techniques to track the information... here we will present some of the most popular tools and techniques among Internet Geeks and Ethical Hackers:

Google!

No one saw that coming... Google is part of this list? Well... in fact is a fundamental piece in the doxing process. Google indexes almost everything in the Internet (sometimes even the information set as private), so it is possible to dox by using information such as email, address, phone number and photos…

“Les Search Parameters”

· + “To include”

· | “Or”

· .. “Range”

· ~ “Synonym”

· “” “String”

· * “Wild card”

Social networks:

You didn´t see that coming, didn´t you?! Facebook and LinkedIn are a gold mine for doxing, especially when users are not aware and don not care about exploits, fishing and Facebook´s security adjustments. This is how photos, names, locations, habits, etc. are doxed.

The Mobile Betrayal :

The process “Reverse Cell Phone Lookup” is a very simple process in which all data like name, age, address and any additional information can be obtained; just by using the phone number assigned to the mobile device...

WHOIS:

If a person or a company has a website, the WHOIS search can be done to obtain full name, address, email and phone number.

Why?

Most of the people doxes out of curiosity; some others have a wicked mind and are out for revenge. Some of the information that can be easily obtained through doxing is:

· Full Name

· Age, Gender, Date of birth

· Birthplace

· Email and Username

· Phone Number

· Profiles in Social Networks, Websites and Blogs

Is it a crime?

Doxing is not considered a crime when it is used with certain ethics and nobody is being/will be harmed. BUT, if it is used to cause some damage like harassment, extortion or revenge, then it is considers an offense… there are too many ways to do it and... "...he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”