Why is non-consensual release of personal information allowed?

[tarsua]

Is bitcointalk.org encouraging mob justice?

yes, by allowing users to post what they want, they are allowing mob justice
also if u want to a forum where the admins run it as if its their personal coffee shop there is always hackforums.net

[1714108086]

1714108086

[SaltySpitoon]

My 45 day ban a while back would beg to differ.

Dude is a coward and a profiteering hypocrite IMO.

EDIT: And if you wonder why I'm so personally bitter directly with Michael, it's because he allowed Josh Zerlan to dox me using private information in BFL's customer database while Josh brazenly lied about it being public information. Oh, and where is BFL today ? Hmm...

I don't know anything about your ban, but I have personally seen two or three threads with Theymos dox in them on this site with no consequence to the OP or anyone else involved. I would expect that it was something else that you did. I don't have the info to know for certain, but that would be my first guess based on the info given.

The problem isn't the act of doxing for the most part, it is the factual doxing the correct person. I have seen so much wrong information posted it is unbelievable.
No SSID and other sensitive information should ever be allowed and doxing should only be the last resort.
IMO, no doxing should be allowed from an alt. or new account. If you post it and are wrong, you should suffer the consequences.

Not that I necessarily disagree, but there isn't a screening process. Who should be in charge of fact checking to make sure the right person is doxed, and that the information is accurate? If you do post inaccurate info, I suppose you lose credibility? Thats something of a consequence.

This forum allows a lot of stuff that should not, selling/buying accounts, even default trust ones, doxing people, some scams, some not, like ponzies and other ponzi related ´´games´´ and yes i know it´s to gather all ponzies in one place but is still kind of ridiculous. They are very strict about people spamming or posting useless stuff but not so much when it comes to scammers since they are never banned.

This one would take a really really long time to explain. These are all things that have been greatly debated. I'll give you the short answers, but you would have to check hundreds of pages of discussion to have a complete scope of the debate. Buying/Selling accounts is something that staff can't enforce a rule against. If we do, people will just go off site and do it without our knowledge, and then people will be under the impression that it doesn't happen, so bought/sold accounts will be able to do more damage. Out in the open, everyone is aware to take proper precautions when dealing with someone. Staff are not responsible for scams or scam attempts. Do your own due diligence when trading. Ponzis aren't a "scam" if you know that you are investing in them. No one is being tricked into depositing money into LUCKYPONZI thinking its a cloudmining site. Do what you want with your money, let people do what they want with theirs. And spam is indeed our prime directive. A moderator's main job here is to help keep the board as clutter free as possible for thoughtful discussion.

I see come contradictions in what SaltySpitoon posted.

1.

Dox stay up because it is typically meta data. If information about you can be found on social media/google, whatever, its not private.

2.

If someone has to steal your medical records from a hospital in order to release it, then that is not allowed, nor is posting someone else's social security number.

What I gather from this is that information that could somehow be publicly available, are allowed to be posted here. But in quote #2 it's stated that non-public information are not allowed. But what falls under your definition of non-public information? What if the doxed person claims none of the information released were publicly available?

I also didn't see the issue about false information being released. (Guess that would fall under the up for individuals to determine what is baseless logic?)

Social Security numbers, Unrelease medical records, etc. It sticks out pretty well when someone posts something they shouldn't have access to. Your name, address, phone number, etc are the common bits of information that I see. If you can find the info in a phone book (if they still existed) with a google search, on social media, whatever. Its not private information. If information is illegally obtained, then its not acceptable.

I see come contradictions in what SaltySpitoon posted.

There is generally a huge contradiction. Either the admins are ALL willing to post their entire 'dox' information (as its all public record anyway, right?), or remove doxes when they serve no purpose / done maliciously. They'll say "but I'm anonymous", then.... surely everyone else wants to be?

The strange thing is, tons of people interact here on a daily basis and don't have their dox posted. There typically is a reason, or at least a percieved reason why people post each others dox. P.Gage is the only person I know of who has posted all of their own dox. I like to think most people here respect each others privacy until there is a reason not to. So when you say its contradictory that the Admins don't offer their information to everyone, that isn't applicable in the slightest. It would be more apt to say that if the Admins are accused of scamming and then delete their dox, that is a contradiction.

[dogie]

I see come contradictions in what SaltySpitoon posted.

There is generally a huge contradiction. Either the admins are ALL willing to post their entire 'dox' information (as its all public record anyway, right?), or remove doxes when they serve no purpose / done maliciously. They'll say "but I'm anonymous", then.... surely everyone else wants to be?

The strange thing is, tons of people interact here on a daily basis and don't have their dox posted. P.Gage is the only person I know of who has posted all of their own dox. I like to think most people here respect each others privacy until there is a reason not to. So when you say its contradictory that the Admins don't offer their information to everyone, that isn't applicable in the slightest. It would be more apt to say that if the Admins are accused of scamming and then delete their dox, that is a contradiction.

So you've generally agreed that people do not want to be doxed, regardless of if they've done anything wrong or not.

There typically is a reason, or at least a percieved reason why people post each others dox.

And then answered the point of doxes on here - to be malicious. Has there even ever been a non malicious dox on here that wasn't designed to cause harm and to do anything helpful? And when those malicious doxes have been proved to be malicious, you guys still leave them up.

So looping round again, would the policy chance if the doxes of every staff member were subsequently accumulated? ...The point of that question is to provoke some sensible thinking on the issue, rather than to threaten. Buuuuut if that question could even be remotely be perceived as a threat, the answer is yes and the policy needs to be changed.

[Xian01]

My 45 day ban a while back would beg to differ.
Dude is a coward and a profiteering hypocrite IMO.
EDIT: And if you wonder why I'm so personally bitter directly with Michael, it's because he allowed Josh Zerlan to dox me using private information in BFL's customer database while Josh brazenly lied about it being public information. Oh, and where is BFL today ? Hmm...

I don't know anything about your ban, but I have personally seen two or three threads with Theymos dox in them on this site with no consequence to the OP or anyone else involved. I would expect that it was something else that you did. I don't have the info to know for certain, but that would be my first guess based on the info given.

The ban text was for Trolling.

Outrageous.

[worhiper_-_]

I have created a poll on the matter.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

I don't know anything about your ban, but I have personally seen two or three threads with Theymos dox in them on this site with no consequence to the OP or anyone else involved. I would expect that it was something else that you did. I don't have the info to know for certain, but that would be my first guess based on the info given.

I did a search on the forum for his dox on the forum.

"Pages: [1]
No results found
Pages: [1]"

Again, if you try posting his dox on the forum you will be automatically banned. Try it in the Staff sectin.

[KWH]

Not that I necessarily disagree, but there isn't a screening process. Who should be in charge of fact checking to make sure the right person is doxed, and that the information is accurate? If you do post inaccurate info, I suppose you lose credibility? Thats something of a consequence.

And there the problem is:
1. The person posting the said dox is fully responsible.
2. A throw away account doesn't suffer much consequence. Somewhere around 0%.

[GannickusX]

I understand your point about account selling saltyspitoon, i have seen it a few times but im still skeptical about it, i understand the forum cant stop people from selling accounts but forbidding it would make it way harder for people to sell accounts and im sure less acounts would be sold. A lot of accounts are sold without anyone knowing even here in the forum. I understand that people, almost everyone that invests in ponzi schemes know what they are dealing with but that doesnt mean it should be allowed.

[SaltySpitoon]

So you've generally agreed that people do not want to be doxed, regardless of if they've done anything wrong or not.

Yeah, I'd generally agree that people do not want to be doxed. The people that are doxed are generally those accused of scamming. Every scammer says they are innocent, those wrongfully accused can generally clear things up pretty easily.

And then answered the point of doxes on here - to be malicious. Has there even ever been a non malicious dox on here that wasn't designed to cause harm and to do anything helpful? And when those malicious doxes have been proved to be malicious, you guys still leave them up.
So looping round again, would the policy chance if the doxes of every staff member were subsequently accumulated? ...The point of that question is to provoke some sensible thinking on the issue, rather than to threaten. Buuuuut if that question could even be remotely be perceived as a threat, the answer is yes and the policy needs to be changed.

Are lawsuits anything other than malicious? Should they still happen even though they are "attacking" someone? Its not a black and white question. There are certain cases I've seen where the people very obviously deserved to be doxed. Generally if you commit a crime, (Scamming is the major one here) people dox you. I'd say fair is fair.
Nope, there is a meta thread in meta named something along the lines of Staff Member information, or Staff Dox, and it has info about 3 or 4 staff members, including volunteered information. Again, that thread has Theymos' dox in it as well. Even though people can't find these threads, I've posted in them personally, so they weren't just threads I've seen in passing.

Not that I necessarily disagree, but there isn't a screening process. Who should be in charge of fact checking to make sure the right person is doxed, and that the information is accurate? If you do post inaccurate info, I suppose you lose credibility? Thats something of a consequence.

And there the problem is:
1. The person posting the said dox is fully responsible.
2. A throw away account doesn't suffer much consequence. Somewhere around 0%.

Tricky one, again that comes back to a plethora of other issues. I don't really have a solution for that one, all ideas that I can think of would be far worse than just how it is now.

I understand your point about account selling saltyspitoon, i have seen it a few times but im still skeptical about it, i understand the forum cant stop people from selling accounts but forbidding it would make it way harder for people to sell accounts and im sure less acounts would be sold. A lot of accounts are sold without anyone knowing even here in the forum. I understand that people, almost everyone that invests in ponzi schemes know what they are dealing with but that doesnt mean it should be allowed.

Again, this is another issue, but Bitcoin in general is about financial freedoms. We don't feel the need to tell people what they can or can't spend their money on. If you want to put your house as collateral in a poker game with a pair of twos, maybe I personally would advise against it, but anyone is welcome to make whatever stupid payments for anything that they want. The ponzi section got its own section because "legit" dice/poker sites and such said that the ponzi listings were flooding the section and they couldn't get in any discussion over the flood of ponzi spam. Nothing more, nothing less.

[hilariousandco]

I understand your point about account selling saltyspitoon, i have seen it a few times but im still skeptical about it, i understand the forum cant stop people from selling accounts but forbidding it would make it way harder for people to sell accounts and im sure less acounts would be sold.

It wouldn't make a difference. Even if account sales were banned it wouldn't stop it or even barely put a dint in it. All that would happen is accounts will be sold off site. At least it's safer here as you can use an escrow, but when people are selling them via skype or their crappy sites they set up many people will just get scammed.

[Blazed]

I understand your point about account selling saltyspitoon, i have seen it a few times but im still skeptical about it, i understand the forum cant stop people from selling accounts but forbidding it would make it way harder for people to sell accounts and im sure less acounts would be sold.

It wouldn't make a difference. Even if account sales were banned it wouldn't stop it or even barely put a dint in it. All that would happen is accounts will be sold off site. At least it's safer here as you can use an escrow, but when people are selling them via skype or their crappy sites they set up many people will just get scammed.

Who cares if someone gets scammed doing something against the rules? If account selling were banned why care?

[hilariousandco]

I understand your point about account selling saltyspitoon, i have seen it a few times but im still skeptical about it, i understand the forum cant stop people from selling accounts but forbidding it would make it way harder for people to sell accounts and im sure less acounts would be sold.

It wouldn't make a difference. Even if account sales were banned it wouldn't stop it or even barely put a dint in it. All that would happen is accounts will be sold off site. At least it's safer here as you can use an escrow, but when people are selling them via skype or their crappy sites they set up many people will just get scammed.

Who cares if someone gets scammed doing something against the rules? If account selling were banned why care?

People don't deserve to be scammed, but it's not against the rules so it's besides the point. Banning account sales changes absolutely nothing at all.

[Blazed]

Well I meant if selling accounts were banned.

[hilariousandco]

I know what you meant but people still don't deserve to be scammed. There would also be those who get scammed because they're unaware that account sales happen when they blindly trust an account so it will give people a false sense of security.

[Xian01]

Nope, there is a meta thread in meta named something along the lines of Staff Member information, or Staff Dox, and it has info about 3 or 4 staff members, including volunteered information. Again, that thread has Theymos' dox in it as well. Even though people can't find these threads, I've posted in them personally, so they weren't just threads I've seen in passing.

Weak.

[dogie]

Yeah, I'd generally agree that people do not want to be doxed. The people that are doxed are generally those accused of scamming. Every scammer says they are innocent, those wrongfully accused can generally clear things up pretty easily.

How? If you're not willing to remove or even mod edit proven wrongful accusations or even archive them, what can anyone do?

Are lawsuits anything other than malicious? Should they still happen even though they are "attacking" someone?

Yes? They're how normal people without moderator powers IRL enforce their rights. Malicious prosecution will get your ass handed to you so the answer is absolutely yes and to try and compare a lawsuit to a dox is just silly. A dox is there to damage the other party, it serves no purpose.

Generally if you commit a crime, (Scamming is the major one here) people dox you. I'd say fair is fair.

That's a weird way of looking at it. Approximately 20% of the US reports having been abused in one form of another, Assuming a 1:1 abuser victim ratio, would it be justifiable for one of those crazies to run over 5 people with the excuse that they were trying to kill a child abuser? My point is you're justifying anyone and everyone being able to be doxed without cause, because there will be some people who "deserve it".

Nope, there is a meta thread in meta named something along the lines of Staff Member information, or Staff Dox, and it has info about 3 or 4 staff members, including volunteered information. Again, that thread has Theymos' dox in it as well.

So I just spent 30 minutes looking for these threads by all sorts of keywords, search engines etc. I even looked through all of your posts back to 2013, its not there. The closest I could find was a 2011 thread where people put their real names against their pseudonyms and some very basic information. So it looks like someone has either deleted, delisted or archived these actual doxes.

Even though people can't find these threads, I've posted in them personally, so they weren't just threads I've seen in passing.

That is my point, if they're not findable then they're not damaging or a problem to anyone. Trying to compare that to people posting infinitely more complex doxes along with doctored, false and private information alongside fabricated and malicious claims is just condescending. Its also likely illegal that on notice of the offending content, the forum refuses to remove it.

Tricky one, again that comes back to a plethora of other issues. I don't really have a solution for that one, all ideas that I can think of would be far worse than just how it is now.

How about archive doxes once they've served (if any) their purpose or been proven to be false?


tldr: Admins felt that a basic thread listing who they were was offending enough to archive or delete, yet won't consider archiving or deleting known malicious or false doxes of others.

[SaltySpitoon]

Nope, there is a meta thread in meta named something along the lines of Staff Member information, or Staff Dox, and it has info about 3 or 4 staff members, including volunteered information. Again, that thread has Theymos' dox in it as well. Even though people can't find these threads, I've posted in them personally, so they weren't just threads I've seen in passing.

Weak.

You are the people I was refering to.

I understand your point about account selling saltyspitoon, i have seen it a few times but im still skeptical about it, i understand the forum cant stop people from selling accounts but forbidding it would make it way harder for people to sell accounts and im sure less acounts would be sold.

It wouldn't make a difference. Even if account sales were banned it wouldn't stop it or even barely put a dint in it. All that would happen is accounts will be sold off site. At least it's safer here as you can use an escrow, but when people are selling them via skype or their crappy sites they set up many people will just get scammed.

Who cares if someone gets scammed doing something against the rules? If account selling were banned why care?

While account buying/selling is sort of off topic, its not about whether people get scammed buying/selling the accounts, it truely is about it being unenforceable. People could buy/sell accounts on site with PGP or whatever else. Those that would be at greater risk of being scammed, are those that believe account buying/selling doesn't happen because it is against the rules, and trades blindly with those they have traded with before.

How? If you're not willing to remove or even mod edit proven wrongful accusations or even archive them, what can anyone do?

Why should I be responsible for fact checking and what makes me reliable enough to do so? What if someone pays me off to remove their info whether its correct or not? What if I remove information that is correct and it leads to further issues, am I responsible? These issues can all be removed by having people do their own work.

Yes? They're how normal people without moderator powers IRL enforce their rights. Malicious prosecution will get your ass handed to you so the answer is absolutely yes and to try and compare a lawsuit to a dox is just silly. A dox is there to damage the other party, it serves no purpose.

Dox gives accountability to the person behind the name, not a pseudonym.

That's a weird way of looking at it. Approximately 20% of the US reports having been abused in one form of another, Assuming a 1:1 abuser victim ratio, would it be justifiable for one of those crazies to run over 5 people with the excuse that they were trying to kill a child abuser? My point is you're justifying anyone and everyone being able to be doxed without cause, because there will be some people who "deserve it".

Lucky for us, this is an online forum and running over someone in a car is difficult. My point is, when people dox someone, there tends to be a reason. If they post the wrong dox, they have personal motivation to correct it. If you had scammed me, and I blamed John Doe from Uruguay, posted their info, and it was proven to be incorrect, why would I not try and find your true info and remove the false info? Theres no rational reason to post false dox intentionally, its completely counterproductive. If someone makes a mistake in doxing and its proven wrong, I would think they would try to correct it immediately if not sooner.

So I just spent 30 minutes looking for these threads by all sorts of keywords, search engines etc. I even looked through all of your posts back to 2013, its not there. The closest I could find was a 2011 thread where people put their real names against their pseudonyms and some very basic information. So it looks like someone has either deleted, delisted or archived these actual doxes.

That is my point, if they're not findable then they're not damaging or a problem to anyone. Trying to compare that to people posting infinitely more complex doxes along with doctored, false and private information alongside fabricated and malicious claims is just condescending. Its also likely illegal that on notice of the offending content, the forum refuses to remove it.

I found three or so mentions with basic keyword searches, Theymos, Theymos Identity, Theymos Dox, Staff/ Staff Member Dox etc. You can also try google if you would like, there are a couple threads that come up that way too. There is also a false dox on Theymos accusing him of being a senator or something like that (skimmed but didn't read). You must not have been searching very hard, as I wasn't.

How about archive doxes once they've served (if any) their purpose or been proven to be false?

tldr: Admins felt that a basic thread listing who they were was offending enough to archive or delete, yet won't consider archiving or deleting known malicious or false doxes of others.

Again, read what I said earlier. No one wants to post false Dox. There is no rational reason to post false dox. If a mistake was made, the person posting it would want to correct it asap. There is absolutely no logical reason to post false dox and stand by it. If I scammed you and you posted my dox, would you take my word for it if I told you it was false?

[dogie]

Again, read what I said earlier. No one wants to post false Dox. There is no rational reason to post false dox. If a mistake was made, the person posting it would want to correct it asap. There is absolutely no logical reason to post false dox and stand by it. If I scammed you and you posted my dox, would you take my word for it if I told you it was false?

I'll reply to the rest of your comment later as it appears we're not speaking the same language. There is every incentive to post false information alongside a dox, or to post non public information and claim its a dox. Watch this:

"This scammer SaltySpitoon, sold me a bitcoin miner 6 months ago and now I don't want it. He is a scammer and he shot my chicken in the face. I want my money back or I will post his information". And then that gets indexed by search engines. If you pay me, I get money. If you don't then I post your dox alongside my false information and your real name (Ytlas Nootips) is forever tainted even when you conclusively prove I just made that up and you don't even have a chicken.

But again if someone did the above with an alt account to a staff member they'd be banned and the thread deleted. You know that's exactly what would happen, we can even run the experiment if there are any admin volunteers.

[Xian01]

Nope, there is a meta thread in meta named something along the lines of Staff Member information, or Staff Dox, and it has info about 3 or 4 staff members, including volunteered information. Again, that thread has Theymos' dox in it as well. Even though people can't find these threads, I've posted in them personally, so they weren't just threads I've seen in passing.

Weak.

You are the people I was refering to.

So salty...

[onemorexmr]

why dont you respect his opinion then and just stop posting a link to his address?
its his property and he can do anything he wants here: in case you forgot