New investigations board & restrictions on posting personal information

[ndnh]

I mean
Revealing “documents or personal information” about a person, without their permission, with the intent to Threaten, Harass, Intimidate, Shame, Humiliate or Place at Risk…. is illegal in my jurisdiction.

Exactly how is an investigation falling under any of those verbs? Unless you think that this places them *at risk of jail time* (I doubt that this is what was meant by that). There is also a fair amount of sources claiming that doxxing is legal. Generally, I'm pretty sure that this is not illegal around the globe.

How is the investigation authorized? What is the explanation for making personally identifying information of the target public?

You are essentially saying that if I suspect you of stealing my money I have the complete right to search and find and make public your personal information so anyone is the world is free to do whatever they please with that and that you are not entitled to any legal protection or rights.

Where you find it is immaterial.

No, it matters a lot.

It doesn't. Google is a search engine. You cannot find any personal information on Google that you can use for doxxing.

A prime example of a quick, effective and legal dox was Jason Boyko's (the guy who ran PBMining) done by MrTeal. It would be nice to see more dox's done like that because I'm not so sure that some of the doxes here on BTCT are completely legal (and of course I know a few doxes are probably incorrect too).

If the Facebook details were not removed, it wouldn't be legal. (I am not sure that, as it is, is perfectly legal.)

[1713883416]

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[1713883416]

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[Slow death]

I mean
Revealing “documents or personal information” about a person, without their permission, with the intent to Threaten, Harass, Intimidate, Shame, Humiliate or Place at Risk…. is illegal in my jurisdiction.

Exactly how is an investigation falling under any of those verbs? Unless you think that this places them *at risk of jail time* (I doubt that this is what was meant by that). There is also a fair amount of sources claiming that doxxing is legal. Generally, I'm pretty sure that this is not illegal around the globe.

How is the investigation authorized? What is the explanation for making personally identifying information of the target public?

You are essentially saying that if I suspect you of stealing my money I have the complete right to search and find and make public your personal information so anyone is the world is free to do whatever they please with that and that you are not entitled to any legal protection or rights.

Where you find it is immaterial.

No, it matters a lot.

It doesn't. Google is a search engine. You cannot find any personal information on Google that you can use for doxxing.

A prime example of a quick, effective and legal dox was Jason Boyko's (the guy who ran PBMining) done by MrTeal. It would be nice to see more dox's done like that because I'm not so sure that some of the doxes here on BTCT are completely legal (and of course I know a few doxes are probably incorrect too).

If the Facebook details were not removed, it wouldn't be legal. (I am not sure that, as it is, is perfectly legal.)

I agree with you, in my country it is forbidden to take personal data of people and expose the forum or anywhere without permission from the owner of the data.

- moral damage. when someone offends the honor of another person in social network or blog, messages, comments, responses or otherwise.

- Crimes against honor (Libel, Slander, Libel) when you hurt another's reputation. In such cases, the authors of the offense will be subject to both criminal consequences: serving sentence ( the victim compensation) of his act.

facebook TOS

5 - Protect the rights of others

7 - If take information of users, you must: obtain their consent, make it clear that are you (and not Facebook) that is collecting the information and publish a privacy policy explaining you collect information and how you will use them

take personal data from people without their consent is a crime.
I think that expose personal data of anyone here in the forum without their consent is a crime.

[Quickseller]

Do you think this would meet this criteria (also this thread should probably be moved)? Would this ("...go away or I post your dox...")?

I don't know enough about those cases to say. If you think so, create a new topic in Meta with your reasoning.

I will tomorrow.

I would argue that this probably meets the criteria for an exception -- this guy has scammed many people for a large total amount over a very long time.

For now, I'm thinking that maybe the whole idea of publishing dox should be reexamined. What does it really gain? If people are going to use the dox to illegally harass this person, then that's not a good result. If people are using the information for legal cases and police reports, then that is good, but I think that in most cases this can be done from the non-public Investigations board.

The thing is that the Investigations board is really public, as all you need to do in order to access it is be around for two months, and make enough posts. In theory, this information could even be mirrored by the websites that pull content from here for ads. It is also possible that a new user might be asked to mail cash to "John Smith at 123 Main St." after this person has already been dox'ed, but would have no way of knowing this is a bad idea.

It is not so much that publishing a dox accomplishes a whole lot, but more the fact that the threat of a dox can potentially accomplish a lot. A good example of this is the master-p case, in which master-p was threatened with his dox being released if he did not refund all the money he stole from several people. master-p ended up refunding about 1/2 of what he stole and had his dox released.

If a dox is accurate (and the person is actually, and is released publicly (including being accessible via search engines), then it can make it more difficult for a scammer to engage in transactions that require his trust, make it more difficult for him to gain employment, and can potentially aid police in deciding to investigate a crime. A note on the last example -- say for example, someone steals a lot of money from someone, they get dox'ed, but no police report is filed, then this person turns around and scams someone on LBC, again gets dox'ed but this time a police report is filed; if the police question the scammer, who denies scamming anyone, then the decision to continue an investigation might hinge on if the police can find any evidence that this person has committed any similar crimes in the past.

On the other hand, if a dox is inaccurate and/or if the person is not actually a scammer, then all of the above could happen, but to an innocent person. For the most part, there will be no appeals process, and once information is published, it is published forever (even if it is published in the investigations section as it is setup now).

I am not sure if the potential negative consequences outweigh the benefits of allowing the publishing of dox's. I think a good compromise would be that anyone who publishes a dox should be forced to "show their work" in a sense that they should be able to prove that they got their information from public sources.

Another issue is the potential for illegal harassment of anyone who is dox'ed. I think the risk of this happening is there regardless of if dox's are available to only "members and up" or if they are searchable via google and other search engines.

On a case-by-case basis, I'd like to see a utilitarian argument in Meta about exactly what is gained by publishing specific bits of uncovered info. For example, maybe there is significant utility in publishing this person's name and general location, to warn others, but not his full address.

There is a case that a full dox should be released, even information about friends and relatives. If someone wishes to sue someone, they will need to serve them, and friends/relatives can potentially be used for skip-tracing purposes. A similar argument can be used if someone wishes to attempt to collect on a debt via means that are legal under the FDCPA (or other local equivalent), which allows for a debt collector to contact relatives of a debtor for the purposes of determining the debtor's contact information. 

[ndnh]

From time to time there may be cases where it is very desirable to publish some results of an investigation. For example, if a class action lawsuit is filed, then the person's username should probably at least be publicly linked to the legal case so that other people can join in. For now, there is no uniform policy for this, and if you need to make some personal info public, post in Meta and we will deal with it on a case-by-case basis.

For now, I'm thinking that maybe the whole idea of publishing dox should be reexamined. What does it really gain? If people are going to use the dox to illegally harass this person, then that's not a good result. If people are using the information for legal cases and police reports, then that is good, but I think that in most cases this can be done from the non-public Investigations board.

On a case-by-case basis, I'd like to see a utilitarian argument in Meta about exactly what is gained by publishing specific bits of uncovered info. For example, maybe there is significant utility in publishing this person's name and general location, to warn others, but not his full address. Another thing which must be addressed is how we can be sure that the person being doxxed is the person who did the scamming, and that they are actually guilty of the scamming.

+1. I think this discuss on Meta before posting personal info will eventually work out.

For now, I'm thinking that maybe the whole idea of publishing dox should be reexamined. What does it really gain? If people are going to use the dox to illegally harass this person, then that's not a good result. If people are using the information for legal cases and police reports, then that is good, but I think that in most cases this can be done from the non-public Investigations board.

The thing is that the Investigations board is really public, as all you need to do in order to access it is be around for two months, and make enough posts.

Another issue is the potential for illegal harassment of anyone who is dox'ed. I think the risk of this happening is there regardless of if dox's are available to only "members and up" or if they are searchable via google and other search engines.

I agree.

Well must say this is a good step.
1. You cannot find a doxx on bitcointalk using search engines.
2. You cannot find it if you are not logged in.
3. You cannot just register an account to view it.

Would be great if it will be made better.

I am not sure if the potential negative consequences outweigh the benefits of allowing the publishing of dox's.

I believe the negative consequences win. Discussions can be done in private.

I think a good compromise would be that anyone who publishes a dox should be forced to "show their work" in a sense that they should be able to prove that they got their information from public sources.

How? (He could refuse. He could use a shill.)

[ColderThanIce]

A prime example of a quick, effective and legal dox was Jason Boyko's (the guy who ran PBMining) done by MrTeal. It would be nice to see more dox's done like that because I'm not so sure that some of the doxes here on BTCT are completely legal (and of course I know a few doxes are probably incorrect too).

If the Facebook details were not removed, it wouldn't be legal. (I am not sure that, as it is, is perfectly legal.)

I think that publishing his Facebook info was still legal. All one needed to do was create a free Facebook account and they could've seen the exact same thing as MrTeal did, so I'd consider that public information.

I think a good compromise would be that anyone who publishes a dox should be forced to "show their work" in a sense that they should be able to prove that they got their information from public sources.

How? (He could refuse. He could use a shill.)

Well one way to handle that would be to remove doxes posted without a public information trail.

[Your Point Is Invalid]

A prime example of a quick, effective and legal dox was Jason Boyko's (the guy who ran PBMining) done by MrTeal. It would be nice to see more dox's done like that because I'm not so sure that some of the doxes here on BTCT are completely legal (and of course I know a few doxes are probably incorrect too).

If the Facebook details were not removed, it wouldn't be legal. (I am not sure that, as it is, is perfectly legal.)

It is against facebook's TOS to take a user's data without making it clear to the user that you are doing so. hence illegal

[Lutpin]

It is against facebook's TOS to take a user's data without making it clear to the user that you are doing so. hence illegal

The forum doesn't enforce 3rd party TOS, else we would not see the MSDN resellers day after day trying to make a quick buck on costs of Microsoft.
(I'm not saying you should use data gathered from facebook in doxes, but rather that the forum doesn't care whether or not gathering those data is against any TOS.)

[dogie]

I think a good compromise would be that anyone who publishes a dox should be forced to "show their work" in a sense that they should be able to prove that they got their information from public sources.

How? (He could refuse. He could use a shill.)

Well one way to handle that would be to remove doxes posted without a public information trail.

The public information trail can be falsified by posting the evidence elsewhere then claiming it belongs to someone else. Happens all the time in copyright instances.

[boki15]

Oh, does my signature cause this discussion? Until now, nobody asked me to change it. Moderation and Administration should be aware about the issue.

Does anybody ask me to remove my signature?

I appreciate if we clean this up.

EDIT:
There is ton of deleted post, I can upload it if someone needs to verify. How do you explain double standards by moderation? Another moderator was involved in opening thread spreading lies about me. In my case, moderation was clearly following double standards, in meta they could not do the same, in altcoin section they still did. Why do you support calling people bitches in their signature? Lets review this case to understand why and how moderation is involved here.

@theymos
I wrote you PM, you never replied. Mprep only answers that either I am dumb, trolling or complaining about my language skills:


There are maybe 2-3 PMs, the rest deleted, from ION thread


Best on all this, mprep and suchmoon never complained about doxxes and never wanted to check if someone is using my name, simple sms or a call would be a proof. But what happened in real? Maybe moderation can explain all the reasons of deleting my posts and keeping doxxes, calling people bitches, intimidation, spreading lies, starting giveaways in another altcoin then the xpy giveaway in ion thread without any permission (payout in btc ), harrasing bitcointalk members, ..... @theymos, why do you support it?

I believe doxxing is illegal?

No, it is not. A DOX is (usually) a collection of publicly available information.

If someone has dox in their signature do we report one post or all posts and how will moderators deal with that?

Usually when we are talking about a multiple of posts (for whatever reason), reporting a singular one is going to be enough if the report is properly written.

Who is responsible? Person posting, servers providing this information or the owner of the place where doxx happens?

In my case, it is currently about identity theft and is clearly forbidden by the law in the state of the accused person:
https://oag.ca.gov/idtheft

What if doxxing is used as identity theft for intimidation purpose, speaking in someone's name in harming its reputation and so on. How do you explain these actions backed up by moderation? Everybody involved clearly knows it is me but still using my name and still not banned.

You can't apply any rule on a forum where your staff does not follow any rules, not one! Whoe's fault is it?

BTW, moderation answers that if doxxing is by itself criminal act then authorities should be contacted. Why are all other posts removed, but not obvious identity theft+doxx+calling another real world people bitches. Please comment on this, you can find all links in my signature.

As moderation clearly does not see any reason to remove this other posts which do complain with suggested rule of the OP, I ask again in public, if this is allowed, what do you want to forbid ?:

obvious identity theft+doxx+connect another real world people (2nd doxx if you want to define, plus harrming its reputation) (in my case calling this person a bitch).

I see in this thread suchmoon, who still tries to play police in applying a rule and showing up as helpfull. Suchmoon knows about the doxx, not reporting on it, supporting it in all. Supporting it and posing here around about rules, come on , this is not serious, such people should be banned, especially because they play fool game with moderation and administration.

[ndnh]

A prime example of a quick, effective and legal dox was Jason Boyko's (the guy who ran PBMining) done by MrTeal. It would be nice to see more dox's done like that because I'm not so sure that some of the doxes here on BTCT are completely legal (and of course I know a few doxes are probably incorrect too).

If the Facebook details were not removed, it wouldn't be legal. (I am not sure that, as it is, is perfectly legal.)

I think that publishing his Facebook info was still legal. All one needed to do was create a free Facebook account and they could've seen the exact same thing as MrTeal did, so I'd consider that public information.

The link between whatever (say, a bitcointalk account) and his/her RL Facebook account is not public information.

Legally, his facebook account and any personal information contained therein is none of your business.

I think a good compromise would be that anyone who publishes a dox should be forced to "show their work" in a sense that they should be able to prove that they got their information from public sources.

How? (He could refuse. He could use a shill.)

Well one way to handle that would be to remove doxes posted without a public information trail.

Good point.

obvious identity theft+doxx+connect another real world people (2nd doxx if you want to define, plus harrming its reputation) (in my case calling this person a bitch).

You are suggesting this person is impersonating you, misusing your identity and should be banned? Or that all doxxing should be made against the rules and deleted? Or both?

The last part ( calling this person a bitch) is probably tolerated here.

May be he left bitcointalk?

Does anybody ask me to remove my signature?

Sure, why not?

[Daisy14]

I like the step taken by Theymos.

It will prevent paranoid users from spraying negative trusts on their perceived enemies.
 

[TECSHARE]

Funny how all the rules around here seem to change when it effects staff directly. You need to ask permission from mommy and daddy to make certain types of posts now, only older accounts can ever do so, and posts that are deemed "acceptable" are widely open to selective interpretation. What could go wrong with that? Of course there is never any conflict of interest around here is there? Funny how the people who claim to be "anarcho-capitalist" the most are usually just budding totalitarians.

[unamis76]

So when newbies (or juniors) post stuff that would go into the Investiation board, what's the right move for that?

It has to be moved to Investigations. Unfortunately, there's no way that I can easily make the forum allow them to see just their own thread, which would be ideal. I guess they'll have to work through a Member+ mediator. It might be helpful if some people would volunteer to act as mediators in these cases, and then I could list them in a sticky.

I am available for such duties, whenever I can be online, if volunteers are needed.

Lol, this is stupid, If you think people wont use this new section as a weapon then you are out of your mind theymos

I assume these posts will be dealt with accordingly.

[boki15]

@suchmoon
exlpain your actions and shitting around and mainly the reason why you and your gangbang users should be members on this forum. You should be banned, especially if you are silent. You though it is funny to threat people with the shit like you did and the result that you got is making clear who is who and showing who does what. If you threat everybody like a piece of shit, it will catch you sooner or later. You know it, but you ignore it, authorities are slow but dont be in illusion that they dont investigate your identity theft and support of it.

Explain here everything and why you should not be banned from this forum, I request your ban for all rules that you broke, last one was to make a giveaway.

As last, after you trolls tried to intimidate me by posting data from stolen documents , well it is another point why authorities are maybe interested in you, what you do and who supports you.

@theymos
can you reply in public and discuss about it in public?


And yeah, after real data of suchmoon is public, now you care about signatures because all shutting up methods failed, like removing ontopic post? I really want to get this answered by cyrus, mprep and theymos.

[suchmoon]

There is a bit of a problem with some of the threads that get moved. While the thread itself ends up in Investigations the title remains where it originally was and it may contain part of the dox (e.g. person's name) and is probably googleable.

For example: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1589476.0

[theymos]

There is a bit of a problem with some of the threads that get moved. While the thread itself ends up in Investigations the title remains where it originally was and it may contain part of the dox (e.g. person's name) and is probably googleable.

For example: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1589476.0

Mods can choose to not leave a MOVED post when moving topics. If you see that a mod has accidentally left one which contains personal info in the title, please report it. I deleted that one.

[boki15]

There is a bit of a problem with some of the threads that get moved. While the thread itself ends up in Investigations the title remains where it originally was and it may contain part of the dox (e.g. person's name) and is probably googleable.

For example: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1589476.0

Answer now, why did you and your friends use my name? Why did you use stolen documents? Before you answer that you are lame sheep not knowing anything, then you must add the reason why didn't you report on this user and why didn't you bring theymos to start this topic when you used my name for your dirty agenda?

@theymos
You say investigation thread, lets investigate here, or how many times do I have to report?

[boki15]

@theymos
as long as investigation goes on, you deleted my signature where you meant I only changed the name.

Can you define how else is this forbidden. Ie. if I link a screenshot which is available on the internet instead of direct linking to the facebook. In this case it is legal as long as someone legally hosts this data (pic).

Please define it. The same would be for linking text or any other source of information. After all, if you decide that all forms of links should be deleted, what will you do with h++p:// urls or even blockchain data. I can't imagine that posting bitcoins txid's on bitcointalk would ever happen to become forbidden, which already means I could upload anything that I want to the blockchain and add it as signature.

Explain me sophisticated degree of this rule. Like, how intelligent can a dox be/is allowed to be? Who decides how sophisticated is it, like placing data into blockchain or even send data over sattelites? I think you must define this too.

Please explain me, what is forbidden and what is not forbidden if it is impossible to keep on this rule, especially without disabling forum functions like linking. Does this mean you suggest linkless forum?

You deleted whole signature which actually shows indirectly pretty same message as this:
BITCOINTALK STAFF SELECTIVELY ENFORCE THE RULES IN AN ATTEMPT TO CREATE A CHILL EFFECT AND PERMANENTLY REMOVE ME AND OTHERS FROM THIS FORUM AS RETALIATION FOR SPEAKING OUT ABOUT THEIR ABUSIVE BEHAVIOR, AND THAT OF THEIR PERSONAL CLIQUES.

This is now again double standard, I see this sentence few posts above and I am happy to see somebody but I can't explain me how you do apply rules and how you dont. In this case, there are no rules, only one rule is that there are no rules and it depends only on the interpretation of somebody who can be/have: A) has some interest on it B) plays fool C) is really dumb.

Basicly I understand this rule and your action as silencing those who you dont like and giving free pass to those who you support (very questionable support).

You ask me to report but I never get some answer on reports, I can only see the opposite. Suchmoon does not reply too, cyrus and mprep are also not replying in this thread.

I need public confirmation from you that we can talk in this thread, like publishing all data and sources, like suchmoon explaining us her involvement in this story and what kind of documents and from where did they use. I am sure this will be very, very interesting story and investigative case.

[boki15]

@theymos
Is investigation going on or is this issue ignored? If so, could you share some info?

[Quickseller]

1. Personal information must be confined to the new "investigations" board [...] Personal information is defined as anything which links a user's online identity (username, email, etc.) to their meatspace identity

I had a thread of mine moved to investigations that did not meet the above criteria because no references to any online identity were made in the thread.

Does this mean that no IRL identities can be posted outside of investigations? If this is not the case, then can theymos provide some clarification about what can be posted outside of investigations?

Please advise.