> Which part of the statement implied "vilgilate justice."
To put my own 2 cents in:
Doxxing someone is generally considered an attack, at least in some internet circles. It's pretty vigilante if you ask me, especially when we've seen some pretty striking examples of doxxing gone wrong in the past.
It's absolutely an attack, but it's an "attack" of a kind that is acting to end misuse and widespread tampering. It's difficult to imagine a coherent ethical system that gives the author of malicious software an expectation of privacy as they attack other people, violating similar rights.
I'm fine sharing with law enforcement, but sharing with other service providers seems to be a slippery slope. I imagine a dev losing access to their github account because they used a shitty password on their npm account and got compromised. That would suck.
I'd much rather we invent a better UI for dealing with software dependencies, but alas.
The problem does not lie in attacking bad people, the problem is that there is a high risk that you THINK you've identified who the bad actor is but actually the person you decide to "retaliate" against had nothing to do with what was done to you. That's why we leave law enforcement to the law enforcement officials and justice to the justice system. Even they make a lot of mistakes but at least there is a process that gives a chance for the truth to be found.
But sharing info about a suspect with law enforcement is what you should do yes.
It's unfortunate that so many people don't know what the word means, because now we're redefining the word to a very specific and malicious definition that makes communication about nuances around the intersection of rights here more difficult.
> there is a high risk that you THINK you've identified who the bad actor is but actually the person you decide to "retaliate" against had nothing to do with what was done to you.
I mean, you'll know their IP address, login, email, ISP and whatnot at a minimum. If the target is a comprimised computer, notifying them is the bare minimum you should do. So I'm sort of confused what kind of final consequence you're imagining here.
I think folks just see the word "doxxing" and their pattern matching misfires.
Or maybe you're trying to weasel out of what you said and are now going for broke.
Linking once again to define words, we go to Wikipedia[0]:
> Doxing is the Internet-based practice of researching and broadcasting private or identifiable information
> Doxing may be carried out for various reasons, including to aid law enforcement, business analysis, extortion, coercion, harassment, online shaming, AND VIGILANTE JUSTICE.
(Emphasis mine)
I can see this is going to be a constructive dialogue. If I had wanted to "weasel" I would have deleted the post last night when it passed under the negative point threshold.
I have absolutely 0 moral and ethical problems with publishing any details I have on a person who is using my system to attack other users. I think in fact this is a responsible thing to do, and necessary. In this specific case, I might be careful about the timing of the disclosure to try and round up any nasty packages in other systems they might have generated.
But I'd publish it. Happily. Gleefully even. I have 0 moral or ethical obligations not to. I have a clear ethical imperative to do so.
I guess fortunately for this scammer, I don't own NPM.
I wasn't going to accuse you of being a weasel, but this is the most weasel-y thing I've ever seen.
Perhaps you can cite a history of the word, then maybe I'll trust your definition over some other.
You asked for clarification to avoid future misunderstanding and then proceed to reject our clarifications as if there's some nerd-word central authority that we're not aware of. We can't even agree on one 'x' or two.
When you're the one person in a conversation who has a totally different definition, you just might be wrong.
You're wrong. Give it up.
I've said I have 0 problems publishing their data publicly. I'm happy to own even the stronger model of doxxing you lay out. I've put a few time qualifiers on it you didn't like.
But I have no problem burning the the identity people who think they can use me or my infrastructure to defraud others. Quite the opposite.
Vilifying them online isn't reasonable. It's how you end up with harassment, death threats, swatting, people going after your job, your family, etc...
It's a really shitty thing to do.
Is a hell of a lot closer to "vigilante justice" than the version you just said. Had you made the sane posting first (or not pretended you did the second time) I wouldn't have said anything and just upvoted in agreement.
Just so I can modify my words to avoid future misunderstanding.
I can't believe it wasn't obvious, but that's the part which implies vigilante justice.
From Wikipedia[0]:
A vigilante is a civilian or organization acting in a law enforcement capacity (or in the pursuit of self-perceived justice) without legal authority.
Doxing has a very specific meaning and it directly implies taking matters into your own hands, aka vigilante.
In the case of malicious scammers, doxxing them so they can be cut off from other code repositories seems less like "vigilante justice" and more like "a public responsibility."