Doxed quite irresponsibly, IMO. We don't need pictures of his house, or his license plate.
Goodman likely put this guy and his family in danger.
Extremely irresponsible, to the point where Newsweek could be held accountable for anything that happens to this man or his family. How did his home, license plate serve this story? I'll admit that it's interesting to know his background and what he studied and the beliefs he holds that led him to create bitcoin, but those things could still largely preserve his anonymity. This makes him sound pretty bad-ass: Descended from Samurai and the son of a Buddhist priest
At a time when people involved in Bitcoin are turning up dead, I wonder whether the journalist gave any thought to this before telling us his identity, where he lives, what his car looks like and the names of all his family. This could have been done more carefully.
I haven't kept up with the latest news - sources on people being involved with Bitcoin being dead?
I was thinking of this: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/06/uk-bitcoin-death-idUKBREA250H120140306 There doesn't seem to be evidence of anything other than suicide, though some people are asking questions given all the funny business around Bitcoin these days.
I'm sure those people heavily involved in the world's first viable alternative to nationalized currencies have nothing to worry about. I mean it's not like all the madmen with whole black ops armies at their disposal are heavily invested in controlling the world's currencies! .....wait....
TIL "doxed" is the past tense of a verb meaning "document exposure". In other words, the journalist did the due diligence of researching all possible document trails... then showed too much work. I've heard too many people use this term today (at Reddit, here, even at the LA Times) as if it were common parlance. I'd never heard it until this morning. If it weren't for the Urban Dictionary, I'd think everyone made it up today. 23-mofo-skidoo, a'ight?
Dude, been a part of my life for about five years now. "Dox" is a shortening of "drop dox" is a shortening of "dropping documents" is the Internet's rediscovery of the Muslim tradition of shabnameh whereby the anonymous intimidate the named. The most effective and haunting recent use has been by the Taliban in Afghanistan: you'll wake up one morning and there will be an unsigned letter stating "we know you're sending your daughter to school. Just remember - someday the Americans will leave and the Taliban will still be here." The usage here is of debatable correctness - doxing is really only effective against a private individual by anonymous individuals. Adrian Chen didn't "dox" violentacrez, he divulged a pseudonymous person's name. In this case, Goodman has done the same to Nakamoto. "dropping dox" is the act of providing the nameless horde the name, address, phone number, school, parents' address, myspace, facebook, linkedin, etc. of the doxed target. If I understand correctly, Goodman did provide Nakamoto's photobucket alias and did take a screengrab from Google Streetview; had those been accompanied by an address it'd be a lot clearer. But then we run into "expectation of privacy" and "public figure." Now we're in the belly of the beast - Reddit had to get a legal opinion before they decided what to do about Gawker and violentacrez and while they didn't share it with us default mods, based on what they said I can hypothesize as to their outcome: - you are a public figure if you regularly engage in deliberate publicity. Movie stars, authors, politicians, etc are public figures. - you are not a public figure if you have not voluntarily participated in anything that would reasonably infringe on your publicity. Natalee Holloway would not be a public figure. George Zimmerman was not a public figure when he shot Trayvon Martin - but as soon as he started making public appearances to defray his legal costs, he bacame one. - you are a limited use public figure if you do something in your private life that can reasonably be expected to bring about publicity, regardless of whether or not it is desired. Maximo Caminero went from being a private figure to being a limited use public figure when he busted Ai Weiwei's vase. ...and the Reddit admins got a legal opinion that stated Reddit moderators are limited use public figures simply for being Reddit moderators. So a whole bunch of us stopped moderating. That's a guess. An educated but unfounded guess. The Internet makes things tricky. "doxing" is a new thing but you'll be seeing a lot more of it. Anonymity is already a weapon and identity is already a weekness - We still hear about Anonymous because they're good at it. Lulzsec is a distant memory because they sucked at it. If you haven't dealt with doxing yet, that means you've been leading a peaceful, sheltered life and good on ya. Me? Somebody tries every couple months. Satoshi Nakamoto isn't even a "limited use" public figure. He voluntarily put his name on something that has been in the headlines for a year now. Any expectation of privacy he may have had went away the minute he made that decision. He's eligible for Star Tours now. People can photograph him on public beaches. A Google Streetview of his house? Don't disclose the address and you're golden.
This sounds like you get stalked or death threats. What do you do that could make you such a candidate? I've had a couple stalkers. I have not had my residential particulars or other data distributed. Heck, sometimes I wonder whether old friends have forgotten me because they never say hi but my cell number hasn't changed in eleven years.If you haven't dealt with doxing yet, that means you've been leading a peaceful, sheltered life and good on ya. Me? Somebody tries every couple months.
A crowd ostensibly dedicated to rational inquiry and evidence-based conclusions upvotes a threat on the life of a person with whom they may disagree; one wonders if the irony was lost on all of them. I suspect it was, given that there's no scientific proof that irony exists in the first place.
Perhaps I'm just dense, but what's the concern with respect to moderating with being a "limited use public figure?" Does this effectively mean that you have no personal privacy expectations when it comes to your duties as a moderator? Or at least no expectations from the perspective of Reddit the corporation? Thanks for the insight - very interesting. I'm a Reddit user but didn't realize so much "business" went on behind the scenes.
Got it in one. There's a gay moderator living under Sharia law. As a "limited use public figure" there's nothing preventing Adrien Chen from publishing "Bruce bin Saleh bin Swish, much hated mod of /r/technology who keeps banning my articles, lives in Tehran with his mother who doesn't know he has teh buttsecks. Special note to the mullahs in our audience - yes, that is a capital offense."Does this effectively mean that you have no personal privacy expectations when it comes to your duties as a moderator?
Ironically, I'm ignorant of the abbreviation (I assume) "TIL" with which you preceded the unknown word (the ignorance of which I also shared till you enlightened me). Anyone care to enlighten me? I realize the google-matrolomatron is standing at the ready to serve up facts, but interweb mined facts lack sensory and human context. They smell like nothing. They resonate of no one and remind of no conversation. Pretty please?
This post on HN that suggests a Satoshi transaction might make things interesting.
As someone on the outside, it seems like there's some sort of arms race with journalists. In this case, if she hadn't doxed him, some other journalist would have and then they'd have (supposedly) gotten more views. At least this is what the mentality looks like to me, an outsider. Anyway, it's hard to tell what Nakamoto's motives really are, but if he's just concerned about his privacy (as he seems to be trying to communicate) there are so many better ways to have gone about that.
Action on his part, or McGrath Goodman's? Yeah, I echo the sentiments made thus far by yourself and thenewgreen. Really hope this doesn't end poorly... :(...if he's just concerned about his privacy (as he seems to be trying to communicate) there are so many better ways to have gone about that.
True. I imagine that he didn't really expect this to take off like it did, but since he's such a hermit with an oath of silence, we're limited largely to conjecture.
Here's the thing: He picked pretty much the worst pseudonym imaginable if he actually wanted privacy. Considering he's got a unit of currency named after him, he's a public figure. There's no judge on the planet that would accuse you of invading the privacy of a man named Satoshi Nakamoto. Any number of journalists did stories on guys named "el Nino" during a particularly bad winter; the fact that this particular Satoshi Nakamoto turns out to be, well, Satoshi Nakamoto just makes it that much less of an invasion.
I agree that's there's nothing fundamentally wrong (or illegal) with finding out who he is. He started something big, and had to expect the possibility. However, she didn't need to include shots of the house and his license plate. I don't think it added anything in a journalistic sense, and it does increase his personal risk.
I don't like the government, but still use the library. My point is libertarians are (typically) much more committed when it comes to principles. It's one thing for a libertarian to use public roads - he has no choice if he wants to live. But voluntarily working for the government is actively supporting evil to a (real) libertarian. Unless they're attempting change from the inside, I don't expect you'd see it much. Yet Satoshi has government written all over his background. Perhaps that's why the majority (all?) of politics are made up of unprincipled people.
I understand the argument "a man's gotta eat." And it's possible he wasn't always a libertarian. But once you've subscribed to the philosophy (and I'd argue that, of all the political persuasions, except maybe anarchism, libertarians are the most grounded in principles), I can't imagine the money matters relative to making a deal with the devil.