Understanding Doxing & It's Impact

The term 'Doxing' is short for 'dropping dox', 'dox' being slang for documents. Doxing (also spelt as Doxxing) is the act of revealing identifying and personal information about someone online. Such information is then circulated to the public, without the victim's permission. The term 'docs' morphed into 'dox' and eventually became a standalone verb, detached from the prefix 'drop'.

Before the widespread use of the internet, the act of exposing personal details without consent existed, but it wasn't until the 1990s that the term 'doxing' originated within online hacker communities. In this era, anonymity was highly valued. Disputes among rival hackers occasionally escalated to the point where one individual would choose to 'drop docs' on another, revealing personal information about someone previously known only by their username or alias. Initially, 'doxxing' was coined to uncover concealed online identities. However, its scope has broadened beyond the hacker