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Everything you always wanted to know about revealing some formerly anonymous person's identity on the Internet (but were afraid to ask)

Today, as it made its return as a print publication, Newsweek published a blockbuster story: It unveiled the identity of the founder of Bitcoin.

This was a big deal. That founder, after all, had long been an enigma. It's been—in nerdier circles—something of a parlor game to speculate about who he or she might be. The writers of the show The Good Wife even adopted the mystery for several episodes' plot lines. In her Newsweek story, the writer Leah McGrath Goodman—via sleuthing largely conducted through searches of public records—revealed the Bitcoin founder's name. And his home address. 

One might say (and, today, many have been saying) that ... she doxed him. Goodman, for her story, sought out personal information about an anonymous Internet character. She used that information to determine that character's extra-Internet identity. She then publicized that character's extra-Internet identity. On the Internet.

"Dox" generally has a negative connotation—not only because it's seen to violate someone's privacy, but also because it's often used as a kind of retaliation mechanism in online discussions. 

A word on the etymology

"Doxing" derives—according to Know Your Meme, which knows of such things—from the word "docs." It refers to the fact that, often, it is documents (public or not) that lead to a formerly anonymous person's identity being revealed. 

The term was first used (again, according to Know Your Meme) by early computer hackers as a simple shorthand of the word "documents." In the 1990s, on the discussion board Usenet, people began the practice of posting fellow users' personal information—PI, they called it, because Usenet—as a retaliation mechanism during arguments. (So, if I were sockpuppet2014 on Usenet, and you got mad at me for some reason ... you might reveal to everyone that sockpuppet2014 is, IRL, Megan Garber. You jerk.) 

The joining of these two things—the term "dox" applied to identity-revelation—seems to date back to the mid-2000s. And the term had become popularized and widely understood—in the geek world, at least—by the late 2000s. In 2008, the term got an entry—"personal information about people on the Internet"—on Urban Dictionary. In 2011, it was added to Wikitionary. That same year also saw the launch of Doxbin, a TOR site that hosts files containing personal information "on specific people as well as groups of people." Around the same time, the hacker collective Anonymous had adopted doxing as a "harassment tactic." 

A word on the history

Doxing, as a practice, has sometimes carried legal implications. In 1999, a Seattle court found Scott Abraham, the owner of the Usenet newsgroup rec.skiing.alpine, guilty of sharing personal information about other posters. He  was banned from the group.

Usually, though, doxing is simply considered—by the techies who use the term—extremely bad form. Late last year, a Buzzfeed reporter tried to dox @darth, mystery Photoshopper and general spreader of Internet delights. A severe backlash ensued. On the Internet, many believe, if you have taken pains to maintain your anonymity ... that anonymity is sacred. 

A word on the controversy

This brings us to one of the most interesting things about "doxing," though: the total variation in how people understand its meaning. For journalists, after all, the practices that might be labeled 'doxing' are generally seen as a good thing. At journalism's core, it's making previously unknown information public. It's taking a secret and making that secret public. It can be the stuff of long-form narrative, the stuff that wins you Pulitzers.

Bailey Reutzel, a 26-year-old business journalist, quit her job to find out how some Americans are living independently of a financial system that’s failed them.

The U.S. is a composite of countless economies: The one experienced by the homeless population camped out under the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago will necessarily differ from the economy occupied by Millennials embarking on guerilla farming projects in Cleveland, who in turn might not recognize the system inhabited by the Bitcoin believers of libertarian New Hampshire. And a lone bicyclist who’s sold all his belongings to head west may live in a makeshift market of his own.

These are just a few of the people and subcultures documented in Moneytripping, a blog by 26-year-old financial journalist Bailey Reutzel. Reutzel, a former co-worker of mine, decided this summer to quit her job and drive across the country interviewing people about how they are making do (or not) in post-Financial-Crisis America.

In my admittedly biased opinion, Moneytripping serves as a missing supplement to mainstream economic reporting. Too often, stories are focused on drawing a broad conclusion about the way the American economy is changing—either the problem is Amazon’s impossibly demanding, performance metrics-obsessed workplace culture, or the trouble lies with services like Uber and AirBnB that are replacing steady jobs and predictable hours.

While the issues identified in these narratives are real, it’s also important to stay attuned to the differences in the way people live and work. Moneytripping puts a spotlight on the strange, idealistic, and unruly individuals and groups who are forging their own systems of value and exchange. It’s important to hear diverse stories about how smaller segments of the U.S. population are operating outside the financial mainstream so we can imagine broader alternatives to a system that’s failing so many.

Reutzel plans to roll through 48 states in five months, spending at least three days in each place she visits. So far she’s has written about the mixed effects of The Heidelberg Project, a collection of polka-dotted houses and makeshift art installations that attracts hordes of tourists to an East Detroit neighborhood. Another post observes the class divide between affluent Lollapalooza revelers and the homeless population they hardly register. And she’s also interviewed the last few residents of a Pennsylvania coal town seized by the government in 1992 under eminent domain.

I spoke with Bailey during her stopover in Portland, Maine—the ninth state she’s visited since starting her journey in August—to talk about the people she’s met on the open road. The interview that follows has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Bailey Reutzel: My initial idea was to write about money and how people in different cultures and demographics think about it. But as I’ve gone along, the project is changing to a focus on political economics. I’m looking at how different cultures move money and interact with economics and the financial system.

Todd: Your introductory post on Moneytripping says you’re looking for stories about what journalist Paul Mason calls the post-capitalism movement in the U.S.—people using local currencies, time banks, cooperatives, and other systems that subvert mainstream financial tools. What examples have you run into so far?

Reutzel: I was just up in New Hampshire, which is big on libertarian ideas. One guy I met is a professor in mathematics who’s into Bitcoin and tutors people as a side gig. When we were at a Bitcoin meet-up, the server offered to take care of the professor’s $30 bill in exchange for his next tutoring session.

​Todd: Bartering in action. Do you think there’s a bigger cultural shift underway toward these kinds of systems?

Reutzel: I think local currencies are still an outlier. But in terms of cooperatives, I think that’s definitely a part of the economy that will continue to grow. The biggest question of the next decade is going to be what goes global and what stays local. I think more people are going to be willing to choose local even if that means they have to pay more—especially if they know the disadvantages of buying things on the cheap from large corporations.

​Todd: What has surprised you about the places you’ve visited so far?

Reutzel: Cleveland and Pittsburgh were surprising in the best way. Since manufacturing jobs disappeared, Rust Belt cities have been trying to reinvent themselves, and they both have great arts scenes and downtowns. It’s good to see that cities can be adaptable. And the people too—they’re chameleon-like, bouncing around from job to job, and also pursuing big ideas like opening their own businesses.

Everyone loves pizza. Even e-criminals. A group of anonymous extortionists have targeted small, local pizza joints.

Everyone loves pizza. Even e-criminals. A group of anonymous extortionists have targeted small, local pizza joints, threatening to post bad reviews on Yelp, file Better Business Bureau complaints, and even report fake violent crimes and drug activity on the premises. But they have given the pizza owners a chance to avoid this fate. The pizza owners have to hand over exactly one Bitcoin. 

Several pizza parlors, like 900 Degrees Neapolitan Pizzeria in New Hampshire, have reportedly received these letters in recent days: 

The local pizza joint owner posted the picture on the company's Facebook, captioning it: "This is a new one on me, you guys. Ps. What the heck is a BitCoin??" GRPD Pizza and Delivery in Michigan received the same letter, as did Pizza Pirates in California. One Bitcoin is about $600, but if they don't pay by August 15, the amount goes up to 3 Bitcoin. 

These criminals might be creative, but they may not have thought this one through. The letters were sent through the U.S. Postal Service, and it looks like they went out to pizza places all around the country. This means they can be charged with federal crimes and government can use their resources to track the extortionists through the USPS system. 

This isn't the first time e-criminals have tried

This isn't the first time e-criminals have tried to use pizza for evil. Earlier this month, a hacker tried to hold the toppings preferences of Domino's customers in Europe for ransom.

The Bitcoins went up for auction on June 27th, and while one winner was determined and notified later that day, their identity was not revealed to the public.

Last year, the government shut down the Silk Road, an online drug market, and seized 29,656 Bitcoins in the process. The Bitcoins went up for auction on June 27, and while one winner was determined and notified later that day, their identity was not revealed to the public. Many participants in the auction came forward to admit they did not win, but now the winner has come forward, using an appropriate forum for a e-currency specialist: a Medium post.

The winner was Tim Draper, a successful venture capitalist who invested in Skype, Hotmail, Tesla, Baidu, Theranos, Athenahealth, Solar City, and Box. He partnered with Vaurum, a Bitcoin exchange, for the auction. 

Draper gave this statement explaining his motives:

Bitcoin frees people from trying to operate in a modern market economy with weak currencies. With the help of Vaurum and this newly purchased bitcoin, we expect to be able to create new services that can provide liquidity and confidence to markets that have been hamstrung by weak currencies.

Of course, no one is totally secure in holding their own country’s currency. We want to enable people to hold and trade bitcoin to secure themselves against weakening currencies.”

Vaurum plans to use almost 30,000 Bitcoin won as a liquidity source. While they did announce their win, neither Draper nor Vaurum have disclosed the final selling price.

Did a Trojan horse program steal $500,000 worth of Bitcoins?

Everybody's been wondering who hacked Bitcoin investor Allinvain's digital wallet and lifted nearly half a million dollars' worth of the virtual currency this week. A recent discovery by a poster on the Symantec forums recently found out that it might actually not be a who, but a what. According to some source code discovered on an underground forum, a type of malware known as a Trojan horse scans for and steals digital wallet files off of unsuspecting computers. Hackers build and run similar programs to steal credit card numbers stored on hard drives, except stealing Bitcoins is much more lucrative because, like cash, once the wallet is missing, the money is gone for good.

This is essentially what happened to Allinvain earlier this week. As a virtual currency, Bitcoin units are nothing more than pieces of unique code with a monetary value attached to them. Here's a thorough explainer on how Bitcoin all works from The Economist or this animation also does the trick:

Cash money is basically the same thing--a unique code printed on a piece of paper with a certain value guaranteed by the government. However, a major difference is that Bitcoin is not issued by any central bank and, decentralized as such, is inherently anonymous. This is great for programs like a Trojan. On the internet, nobody knows you're a chunk of malicious code.

So when Allinvain left his digital wallet, full of his virtual bills sitting unprotected on his computer's hard drive, it was the geek's equivalent to leaving a stack of Benjamins in a shoebox under a bed. In this case, the Trojan code--Infostealer.Coinbit--sniffs for a Bitcoin digital wallet file on unprotected Windows computers, and if found, emails the file to the hacker by way of a server in Poland. The anonymous theft of an anonymous currency is nearly impossible to track. Hackers have been doing this with credit cards for years, but the identities and institutions involved provide some protection. As Wired points out, Bitcoin-hungry malware is becoming more and more prevalent since the virtual currency stepped into the geek mainstream back in April.

If this all seems kind of irrelevant, it shouldn't. Even if you don't own a single Bitcoin worth of virtual currency, the use of Trojan-type malware for stealing credit cards is becoming increasingly sophisticated. NPR reported Friday that there are now underground markets for hackers to buy and sell credit card information of unknowing consumers. (That's not to be confused with the underground market to buy and sell drugs using Bitcoin.) And as hackers build Bitcoin into their routine, we're likely to see a lot more thefts of all kinds.