When journalists use the internet, they leave behind a data trail of personal information. But did you know that these breadcrumbs can be pieced together to reveal confidential information, such as passwords, addresses and contact information?
This is especially dangerous territory for journalists who have received abuse and harassment from this practice, known as doxxing. But by 'doxxing' yourself first, you can contain and retract sensitive online information before it lands in the wrong hands.
New York Times security experts Kristen Kozinski and Neena Kapur rounded up a variety of self-doxxing tips from the NICAR 2019 conference, published on GIJN. A good place to start is by opting out of large people-aggregators.
"Create a separate, ‘burner’ email address to use for opting out. If you already have one, just use that," they write.
"Only provide sites with data they already have about you. If you see that they have an old home address, do not provide them with a current address, just provide them with the address they already have listed for verification."
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