Hi, everyone and welcome back to Happy Hour. 歡迎回來酒館. Hi, 安瀾.

Hi, Lulu, hi, everyone.

Can I propose a topic?

Sure. Why not.

This is a very topical thing. I don't know if you've been following the social media news?

Something quite bad happened recently. So there was this, I don't know like a fanatic fan, like a really hard core fan of, I don't know, of a celebrity, and she couldn't take that some woman left a comment on her idol. So She decided to doxx this woman.

Okay.

就是人肉開盒的事件. Did you see that ?

I've heard a little bit about the story, and to be honest, I just couldn't believe it.

Yeah, there are lots of things that kind of spooked people obviously also made people outraged. So I thought instead of talking about (you know) all the social impact, let's focus on what started all of this, the idea of doxxing.

Okay.

就是人肉開盒這個詞叫做 Doxxing. Few years back, there was something called 人肉搜索。

Yeah, I remember that.

Yeah, but doxxing it seems to be something that's been talked about a lot in English as well, in English speaking context.

Well yeah, it happens a lot in English speaking countries as well. It's happened in the United Kingdom where journalists or public figures have been doxxed for their opinions or just everyday people.

Yeah, I think this particular incident in China spook to people because this woman who got doxxed, she's just an ordinary people. She's not a celebrity or anything. It's just because she is ordinary person. And if it can happen to her, it can happen to any one of us. I think this is why people get really spooked.

Well yeah.That's the whole problem. Because to be doxxed is not that difficult. If you think about how much of our personal data is online.

We’re basically all running naked online.

Pretty much.

So let's start with what is doxxing. Doxxing is actually a made up word, d-o-x-x-ing, it comes from the word docs, d-o-c-s, short for documents. Yeah. It was, I think, just a word that tech people used before, and then it just went mainstream.

Yeah. It refers to the idea of publicly sharing someone's private information online without them saying that's ok, without their concent.

就沒有經(jīng)過別人同意就給人家 “開盒” , 掛人家的信息.

So in Chinese we say掛人, usually when you think about doxxing, you think about public figures, you know like celebrities, they get doxxed because there's a reason to get doxxed, or like you said journalists, they get doxxed for their opinions.

Oh Yeah. For example, I remember a few weeks ago I was reading in the news about an American influencer in Australia who picked up a wombat and filmed it. And she was doxxed because so many people are outraged that she was going around picking up wild animals. And I think even the Australian government also started leaving comments.

I mean I'm not trying to condole this kind of behavior. I think doxxing anyone is... it should be against the law. Even though in many countries, it's not...

It is not against the law in the UK.

Yeah, because we don't have the relevant laws and regulations put in place, not yet, but at least in the example that you were given us, there is somewhat of a reason, like you kind of can understand that some person did some really bad things and then people want to release their anger, they want to doxx this person, to show who this person really is.

But what is really scary in this incident in China is this woman just made a comment, not even like a slur or anything. It didn't contain any rude words. It was just her opinion. And just because these fanatics, these die hard fans, they didn't like her opinion, didn't like the opinion from a nonfan. They doxxed her.

So why don't we look at some vocabulary related to doxxing?

So obviously, when you talk about doxxing and you think about your personal data, and this is including everything your name, address, ID number, email, phone number.

This is usually what gets doxxed, gets released, and this is definitely a privacy breach.

Yeah, so a privacy breach can happen when private information is shared without permission. It can happen accidentally in some cases or it can be due to hacking.

Yeah, I mean in this sense, it's obviously done intentionally and viciously.

Yeah, so this is what we would call cyber-harassment, so online abuse, bullying or threats.

In fact, the legislation is just not yet there in, I would say in all the countries around the world when it comes to cyber-violence, cyber-harassment.

Well, the thing is that in the UK cause I was doing a little bit of research about it before this episode, in the UK doxxing is not illegal per se; What is illegal is what it might lead to. So to make threats, to harass someone, those are illegal.

But if they're not making threats, but because they were using really, really bad language, they were really essentially verbally bullying this person, so much so that this woman or not this woman, but this person, the victim eventually develop some mental issues or even himself or herself or committed suicide, then would that be illegal?

That would be illegal. Yes. Because that was caused by harassment, and harassment is harassment, whether or not it’s done online or offline.

Now I think a lot of the perpetrators of these... behind these cyber-violence, they feel comfortable doing it because they hide behind the anonymity就是匿名性, because they feel like it's really bizarre if you think about it, it's really ironic that they think they can doxx people, but they are not going to be doxxed.

Exactly.

It's a double edged sword.

Well, the thing is that we all have an online footprint. There's so much personal data that we leave behind when using the internet that I think nowadays it's pretty much almost impossible to be completely anonymous online.

I don't think you can.

No.

Unless you are a hacker yourself like you're really, really good, you're the top one you can wipe out all of your existence online or you just go completely off grid, that you're not plugged in, not using any modern technology.

Yes.

Otherwise, no, I know a lot of people say let's protect our information. But trust me, I've talked to Brad about this. Brad is the techie techie person, and he actually majored in cyber security. And he said, no matter how much you want to protect your information, unless you're an expert in this, the way they doxx you, you won't be able to hide any of your information.

No.

I suppose that's a way of doxxing is what they call swatting. The other day I was watching SVU, they were using this word, swatting basically is 報假警.

okay.

For example, let's say you're dating someone and this person is in your home, and I call the police and say that there is prostitution going on, solicitation going on. It's absolutely false, but they will come; or I will say crime is being committed.

Yeah.that is illegal, that is making a false police report, that’s lying to the police, that is completely illegal.