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Doxing or Doxxing or researching the private data of an individual or an organisation, then published on the internet with the intent of malicious usage. Recently, a Tiktoker uncovered just how easy it is to accomplish.
Many people try their best to safeguard their online privacy. However, recently, a TikToker using the handle NotKahnJunior has exposed that despite the best efforts of regular people to keep their personal information hidden, it is still easy to gain access to it.
NotKahnJunior, or Kristen Sotakoun in real life, has been using the platform to make people aware of how easy it is to get people’s details, even when they claim that they have set their privacy settings to the highest.
Her TikTok series “Consensual Doxxing” went viral when she accurately got her followers’ names and birthdays using social media. According to Daysia Tolentino of NBC, “Sotakoun isn’t a data privacy expert, nor is she experienced in cybersecurity. She is a restaurant server in Chicago who loves puzzles. And that’s how she views each of her consensual doxxing subjects — as a kind of logic game.”
Sotakoun added that people might think that their profile is well-secured, but in reality, their friends may cause their downfall. Recently, she was challenged by one of her followers who asked her to check if the cyber privacy the follower was paying for was worth it.
The TikToker found the task too easy. She noted, “You tag your husband in all your TikToks, and his TikTok username is his full name and says what state he’s from on his profile. I went to your TikTok followers, and I looked at the first ten people that followed you and tried to find someone who looked like your friend. I looked them up on Facebook. Then I went to their friends list and looked up your husband’s name and found his profile, and then I found your profile because you leave heart comments on all of his pictures.”
The series was seen as an effective way to educate people regarding social media privacy, as mentioned by Casey Fiesler, an information science associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Fiesler confirmed Sotakoun’s statement that the user’s social group, whether family or friends, can be used to find information about them.
“Another common social media privacy failure: You explicitly don’t share information about yourself on one social media platform, but then you use the same username on another platform where you share more information about yourself,” Fiesler adds.
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