[accountface]

I had to take down the website for my business and can only accept brick & mortar transactions because of trolls... but sure I guess you can win at your commenting game by claiming everything is shit.

I've been running a business with multiple locations for 10 years and I've never had a problem more serious than trolls on the internet doxxing me.

[problems]

See, this is the problem. Don't blame it on "trolls", analyze where you screwed up and how you could have defended yourself better so you know what to do next time. Then open up shop under a different alias.

If you're not vigilant about your own security and safety, no one else will do it for you. Take responsibility for your own actions.

[sp332]

This is pretty egregious victim-blaming. If someone is getting abused it is the fault of the abuser and no one else.

[problems]

You're as much a victim here as someone who downloads a tiny executable off a filesharing network and thinks it's the latest movie or game. Or falls for a Nigerian scam. These are accepted facts of the internet. We defend against them. Just as much as publishing your address or information which can be associated to it should be.

Precautions are important. You can never rid the world of evil, but you can protect yourself from it, especially trivially in this case.

[sp332]

We made Nigerian scams illegal. We defend against them partly by prosecuting them. We work hard to reduce the frequency and the impact of them. But you're not saying that we should do any of that for trolls. I don't accept that trolling is just something that necessarily happens and that we need to accept. We can hold trolls accountable and work to reduce trolling overall.

[problems]

> We made Nigerian scams illegal. We defend against them partly by prosecuting them. We work hard to reduce the frequency and the impact of them.

And guess what? They still happen. We already have the laws to attack the kind of "troll" that shows up at your door in many cases - but guess what? It still happens. Ultimately the law only gets you so far. So we must defend against them in more effective ways - like individual knowledge.

It's a lot easier and more effective to guarantee safety with online matters when you behave safely online than when you start taking risks and expect the law, the website or whatever else to deal with the consequences. That's just wishfully naive thinking.

Yes, in an absolute sense, all harm should be blamed on the abuser, I don't mean to suggest otherwise. But the prevention potential is so much higher if you can attack it at it's destination than at its source - like using a firewall on your server instead of just saying "hacking is illegal, therefore no one will hack me".

[ryandrake]

I tell my kid not to run in the street for a reason. On the Internet, you can run in the street all day, and if someone hits you, it's not your fault because "victim blaming is wrong".

[dredmorbius]

There are people who simply cannot effectively defend themselves.

They don't have the knowledge. They're visually disabled. They've got cognitive decline, for whatever reasons.

And the scams and attacks keep coming.

Generally not trolls, so much, though that can be a thing as well.

I'm not completely against there being some wild corners of the Internet (though you might want to take a look at some of danah boyd's recent writing on 4chan and /b/, and what grew from them, and why, and how), but there's a rather large part of it that really has no business being like that.

People get hurt. Money and life savings are lost.

Not everyone's a street-wise, healthy and hale 24 year old.

[mirimir]

Then you buffer them. You limit input and output to trusted family, friends and support staff.

[dredmorbius]

Try that some time and tell me how it goes.

[accountface]

Someone literally came to my house, where I live.

[problems]

Why was that information available on the internet?

That's the kind of risk you take if you make that kind of information available on the internet. Think of all the possible things someone could do with your address and assume those will be done. That's the type of precaution you should be taking.

[accountface]

My city publicly lists assessing information if you own property. Many do.

Why are you so set on blaming me for this? Do you want copies of restraining orders I had to file on the two people who came to my house?

When do you think someone should start being responsible for behaving dangerously?

[cmdrfred]

Why were you selected over any other business owner? Just seems odd you would be selected at random and then two different people would make an effort to drive out to your house "for the lols".

[accountface]

Sorry, if I go into details it'll be pretty obvious who I am. My entire point is that internet trolls aren't just some sort of harmless fun for a lot of people.

[problems]

> My city publicly lists assessing information if you own property. Many do.

People tend not to just browse city property listings for fun.

So why were they able to get to that stage - did they have your name? Why? What did you do to piss them off? Could you have done it anonymously?

[jdietrich]

Doxxing a business owner is generally very straightforward even if they take careful steps to hide their identity - there's a huge paper trail behind any real business.

If you think you can't be doxxed, you're probably just lucky.

[UncleMeat]

It is pretty hard to operate a business and not have this information be available for a sufficiently interested person.

[problems]

I do it myself. It's completely possible.

Get a PO box or pay a corporate privacy company to forward your mail.

Depends how you operate though I suppose. Unless you're running a physical business from your house you probably don't need to disclose.

[mirimir]

What did they want?