So here’s what I’ve learned from the last two months of getting hacked and helping friends who have gotten hacked. It’s a work in progress cause I am currently mad as hell so I will be adding to it as time goes on, but since another woman got doxxed tonight I figured it’s a start.
General Tips:
Don’t give yourself a hard time for feeling a certain way. It’s a messed up position you’ve been put in and there’s no “right” way to feel. You’re not failing if it bothers you, you’re not failing if you’re angry, you are not failing for not being “tough enough”. A lot of emotions come with these situations, and you’re totally allowed.
Document everything. I can’t say this enough. If you set up a dropbox screenshots folder, you can have a screencap automatically saved with the press of the printscreen button. For stuff longer than a screencap, use http://archive.today/ in case of deletion. It’s better to have it and not need it than not have it and need it. If you end up needing to take it to the authorities, they’re gonna wanna see this stuff, and the more you have the better. You might not know what the situation will evolve into, so be vigilant in your documentation. If it stresses you out or gets to be too much, ask a friend or loved one to help you. Similarly, if you see this happening to another person, maybe screencap it just in case. If you go to the police, they’ll want this stuff, and want it printed. It’s good to have more than less.
Don’t suffer alone. Make sure you reach out, and again, don’t judge yourself. It’s not weak to want or need help or to vent. There are so many women in the industry who understand what you’re going through and would be happy to help however they can. If you have someone in person that can look after you, all the better. They’ll remind you that what is happening to you is wrong, they will help make sure you’re taken care of, and it’s a huge huge asset.
Doxxing:
Spend the $10 to hide your whois info off of your websites ahead of time if you can. This is a very common tactic.
Pre-emptively remove yourself from Spokeo: http://ift.tt/116bLtM. Spokeo is a service that a lot of doxxers use, and even if you’ve already been doxxed you might still want to do this.
Most cell phone providers will allow you to change your number on their website.
Make your FB private. They will likely be trying to dig up whatever they can on you, real or imagined, and there’s no reason to leave stuff out there when you’re being creepily obsessed over. Make sure old posts get limited too – go to settings > privacy > limit past posts to do this.
Give other people affected a heads up & make sure they don’t give out more info. For example, in my case they spammed my former employers dating back all the way to when I was a teenager, trying to dig up more info on me. I know it can suck to have to try and explain this stuff to people, but it can keep more information from leaking out. Similarly, try to make sure people don’t freak out, and that they shouldn’t engage with these people or do anything other than hang up.
Change your security questions to something that isn’t related to your personal life. Come up with phrases that you use in place of your mother’s maiden name or your childhood best friend so someone who has your personal information can’t get into any of your accounts using these methods.
Crash with a friend if you can, in the thick of it. It’s a huge load off the mind to know that you’re safe and can handle dealing with this stuff without having to worry about someone knocking on your door. A thing a lot of people don’t understand till they’ve been there is the paranoia that comes with being doxxed for a lot of people, so make sure you’re doing things that will make you feel safer. Don’t worry about seeming like you’re overreacting, either – taking care of yourself is paramount.
Hacking:
Preemptively lock everything down: http://ift.tt/1wi81Pd Enable 2-step on everything, use a progam like 1 password or keepass to generate strong passwords, unique for every site, and store them in one location. Consider making a separate email account that you ONLY use for password recovery requests, and not revealing the account name to anyone, so in case everything gets hacked you have one clean email to send passwords to.
General stuff for any site:
If you can still login, change your password then change your recovery email.
Revoke any third party app permissions. Third party app permissions will let things be posted to your account regardless of password. This is how they were able to post stuff from my Tumblr to my Twitter when my Tumblr got hacked – it had a function that automatically blogged anything I posted on my Tumblr to my Twitter.
If you can’t login, fill out a password reset request.
If that doesn’t work, there’s usually another protocol in place per service.
Try and remember if there’s any places you have accounts for that you might have forgotten. For example, they got into a dominos.com account I had made and forgot about to try and send someone a pizza. It can be especially damaging if that account is automatically set up to charge any of your accounts.
Twitter: Contact support here if you can’t login and your recovery email account has been changed: http://ift.tt/116bJ52
Tumblr:
Make sure they didn’t set a 3rd party email to post thing up
Gmail: I honestly have no idea here so preemptively lock down I guess. It will also let you see at the bottom of the page if anyone is logged into your acct from a different location and let you remotely terminate it, so keep an eye on that too.
Facebook’s account recovery: http://ift.tt/P2gHlT
Dropbox’s contact: http://ift.tt/1wi825x
Skype has been the most commonly hacked thing throughout gamergate. Their live chat is decent and works. Their live chat is here: http://ift.tt/13EFJ4X
Here’s hoping you’ll ever need this.
Useful stuff to know—especially the pre-emptive stuff you can do, which can prevent some explosions and security breaches before they ever start. Ounce of prevention, etc. etc.
Much of this is also sound not only against crackpots out to ruin your life, but also against identity thieves and other criminals.
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1wi825B