"Doxxing" is from the 90s and was used to describe a hacker unmasking another hacker so they could be arrested. That's almost exactly the same usage as here.

I think they obviously just took it as 'exposure of personal information' period.

>Identifying a criminal is ethical.

This outsourcing of one's morals to the state is excessive even by already high western white collar internet standards.

Now, make no mistake, these guys are up to no good and probably should be identified and prosecuted, but to just declare that a bad thing is now good because government is doing it is basically an abdication of one's moral compass. At best this is still a bad thing but a necessary one because all the other options are worse. Like shooting someone in self defense, or putting someone in a cage for doing sufficiently bad things.

Edit: I'll admit I played too loose with ethics vs morality here, but still the point stands.

> Identifying a criminal is ethical.

I agree that “doxxing” is being misused in TFA, but criminals have privacy rights like anyone else. Violating these rights requires specific justification, it’s not automatically ethical.