One of their journalists also doxxed Naomi Wu, intruding on her personal life, making her lose her income, and possibly getting her in trouble with Chinese authorities: https://x.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1209815150376574976

The journalist themselves is a real piece of work: https://thehill.com/homenews/media/463503-sarah-jeong-out-at...

Kinda goes to show you the kind of people who write these stories. Ethics haven't been on their mind for a long time, and them preaching to anyone about ethics is rank hypocrisy.

It's the use of the word "quest" here that really bothers me. It seems ignoble.

Much like the "unmasking" of Banksy or Belle de Jour. Why do it other than nosiness?

Is the person committing a crime? No? Then leave them in peace.

This is just a journalist using the resources of NYTimes to show off that they can exert control over someone else.

Funnily enough, in the blog post you linked Scott Alexander also ruminates about how he never previously questioned journalistic attempts to dox Satoshi Nakamoto.

I always found that case a bit odd. For one he was blogging under his real name and had made his medical practice known, so you could just google him.

It was upending his psychiatry practice because he blogged, albeit in anonymized fashion, about his patients without disclosing it to them which I'd say is unethical but at the very least in the interest of his patients to be made known to them. I would be pretty pissed if I recognized something I told my psychiatrist on an internet blog. Frankly given how strongly one has to consent to even legally process clinical data I've never been sure if that was at all legal.

When someone's identity is in the public interest an investigative journalist isn't doxxing anyone, they're doing their job. Both true for Nakamoto and arguably Scott

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You can't doxx someone who already publicly identified themselves.