You may have heard that Bitcoin's creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, was "doxed" by Newsweek and wonder exactly what that word means. You may even use the word yourself and wonder, "Am I using this word correctly?" Or worst, not worry whether or not you're using it wrong while using it wrong. Like a lot of neologisms (think "meme") it's a word that has evolved over time, but essentially it means compiling and releasing a dossier of personal information on someone.
The word dox is the modern, abbreviated form of "dropping dox," an old-school revenge tactic that emerged from hacker culture in 1990s. Example usage: "Zero Cool pissed me off, so I'm dropping his dox in IRC." Outlaw hackers of that day didn't have a lot of options for taking revenge on a rival -- you can't bust-a-cap online -- so breaching an enemy's anonymity was a powerful weapon, opening them up to harassment or even law enforcement action.
Doxing has only negative connotations, so when people use the word to describe the Newsweek story on Satoshi Nakamoto, they're criticizing the reporter by comparing her to a criminal hacker.
You can also have someone's dox without actually revealing it to the world. If you're looking to break into someone's Internet accounts, or take them over via social engineering techniques, doxing is often a key element in that equation, and in that case it rarely involves making the information public. However, on sites like Pastebin, its common to find people's dox that have been made public, often as a form of harassment. Likely for that reason, there is a strong cultural taboo against doxing among the Reddit community that has made its way to the wider Internet.
