On Friday, Depression Quest developer and doxing victim Zoe Quinn launched an online "anti-harassment task force" toolset, staffed by volunteers familiar with such attacks, to assist victims of a recent swell of "doxing" and "swatting" attacks.

The Crash Override site, built by Quinn and game developer Alex Lifschitz, offers free services from "experts in information security, white hat hacking, PR, law enforcement, legal, threat monitoring, and counseling" for "victims of online mob harassment." According to the site, those experts are "mostly former clients" who have faced similar online threats, and their efforts will not include "retaliatory action against abusers."

In addition to a contact form and a lengthy summary of Crash Override's pre- and post-harassment services, the site includes links to a guide to help people control how much personally identifiable information appears on the Internet, along with a Twitter feed containing public statements from two users claiming to have used Crash Override's services to mitigate the effects of online harassment.

“Knock with your hand, not your boot”

In a conversation with Ars, Quinn said that she and Lifschitz continue to constantly monitor a variety of chat rooms, forums, and imageboard sites where doxing targets and activities are coordinated. Information gleamed from those public and private sites has been used to preemptively warn at least one victim of a swatting attempt in Enumclaw, Washington, which the victim in question has publicly confirmed. Crash Override stated via Twitter that their efforts have additionally "prevented several potentially deadly swatting and secured more people against hacking and doxxing attempts."

Ars was able to confirm via police report that Enumclaw's police department had been warned nearly a week in advance before a false tip was issued to that department on January 9. As a result, that department's head e-mailed the entire department to ask any police sent to the address in question to "knock with your hand, not your boot." That report also included the full text of the anonymous, false tip sent via an Internet tip service to Enumclaw's department, containing claims of a "cylinder thing with duct tape wrapped around it" and a disclaimer that "I don't think he would do anything or I would call 911."

The Enumclaw officers who searched the house in question concluded that the swatting victims "were very cooperative and allowed us to search their residence, and we found nothing."

Crash Override's Twitter feed states that as of now, the project is neither asking for donations nor asking victims to pay for services. "If we choose to seek funding based on our future needs, we will make it known," the Twitter feed added. Quinn told Ars that she continues to accept Patreon donations to cover the cost of making and releasing small, free video games.