Ask HN: Human countersurveillance advice?
For the past year about 30 - 50 people have approached me asking about my work, my life, giving advice and also covertly taking photographs. They have the ability to track my phone GPS and also some of my accounts. The scale of this operation exceeds what I or anyone I know would be able to afford, or what a PI firm would be able to conduct. Recently the photograph behaviour has become more overt. It's not gathering useful info, it's more like overt harassment when they do it so obviously. I've confronted a few of them and when I ask questions about who sent them, they just say it's none of my business, to which I reply -- it is my business but when you come and do this, and if you don't want it to be, don't come around no more.

Apart from making some reports about this -- and fighting back through confrontation and taking their photographs...what would you suggest to further turn the tables and obtain some information?

This has happened outside my native country, and in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and elsewhere. The nationalities of the people involved have been diverse, as have their backgrounds. But their pattern was the same.

They've also tried to drug me, hit me with a car and have threatened to hit me with a car. So I'm thinking this is probably not the state level intelligence op under lawful guidance. What other types of organizations have these capabilities? Do large criminal organizations employ surveillance as a harassment technique? maybe some people I knew were involved in that and that is why this has happened. Do there exist private surveillance consultants that can and do conduct operations like this worldwide using people from different nationalities? What types of people are usually employed by such firms? ...There's certainly an aspect of people vulnerable to blackmail who have been doing this -- like people with some kind of troubled, or criminal, or Sdebt-ridden past. They don't seem like professionals in any sense. I picked up on that in the ones that I've interacted with. What does kind of organization or operation is this?

Has anyone else encountered something like this? What is this kind of operation usually used for? Is it just a way of applying psychological / physical pressure? What is some advice to counter it?

Edit:
Wow looking at the comments. I suppose it is hard to believe. So I think the important thing to take from your skepticism is that proper documentation is important.
Look maybe I do have some mental problems. I don't think I'd know if I did. But what has happened is real. Someone I know told me they knew consultant was hired but didn't know anything more about them. Answer advice: rather then deluding yourself that it's not true, give an answer from the assumption that it is. I get it you guys would feel you were fantasizing if you were in this situation but that's just reflecting you, it's not what is actually going on here. It's really not your place to argue with the facts of this. You know even less about them then I do.

So if I was doing this to you and I didn't want the story to get out, the first thing I would do is cast doubt on your reliability as a witness and suggest you're not capable of making valid testimony due to mental illness. So, I think it's valid to ask what's your motivation mtmail et al?

So I'm trustworthy in my other post and not in this one? Can't have it both ways mtmail unless you want to be deliberately fake.

And what's wrong with getting fired for being too opinionated and working on my project myself? I get if you're too much of a lemming to think for yourself, but maybe try it someone instead of trusting someone else to do it for you. Or keep being a slave if u prefer it that way, mtmail.

And by the way. Someone comes to you with a real problem and your response is to tell them they're wrong and you don't believe them. They're open and honest and vulnerable and That's your response. That's not very nice, and it just really reflects you, commenters.

So let me make it clear. You fuckers freely admit we live in a surveillance culture, and you just flat out dismiss the validity of this. That's what happens with rape culture in India and the middle East.a woman is hallucinating. And if she wasn't then she gets an honor killing. Your blindness is complicit in the culture you pretend is so bad. Fuckers.... But who cares what you think? You're just idiots who have no idea about the facts or morals. Or maybe you're just too cowed to speak out. Probably. Cowards. So enough said to the deniers and apologists.

Thanks for the encouragement paint man, but I think your solution is too extreme. I'm gonna do more like stand my ground and fight than run and hide. But I do appreciate you seeing it clearly. Thanks! One is better than none :)