The self-described gay furries in the hacking group SiegedSec claim to have doxed the politicians in North Carolina responsible for the law requiring porn viewers to verify their age.
The hackers announced in a statement on Wednesday "Operation PAVE," which aims to "retaliate against" all sponsors of House Bill 8, also known as the "Pornography Age Verification Enforcement (PAVE) Act."
"Forcing porn distributors/publishers to verify age of consumers by identification card is a major privacy risk and will not actually stop minors from accessing porn," the group wrote. "This bill also contains intentionally vague wording, potentially allowing queer content to be included as 'material that is harmful to minors.'"
The law, which went into effect on Jan. 1 after being approved by North Carolina’s legislature in September 2023, requires any company that intentionally distributes sexually explicit material to verify that their viewers are 18 years or older.
In response to the decision, PornHub, one of the internet's largest providers of adult content, opted to block all users accessing their sites from North Carolina in protest of the law. Online searches for VPNs, which allow users to access content from servers in other locations, have since skyrocketed.
Operation PAVE, according to SiegedSec, will be a multipart campaign. As part of their first effort, SiegedSec says it has "released the full personal information of all sponsors of the bill," including "addresses, phone numbers, passwords, email addresses, personal social media, and more!"
Examination of the data by the Daily Dot showed 15 politicians named as targets, as well as members of the National Decency Coalition, an organization that advocated for the law's passage.
The Daily Dot was unable to confirm the accuracy of the information in whole. Attempts to reach multiple phone numbers alleged to belong to the bill's sponsors went unanswered. A number allegedly tied to state Rep. Erin Paré (R) was answered by a man who denied any connection to the politician. It appears the data may have been scraped off the web, and not hacked from any particular site containing sensitive information.
North Carolina is just one of a growing number of states that have passed age verification laws in recent months. An ID verification law passed in Montana in May also went into effect on Jan. 1. Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Utah, and Virginia have also passed similar legislation.
SiegedSec made headlines in November after breaching the Idaho National Laboratory (IDL), one of the nation's largest nuclear labs. The group claimed that the hack was aimed at encouraging the IDL to focus its resources on creating real-life catgirls, or human-cat hybrids. In June, SiegedSec also took aim at government data in five different states over their stances on transgender issues.
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