Senator Tillis refutes KKK connections alleged in possible hoax hack

North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis‘s office has refuted allegations raised this weekend in an online post by a hacker using the twitter handle “Amped_Attacks” which claims to shows ties between Tillis and a local chapter of the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan.

A spokesperson for Tillis called the accusations “ridiculous and completely false.” Another source associated with Tillis’ office says that the crux of the online post’s allegation — that the senator’s generic email address was included in a KKK mailing list — may have been the result of spammers. Tillis was among nine politicians across the country — including four U.S. senators and five city mayors — identified in the original post to Pastebin.com as being affiliated with the Klan.

The validity of the information connecting Tillis and others to the KKK has been widely criticized by a number of media sources and commenters on social media. An online article published by Vox Media called the evidence presented against Tillis and others “extremely flimsy,” while Gizmodo.com indicates “There’s good reason to doubt what these hackers are publishing.”

Numerous media sources report that the phone numbers provided in the hack show little or no connection to the individuals listed on Pastebin. Several of the email addresses listed are generic addresses that are readily accessible online; one address appeared to be sourced from a Russian domain, casting further skepticism on the accuracy of the original posting.

The hacker responsible for posting the data, who was initially identified as a member of the online “hacktivist” group Anonymous, has since clarified that he is not a member of the hacker collective, according to a report by the Huffington Post, but asserted the accuracy of his information.

“I worked for nine days to gather and verify all the information that was gathered before its release,” Amped Attacks told the Huffington Post in an interview. “I got the information from several KKK websites when I [hacked] them and was able to dump their database.” However, he was unwilling to provide further documentation of his sources or methods.

On Monday, Nov. 2, an official twitter account linked to Anonymous denied responsibility for the data release and called the information released about politicians “incorrect”:

Ku Klux Klan leadership is also denying the accuracy of the information, according to a Time magazine post. Thomas Robb, the national director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, told Time in an interview that while it is possible some information from local chapters of the KKK may have been compromised, his group’s membership data remains offline and secret.

The data dump comes ahead of Anonymous’ Million Mask March protest on Thursday, Nov. 5, when the group says it will release more than 1,000 names of supposed KKK members and sympathizers it claims to have collected from hacking online databases. The Nov. 5 event is the latest salvo in a year-long digital war between the KKK and Anonymous, dating back to a dispute between the two groups over the Klan’s threats of “lethal force” against protesters in Ferguson, Missouri.

“On November the 4th we will be having a twitter storm, spreading awareness about the operation. And on the 5th we shall release more than 1000 Ku Klux Klan members Names and websites, new and old,” says Anonymous in an official press release posted online this past Sunday. While the group acknowledges the KKK’s right to free speech, it contends that “we are stripping you of your anonymity. We never forgot your threats to the protesters in Ferguson, and we certainly never forgave you. And the same will be done to the threats you give now.”