Ride the Lightning

U.S. Supreme Court Justices ‘Doxed’ After Overturn of Roe v. Wade

July 19, 2022

The Register reported on July 13 that the U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade may have been doxed.  For those who don’t know, being doxed (the Brits spelled it as ‘doxxed’) means that someone has searched for and published private information about someone, usually with malicious intent.

In this case, the majority justices’ personal information, including physical and IP addresses, and credit card info may have been revealed according to threat intel firm Cybersixgill.

With the loss of federal protections allowing access to abortions, some hacktivists are taking matters into their own hands and apparently leaked private information about five conservative justices including Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, according to research by Cybersixgill’s security research lead Dov Lerner.

Although Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the majority, the doxers didn’t expose his personal data.

Lerner, who told The Register he found the doxes on “various dark web forums,” said the “most notable” dox happened on June 30, and alleges to include physical addresses, IP addresses, and credit card information, including CVVs and expiration date.

One of the doxers claimed to have posted the justices’ information because they “focus[ed] on something unnecessary rather than focusing on bigger issues in [A]merica.”

In a separate forum post, a doxer published what seems to be Alito’s and Thomas’ spouses’ names, birthdays, email addresses, phone numbers, social media accounts, and vehicle makes and models.

The threat intel firm can’t verify the data’s authenticity. This comes after the judges’ personal information was shared on TikTok by angry Gen Zers. It seems likely these forum posts and videos are in some way linked.

Several other doxes of the five justices included similar information. Most of these were posted anonymously, but three were from named doxers.

Although much of the data shared is public (not credit cards and IP addresses though), the time and effort focused on locating and aggregating this data is worrisome, Lerner said. His company expects more of these attacks as the US political climate becomes more polarized.

“On its own, outing the personal details of an individual and their families constitutes an intimidating invasion of privacy,” Lerner noted. “At its worst, it invites others to act on the basis of the shared data and harass the doxed individuals in all sorts of cyber and physical forms.”

I imagine most RTL readers know about my view of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Breaking laws certainly would not be my choice – better to vote in the midterm elections.

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
3975 University Drive, Suite 225, Fairfax, VA 22030
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