Doxers posing as cops trick big tech companies into sharing people’s private data

When privacy A specialist at Charter Communications’ Legal Response Operations Center received a request for emergency data via email on September 4 from Officer Jason Coors of the Jacksonville Police Bureau, and took only a few minutes to respond, with the name, home address, phone numbers and email address of the “target.”

But the email didn’t actually come from Coors or anyone else at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. It was sent by a member of a hacking group that offers defamation as a service to customers willing to pay for highly sensitive personal data held by US technology companies.

“This took 20 minutes,” Impet, a member of the group that carried out the stunt, told WIRED. He claims his group has successfully extracted similar information from almost every major US tech company, including Apple and Amazon, as well as more fringe platforms such as the video-sharing site Rumble, which is popular with far-right influencers.

Exempt shared the information Charter Communications sent to the group with WIRED, and explained that the victim was a “gamer” from New York. When asked if they were concerned about how the information they obtained could be used against the target, Impet said: “I usually don’t care.”

The victim did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment.

“It’s definitely disturbing to hear criminals impersonating officers in this way, especially when they claim to be one of our employees,” says Christian Hancock, director of media relations for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Officer Coors declined to comment.

Charter Communications declined to comment.

While this method of tricking companies into handing over information that can be used to harass, threaten and intimidate victims has been implemented Known for yearsWIRED has gained unprecedented insight into how one of these defamation groups operates, and how the companies, despite years of warning, appear to have been unable to do much to close the loophole.

The Charter Communications incident was one of as many as 500 successful exemption requests filed in recent years. To support his claims, the hacker shared multiple documents and recordings with WIRED, including what they claimed were screenshots of email requests, fake subpoenas, tech company responses, and even a video recording of a phone call with one company’s law enforcement response team that was seeking to verify the request. The exonere also shared evidence suggesting that a current law enforcement officer (the exonere declined to provide the officer’s location or name) had been in contact with the group regarding allegedly working with them to make out-of-pocket requests in exchange for a portion of the profits.