A former member of SiegedSec, the group referred to as the “gay furry hackers,” published a manifesto on Sunday alleging cooperation with law enforcement.
Known by the alias Kittyhawk, the member, who identified themselves as Leah Kemp, detailed their previous ties to the group as well as their reasoning for purportedly contacting police.
“I am very much aware that i will get alot of hate as a result of this post weather it be for my gender identity or for what i have done,” Kittyhawk, who identifies as transgender, wrote. “but i simply do not care anymore, if i am going to be remembered for who i am on this planet i might as well be remembered as someone who stood up for transrights and standing up against those who i believe took advantage of our community.”
Kittyhawk says she joined SiegedSec in late 2023, not long after the group made headlines for hacking government websites in five states over their stances on transgender issues.
A rift began to form after Kittyhawk learned that the group’s leader Vio, whom other ex-members fear was raided and taken into custody late last month, was also involved with the criminal hacking group Anonymous Sudan.
Kittyhawk says SiegedSec and Anonymous Sudan, an anti-Western group that has taken credit for DDoS attacks against entities such as hospitals and websites promoting LGBTQ content, collaborated in targeting Israel in what she believed would be a one-off.
After the campaign, however, Kittyhawk says she came to believe that Vio was a full-time member of Anonymous Sudan, leading her to label SiegedSec’s leader a “traitor.”
“Why say you are fighting for the rights of LGBTQ ppl when you are actively helping contributing to spreading hate?” Kittyhawk asked in her post. “I confronted Vio about this issue to which vio told me that they did not care about who or what they fight for as long as they get views and articles made they don’t care what they do or who they attack.”
Feeling betrayed, Kittyhawk claims to have contacted her local police force on March 6, 2024 to “hand over information about Vio.”
“Less than 24 hours since i contacted my local Police force 2 officers were over my house asking me questions about what was going on, during this time i handed over evidence of who i am and proof of my access to internal siegedsec chats,” Kittyhawk added.
Kittyhawk provided the Daily Dot with 267 pages of screenshots from an internal support chat on the encrypted messaging app Wire. The file, which was allegedly handed over to police, spans from March to May 2024.
Yet Kittyhawk said her efforts with law enforcement quickly hit a dead end. After supposedly meeting with two officers and agreeing to become a confidential informant, Kittyhawk says she came to believe that her local police were out of their depth.
“I feel that they did not know what they were doing, as they said my case was the first one in my area and they had not dealt with a case like this before,” Kittyhawk wrote. “I feel they were not well prepared for the type of info i was going to be giving over.”
In remarks to the Daily Dot, Kittyhawk expanded by claiming that the officers asked her to leave SiegedSec and provide information on criminals in her local area.
“I explained how tf am I gonna know those who do cybercrime in my local area,” Kittyhawk said. “They thought just because I did Cybercrime I know all the local cybercriminals lmao, it felt like they didn’t have a grasp of how online communities actually work.”
At the end of the meeting, Kittyhawk claims the officers told her that they would be backing away from the partnership. Days later, according to Kittyhawk, the officers once again asked her to leave SiegedSec before warning of possible legal ramifications.
Kittyhawk would not name the specific police force and the Daily Dot was unable to confirm the alleged cooperation.
Nevertheless, rumors of Kittyhawk being an informant were pervasive long before her blog post.
Mirrorless, another former member of SiegedSec, shared with the Daily Dot screenshots from Telegram that purport to show Kittyhawk admitting in November 2024 to working with federal, not local, law enforcement. A member of SiegedSec’s support group on Wire, who asked to remain anonymous, also vouched for the Telegram post’s authenticity.
In it, a user named Kittyhawk describes dealing with extreme stress before stating that she’d been working to bring the group down by cooperating with both the FBI and the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) over the past eight months.
“idgaf anymore my life is over and if while not caring about my future and my opportunities I decided to selfishly bring down others with me,” the user says.
However, Kittyhawk denied making the post on Telegram and cooperating with the FBI and NCA in a statement to the Daily Dot and instead claimed that a rival group, known as OSINT Kitties, had posed as her to “tarnish” her reputation.
The member of SiegedSec’s Wire group who asked to remain anonymous pushed back on the denial by telling the Daily Dot that the account on Telegram did in fact belong to Kittyhawk. A representative for OSINT Kitties, in remarks to the Daily Dot, denied ever posing as Kittyhawk online as well.
Aside from outlining their alleged involvement with law enforcement, Kittyhawk went on in the post to state that she’d walked away from SiegedSec shortly before the group famously hacked a website run by the Heritage Foundation in July 2024.
SiegedSec targeted the conservative think tank over its promotion of Project 2025, a multi-pronged initiative that was described at the time as a blueprint for a second Donald Trump presidency.
Kittyhawk denied any involvement in the hack but said in her post that “they where given a well deserved dosage of karma, FUCK PROJECT 2025 AND FUCK THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION!”
Just days later that same month, SiegedSec officially disbanded, citing concerns over the widespread attention the hack garnered as well as fears of the FBI.
In closing, Kittyhawk argued that although she believed she betrayed Vio, she had not betrayed SiegedSec’s core mission.
“I know a lot of you will be disappointed with my actions and that is fair but i want everyone to understand that while i do feel that i have betrayed Vio, feel that i have not betrayed siegedsec and what we stood for or the LGBTQ community,” she wrote. “i will forever fight for the rights we all deserve, but my time of hacktivism is well and truly over.”
As far as Vio’s disappearance last month, Kittyhawk denies any knowledge and doubts whether a raid took place, suggesting that the former SiegedSec leader may have simply gone dark.
And while the U.S. Department of Justice revealed a federal grand jury indictment in October charging two Sudanese nationals with controlling Anonymous Sudan, the group Vio was allegedly involved with, no other individuals have been charged.
Kittyhawk said she has no plans to return to cybercrime and has not been contacted by any law enforcement since publishing her manifesto, but expressed a desire nonetheless to fight in defense of transgender rights.
“it has been hard, day by day seeing new news articles about restrictions imposed on transgender individuals, it fucking sucks not being able to do anything, but i need to protect my self first, and i must stay away from my old ways,” she wrote. “it hurts seeing people ask for the return of siegedsec but this is something that will never happen, and i will never ‘un-retire’ from cybercrime.”
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The post EXCLUSIVE: Ex-furry hacker claims she ratted on SiegedSec to local cops—former members say worked for the FBI appeared first on The Daily Dot.