International hacker activist group Anonymous exposed some 6,000 more alleged members of the North Korean propaganda website Uriminzokkiri on Saturday, calling their action a warning against the Kim Jong-un regime.

An additional 523 e-mail accounts registered with the North Korean website were found to be those provided by South Korean portal sites, other news reports said Sunday.

The information disclosed by the group include the name and ID of the user, as well as their e-mail addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth.

The development is fueling concerns over privacy, as unverified accusations started to prevail on-line in South Korea, with personal details about some of the website’s users and those wrongly identified as users being distributed.

The exposure was also seen to spill over to political circles as the conservative Saenuri Party called for a “thorough investigation” into the list that potentially included those acting against national security. But the opposition Democratic United Party expressed concern that it could potentially infringe upon human rights by probing into the illegitimate list obtained through hacking.

On Saturday, the hackers explained that its actions regarding the North Korean propaganda website were not aimed at tracking down pro-North Korean organizations.

“We did not hack (the website) to track down pro-North Korean organizations. It was a warning for the Kim Jong-un regime. (We) will maintain neutrality from now on,” the group posted on its Korean Twitter account.

According to Yonhap News, 523 of the 6,216 e-mail accounts used by members of the website disclosed by Anonymous were those provided by local portal sites.

On Thursday, the group made its first announcement that it had obtained information on about 15,000 members of the website as a result of a hacking attack carried out by a group of about 30, which included South Koreans, and released information on 9,001 registered members of the website.

Including those among the 9,001 e-mail addresses, members of Anonymous revealed on Thursday a total of 2,393 of the 15,217 people who joined the Uriminzokkiri website used e-mail accounts provided by South Korean portal sites.

In addition, 111 e-mail accounts provided by South Korean companies, one Seoul National University and one each of the Chosun Ilbo and Dong-A Ilbo accounts were used to join the website.

Chosun Ilbo and Dong-A Ilbo are conservative South Korean dailies.

The information released by Anonymous members has prompted some South Korean internet users to dig up and distribute the personal information of the people who joined the Urimizokkiri site.

However, a number of the identifications made by the internet users have been shown to be false, inciting legal action and prompting observers to voice worries of an online witch hunt.

The falsely identified Uriminzokkiri members include Hwang Soon-kyu, the chief of the leftwing Unified Progressive Party’s council for Daegu, who has reported the internet users who posted the concerned online comment to the police.

According to the UPP, the person in the list distributed by Anonymous is a female named Lee Soon-kyu who used an online ID similar to that used by Hwang.

In addition, private information including phone numbers and addresses of supposed Uriminzokkiri members have been circulated online.

Although the hackers have since attempted to clarify their intentions, concerns are rising that such developments will continue to occur.

By Choi He-suk  (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)