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Hacker Behind Leaked Nude Celebrity Photos Gets 10 Years
wiredmikey writes "A U.S. judge sentenced a computer hacker to 10 years in prison on Monday for breaking into the email accounts of celebrities and stealing private photos. The hacker accessed the personal email accounts and devices of stars including Scarlett Johansson, Christina Aguilera and Renee Olstead, among dozens of other people he hacked. The hackers arrest in October 2011 stemmed from an 11-month investigation into the hacking of over 50 entertainment industry names, many of them young female stars. Hacked pictures of Johansson showed her in a state of undress in a domestic setting. Aguilera's computer was hacked in December 2010, when racy photos of her also hit the Internet. Mila Kunis' cell phone was hacked in September that year with photos of her, including one in a bathtub, spread online. According to the FBI, the hacker used open-source, public information to try to guess a celebrity's email password, and then would breach the account."
What is Open Source information? The OSI foundation doesn't seem to be doing a good job of enforcing the trademark of the term Open Source. I hear and see it used in many ways in which it should not be and the term has been grossly eroded in meaning over the past decade.
Pics or it didn't happen.
"According to the FBI, the hacker used open-source, public information to try to guess a celebrity's email password, and then would breach the account."
Further proof celebs are fucking dumb. This guy wasn't a "real hacker".
I don't know what is more disgusting, celebrities themselves, or psycho brand of psychonphants they attract.
did Rupert Murdoch and his son get?
I'm not quite clear why anyone thinks that putting things online in any capacity is safe from prying eyes, particularly if they're a celebrity. I don't defend the actions of these "hackers" (pfft), but the photo owners should be smart enough to take some precautions or find someone that can help them do it.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
10 years is a ridiculous amount of time to be in prison for something like this. Child molesters and murderers get less time.
or it didn't happen...
Defense rests your honor.
Seriously. Stop it.
Why does it seem there is one set of rules for the little people and another set for big business?
"HSBC executives brushed off complaints from other bank employees, so that the problems persisted for eight years, the report says.
In addition, some HSBC bank affiliates skirted U.S. government bans against financial transactions with Iran and other countries, according to the report. And HSBC’s U.S. division provided money and banking services to some banks in Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh believed to have helped fund Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, the report said."
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1227431--hsbc-laundered-billions-of-dollars-for-mexican-drug-cartels-senate-investigation-finds
"The penalty includes a five-year agreement with the US department of justice under which the bank will install an independent monitor to assess reformed internal controls. The bank's top executives will defer part of their bonuses for the whole of the five-year period, while bonuses have been clawed back from a number of former and current executives, including those in the US directly involved at the time."
Since when is having stuff on your computer or cell phone considered "online"?
These celebrities should open source their privates and make money by selling support contracts.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Seriously. The guy did deserve to go to jail, but 121 years?!!! And he pleaded guilty to get "just" 10 years? It is no surprise U.S. prisons are full and U.S. has the highest number of prisoners per capita in the World...
The idiot he should of just laundered money for al-qaeda.
Does this summary win the prize for the most uses of some variant of 'hacker'? It's used more than once per sentence.
Because this really seems like the elite beating down a serf for daring to see the princess naked.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
Your name will not be forgotten, generous hacker. You took one for the team.
He got into their email and looked at old messages. I think it's safe to assume they were using some form of webmail, which means that their email was stored online.
Your name will not be forgotten, generous hacker. You took one for the team and will shine forever in our *hem* hearts.
I agree that one should expect things online and in email to be at risk, but I also believe you should have some recourse if I break into your gmail account and read through your emails.
...pics or it didn't happen?
Why is it safe to assume they were using webmail? All of my mail accessed on the web through a web interface, but that doesn't mean that's how I access it. The summary clearly states he hacked their phones, and accessed their email and devices.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I don't know about your state but here it is pretty lengthy. Second degree murder has sentences that range from 10-20 years provided it is an isolated offence. If you already have convictions of certain types, it can be 25 years, or more. First degree murder is a life sentence or the death penalty. In cases of life, sometimes parole can be allowed, but not before 25 years and then it is still discretionary.
Something else you seem to forget is that he is charged of multiple crimes. You don't get to lump crimes together and claim "Well it was the same sort of crime, so it only counts as one." If you rob a store, then go rob another store, then go rob another store, you'll be charged with 3 crimes and each carries its own sentence. What's more, when you commit multiple crimes often you are eligible for more strict sentences (as noted with the murder thing earlier).
If you disagree with the individual charges fair enough, but please stop with the hyperbole.
I consider the real sickness here is the wierdness that is the mind of apparently most Hollywood stars.
I mean why do they apparently all carry nude pictures of themselves on their phones? Especially even knowing that phones can be hacked.
I can smell the Paris Hilton effect in action.... There is no such thing as bad publicity.
Uncle Dick Chaney must've given him a tip-off of how to play the old Patriot Act game!
I'm not quite clear why anyone thinks that putting things online in any capacity is safe from prying eyes, particularly if they're a celebrity. I don't defend the actions of these "hackers" (pfft), but the photo owners should be smart enough to take some precautions or find someone that can help them do it.
People who aren't tech-savvy shouldn't get damaged because of it. Would you want your grandmother to have her social security money to get stolen from her, then tell her she deserves what she got? "Shoulda' been bhind a firewall Gramma! That'll learn you!" Sheesh!
What is with these announcements using the term "open-source information" when announcing "crimes" committed by using information that is publicly available? It used to just be called "public information"
Seriously. The guy did deserve to go to jail, but 121 years?!!! And he pleaded guilty to get "just" 10 years? It is no surprise U.S. prisons are full and U.S. has the highest number of prisoners per capita in the World...
Maybe he shouldn't have been doing things that are clearly illegal, without much question creepy, and doing these things to "high profile" people to boot?
Perhaps society should be protected from creeps this fucking stupid?
Also, keep in mind:
The indictments against him included accessing and damaging computers, wire tapping and identify theft.
...So we're not talking about just a few celebrity nudes.
He then allegedly communicated directly with contacts found in the hacked email account's address list and searched the account for photos, information and other data.
To control the account, Chaney is alleged to have altered the email's account settings to go to a separate, unrelated e-mail address that he controlled.
After gaining complete access to the hacked account, Chaney then used the contact list to "harvest" new targets, according to the FBI.
Just a little "innocent" hacking of "rich people" who should have known better?
And, keep in mind that if he wasn't already doing credit card theft, it was probably in his "script kiddie" queue.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
the banksters who have destroyed the economy go free - indeed, are above the law.
most sites have these watermarked or censored with black bars
- REDACTEDStop blaming the victim. I've heard this so often, I'm finally going to snap. (Nothing personal.)
Make up your mind whether IT administration is easy or hard.
If it's easy, then the IT profession is perpetrating a massive scam and collecting fat paychecks for what is basically an easy job. I don't believe that, and I do not think you will find many people on Slashdot who support that position.
On the other hand, if IT is hard, then it's not fair to condemn non-professionals from being unable to do it. Rather than calling people "stupid" for not knowing things that we take for granted, we could actually try to promote public awareness and give people constructive advice.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
The guy did deserve to go to jail
Come on, at least TRY to think for yourself. The fact that government regularly incarcerates non-violent people (especially drug offenders) is one of the reasons why the US has the highest incarceration rate in the entire world. Are you honestly OK with that? Are you honestly OK with the government that supposedly represents you locking non-violent human beings in cages like animals? Have you ever considered that perhaps one day YOU will be locked in a cage for a non-violent crime?
The solution is restitution, not incarceration. A legal system based on restitution to the victim is the only system that respects the equal human rights of all people. A system that incarcerates both violent AND non-violent offenders is one where the non-violent offender is a second-class citizen.
I would hardly call this hacking, more social engineering with the social part being the ability to use Google. I remember hacking an ex girlfriend's account when I was in middle school to send e-mails to every guy she knew asking for sexual favors. I guess I'm just a super 1337 hax0r. I also have to question how wise it is to carry nude pictures of you everywhere, do they often run into emergency "showing my tits" situations?
It means he's been reading books by Eric Raymond and RMS in a non-proprietary e-reader format.
Just because "corporations are people too", doesn't mean that their privileges are limited to the rights enjoyed by you breathing meatbags. Pray that we don't change the agreement further.
Justin's bieber.
Is it just me, or is it somewhat strange that these celebrities would have naked photos of themselves in their e-mail in the first place? I know I don't have any naked photos of myself in my gmail account, and I'm not even someone everyone wants to see naked. If you were a young, female celebrity who knew everyone wanted to see you naked, wouldn't you think twice before a) taking a naked picture of yourself and b) e-mailing it to anyone.
Or maybe I'm just a prude who doesn't know how to put his cell phone camera to good use.
he should have posted them to Instagram. /rimshot
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
wow...is he really getting that many years for hacking some photos of some shallow people?
America is nuts...you have to many people in your jails for silly things. And when the big crimes happen, the guy gets away with it.
This was a federal case.
Federal sentencing guidelines rarely call for "fully stacked" sentences when the crimes are done at the same time or as part of the same "crime pattern."
They usually give you X years for the most serious conviction, a relatively small incremental amount added on for each additional conviction, and maybe a very small incremental amount for additional non-conviction credible allegations up to some maximum.
Here's his indictment: PDF
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
617, frame 2.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
..who laundered money for drug cartels....http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213
but, if I were said 'attacker', I would have hoarded all of that epic loot to myself ;) now wouldm't that be special? to have like 50 some celebrities all to yourself.. and tell no body about it. Imagine in the end after all that time how much loot would be had? Books could be written from equator about these sorts of valiant crusades..
but instead this dumbass succumbed to the same disease these 'celebrities' had.. a pity really
Where?
Sorry, couldn't resist it.
Thank-you.
He guessed the password and gained access, this wouldn't be hacking. Anyone with the password and username to an email account as rightful access, hence the use of the username and password.
I'd say he'll give new meaning to "hard time", but really, it's not new.
How did he photobomb so many nude celebrities? Who ended up leaking the photos, and who realized they all have the same person in the background (and that it was a hacker too)?
Well, dang, Slashdot doesn't normally post good news! A scumbag gets caught and goes to prison. Justice is done, the system works, etc etc.
You hypocrites. If this article was about a EULA where someone claimed the right to publish the contents of your email without permission, Slashdot would be (rightfully) up in arms. But when some stalker-ass waste of skin actually does violate the privacy of a bunch of innocent women, suddenly privacy violation is perfectly okay as long as the victims were popular and used naive passwords.
Or else you're puking up non sequiturs about HSBC. Yeah, those fuckholes deserve to rot in prison too, and it's criminal that they won't be published. That's got nothing to do with Christopher Chaney's guilt.
...mess with the poor all you like, but fuck with the Rich are you are going DOWN.
14th Amendment? We don't need no stinking 14th Amendment.
http://marvelousmixedracehair.blogspot.com/2010/09/scarlett-johansson-nude-photo.html
Frankly, the guy who released them should be given an award... ;)
nice system ....your war on drugs is fucked
what a fucking waste a resources
who the fuck cares about there photos no really OH NO some idiot was soooo stupid they put photos on the web and tried to hide them
word fucking retards keeps popping up everytime i now here the united states of dumbasses..your laws are fucked , your economy is fucked , you copyrights are fucked , your patents are fucked. YOU rank 32nd avg in world math so your math skills are fucked
you aint even going into orbit manned any more...your space program is fucked...OH Geee a fucking moon crash landing thats prolly better then they did in the 60's.Your political system is so screwed you can lose an election and still if you pay the right bribe money to both sides get what you want ergo no fucking democracy there
your war on movie and film pirates is just equally fucked.
no really anything you do is just fucked. /end use of fuck
That's what he gets for clicking through the license and TOS pages on webmail. The guy is obviously a desperado.
Everything I've ever learned the hard way was based on a statistically invalid sample.
If witnesses are testifying that they were considering killing themselves because someone in the world saw them without clothes...they are seriously fucked up and have issues with their bodies and/or self esteem. I feel bad for this hacker. Sure...put him in jail for 6 months or make him pay restitution of $10K to each of his victims...but 10 years? Seriously? Murders get less time. We live in a scary state.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
I think the photos were hacked from their location in the cloud...not on the device. Nonetheless...if you're going to take nude photos of yourself, your smartphone is the easiest way to do it. There's nothing wrong with having nude photos of yourself. Why is that sick? Weird? I think it's far sicker that people are so afraid of others seeing them without their clothes that they consider suicide (as the witnesses said), send people to jail for years, or lifetimes (in the case of pics of teens). We all need to chill just a bit and focus on the real criminals...violent criminals and big business fraud.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Because it is accessible from the internet. It's not like this guy stole the devices in question and gained physical access.
What's the difference between the computer you're sitting in front of, connected to the internet and one sitting in a data centre somewhere?
and the poor gets poorer, because they are so easy to pick on.
New Economic Perspectives
If it was more than 6 months old it wasn't private anymore, correct... At least that is what the government claims, right.
You can't get em stolen if you don't take them. There are zero photos of me naked that exist but there would definitely be zero even more (lol) if I was famous! Stop taking pics like that, you dumbass celebrities! By the way, e-mail? E-MAIL? Switch to the much more secure printed out photo of you naked thrown randomly as a paper airplane. That's less likely to get stolen or viewed improperly. Seriously.
Some code kiddie got caught doing what the MPAA and RIAA do every day. There have been numerous articles about how your data isn't protected by your civil rights once it leaves your house (e.g. email). However when it's not the MPAA/RIAA committing the offense it's worthy of a lengthy prison sentence.... I was going to say this was enlightening, but somehow it's merely unsurprising.
If I get into your E-mail, I have access to every web site you use, because they all use E-mail based password reset functions. I'll just change all your passwords and confirm the change using your 0wned E-mail account.
As illegal as breaking and entering into someone's home and stealing photos from a bedroom safe.
This isn't illegal when the government does it in mass.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
After all, he breaks into other people's phones, and he HASN'T gone to jail. Nor will he ever. Hell Rupert Murdoch could shoot someone in the head on live TV, and still not go to jail. Simply because he is a member of the 1%.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Well sorry but it looks like putting personal information on computers is a bad idea if they are networked. Sorry we tried but the internet is full of bad people so game over.
There is a law which might be applicable. If you leave your keys in your car it is a misdemeanor because it "encourages bad people to break the law". Maybe someday computers will be more secure, and if it is too easy to break into well then you get a ticket. Then you can put your hot photos on your cellphone.
Totally worth it! (for me)
Kind of warped when you think a lot of murders get less.
I also believe you should have some recourse if I break into your gmail account and read through your emails.
well then too bad, because you can be sure that the authorities aren't going to give a crap about you. now, if you can ensure that your criminal also breaks into the accounts of high-profile individuals, then you may be in business.
The US has more people in jail than China & executes more people than the Chinese too. I'm speaking in total. BTW China has 3 to 4 times the population of the US too.
As illegal as guessing the number code on the front door of a house with a number code door lock, then walking in & taking photos of any photos found in the house in RAW mode before leaving (or running the photos through a battery powered high res scanner, then putting them back), which means a crime of common"trespassing" at most. Actually in a significant percentage of common-law jurisdictions it wouldn't even be a crime of trespass unless there's a "no trespassing" sign on the front door or one in the front yard that's easily visible to anyone approaching the front door.
It's totally ridiculous for a cyber crime to have a penalty that's the same as it's equivalent real world crime, let alone to have a penalty that's significantly greater.
You close-minded morons are pretty transparent; The whole anti-Murdoch/anti-Fox thing just outs you as a lefty who is desperately trying to convince people (and possibly yourselves) no not listen to any media outlet that fails to lean left far enough.
First, neither of the Murdoch men personally broke into anybody's e-mail or cell phones
Second, the Sr. Murdoch runs a media empire and not some corner coffee shop. His likely involvement in the phone hacking by some employees in a business unit half-way around the planet from most of his bigger money-making units is probably about like the likelihood that the head of GE was simultaneously making the individual business decisions on the Rachel Maddow show in the MSNBC unit and the business units that were (probably illegally) trading with Iran. In instances like this, the CEO is responsible for the overall corporate attitudes and ethics, and Murdoch has publicly apologized for his failures to have a firmer hand in this regard, but the CEO is not generally personally responsible for each illegal act some distant employee commits on his or her own. Every hire a guy to cut your grass? Would you expect to go to jail if the guy went-off and molested a kid? What if he did it half-way around the planet while he was SUPPOSED TO BE cutting your grass? When Murdoch hires somebody to hire somebody to get a news scoop in England, he should not be personally liable for it when the low-level person bribes a cop or cracks into a phone UNLESS you can show that Murdoch ordered the METHOD.
In case you have not learned yet: if you have an employer and that employer expects you to do something but you cannot see a way to complete the task without breaking the law ... ask for guidance/help, but do not break the law. It's that simple. If you break the law, it's on you.
Murdoch is just a man; he's no saint, but he's also not the devil. His business activities are in many ways more ethical than those of Warren Buffet, but the left loves Buffet because he "purchases" their support by frequently publicly calling for high taxes on the rich (which could pay any time he wants to under current law, but he does not; he just pretends to want to pay more). Think Murdoch is the big mean guy? Ask yourself what happened to all the employees of the Berkshire Hathaway that Buffet bought... Lets seeeeee .. he buys a big company with thousands of employees, strips its value, gets rid of all the middle-class workers (largely because, by his own admission, he felt he was jerked-around over a fraction of a percent in the stock price) then uses the remaining corporate "personhood" and converts it into a multi-billion dollar investment empire. Did he go back to the poor workers he trashed and make them whole? Nah. Did he, as a billionaire go back to the poor workers he dumped and buy them some health insurance? Oh, noooooo.... the taxpayers who have a lot less than he has and are too dumb to hide their assets should pay for all of that! Those employees who actually MADE things were just the suckers. That type of behavior is only evil if you pretend a Republican did it. (like the 2012 campaign lies about Romney laying-off the guy whose wife then died years later ... the guy was let go long after Romney was off the scene).
The entire population of baby boomers and post-baby-boomers have far lower standards for themselves and (oddly) far higher self-esteems than their predecessors so you probably stumbled onto a fragment of wisdom there ...
But then, you go on to apparently presume that these victims got what they deserved (at least to some degree) when the real truth is that any person should be able to keep all the nudie-self-pics, personal financial information, family secrets, or anything else on his/her electronic devices with no locks or passwords or encryption of any type and with the full expectation of safety and privacy; it's a relatively new and very ugly idea that there is any legitimacy to even trying to break into a cell phone, and e-mail account, or a house, or a car, or a bank. Where I grew up, NOBODY locked the doors of their homes or even closed the windows when they were only going to be out for a few hours and people routinely left the keys in the car ... and NOBODY expected to be robbed because it was an absurd idea that anybody would try to enter a car or a house that did not belong to him/her. THAT is how far we as a society have slid just in my lifetime.
If something is not yours, and you try to break into it (no matter HOW unprotected it is) you are still the criminal and the victim is still the victim.
This is why the rich must pay more taxes. They get 11 months of FBI effort for a minor breech of privacy.
You plebeians get an incident number in case you need to make a claim on insurance.
As I said, I don't defend the hackers. However, I think people who use tools should understand the scope of the tools they're using, in the same way that people who own and use firearms should be responsible to understand how they operate, what the risks are, and what safety measures need to be taken.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
Baby rapers do less time.
10 years for hacking? Oy...
Did anyone else click on "photos" hoping it was a separate hyperlink leading to the actual photos?
I still don't get it why such things are considered "security question".
The only thing they might protect against is a completely blind random automated probing.
And I can't understand why in 2012 anyone would still give actual answers to this question: it take a couple of seconds maximum to find the relevant info on facebook.
If you can't block such security holes, at least use some form of joke or pun: you mother's maiden name is "Chtulhu" or "this is none of your business" as First pet, etc.
If a celebrity use as security measure, an info that 99.9% of her fan know already, she almost deserve to get her nude pic uploaded.
(and that's ignoring the fact that some of them would probably enjoy the free publicity).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]