"Celebgate" hacker sentenced to 18 months of jail

[Tiriol]

Wasn't sure where to put this, but I figured out that since this deals with society more than actual electronical hardware or software, News and Politics would be a better place for it.

A hacker named Ryan Collins sentenced to 18 months of jail for hacking celebrity accounts, as reported by BBC News.

Celebgate hack: Collins sentenced over nude photos theft

A Pennsylvania court has sentenced a man to 18 months in jail for hacking into the accounts of celebrities and stealing nude photos and videos.

Ryan Collins, 36, pleaded guilty to the charges in May.

He had stolen the usernames and passwords of more than 600 people.

Collins tricked his victims - including actresses Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Scarlett Johansson, and Kirsten Dunst - by sending emails appearing be from Google or Apple.

Collins was charged with accessing the photos between 2012 and 2014, in a case known as "celebgate". But was not charged with releasing them.

A statement by prosecutors said: "Investigators have not uncovered any evidence linking Collins to the actual leaks or that Collins shared or uploaded the information he obtained."

Collins accessed at least 50 iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts.

Court filings said he had used fraudulent email addresses designed to look like security accounts from service providers, including email.protection318 @ icloud.com, noreply_helpdesk0118 @ outlook.com and secure.helpdesk0119 @ gmail.com.

Collins was originally charged in Los Angeles, but sentenced in Pennsylvania, his home state.

Well, it's good that he was sentenced, although I do wonder how the nude pics ended up being spread all over the internet if he didn't share or upload them elsewhere. Disgusting invasion of privacy, in any case.

[TheFeniX]

Well, it's good that he was sentenced, although I do wonder how the nude pics ended up being spread all over the internet if he didn't share or upload them elsewhere. Disgusting invasion of privacy, in any case.

Not having evidence to link you to a crime doesn't mean you didn't commit it. It's likely they found the files on his PC, the forged e-mail exchanges, and other information/IPs leading back to him/his computer because google, outlook, etc keep track of everything. However, a lot of sites I can think of off-hand where you would leak this type of data are purely anonymous (doubly so with private Proxies being everywhere) and/or could be done from anywhere if you have access to a memory stick. Even if he used his private computer, that's easily capable of being wiped and if he spoofed his IP or hijacked someone's Internet when he spammed them out to the world, proving he did that is nearly impossible.

Just saying "well, he had them and he was the only one who could have leaked them, so he's guilty" is not good enough in a court of law. And really, it sometimes IS good enough, but it's also likely the prosecutors didn't want to risk a hung jury on actual leaking charges when they had nothing but circumstantial evidence. Adding to this that people just don't understand how computers and the Intertoobs work, I can't say I disagree with them.

Also, since he plead guilty to the charges, this is probably how they got him to plead out. He may have considered trial if they tacked on the crime of him leaking stolen material, thinking he could beat that charge or hang the jury. Or, once again, maybe it was never on the table and he shit himself and signed the first piece of paper they put in front of him.

[K. A. Pital]

A sexually frustrated "hacker" (more like pervert scammer really) vs Hollywood celebrities... Hmm...

At least the case has demonstrated that it is trivially easy to trick people into providing their passwords. Which is already well-known.

[Elheru Aran]

A sexually frustrated "hacker" (more like pervert scammer really) vs Hollywood celebrities... Hmm...

At least the case has demonstrated that it is trivially easy to trick people into providing their passwords. Which is already well-known.

Doesn't have to be sexually frustrated as much as he has to be willing to take advantage of the vast host of Internet neckbeards/permavirgins willing to pay good money for this kind of highly personal stuff.

[TheFeniX]

Internet neckbeards? You mean "the average person" as people lost their goddamn minds for this on the same level of the Brittany Spears meltdown way back? People (not just the magazine) love watching celebs fall on their asses and the Internet mayhem for the time reflected that. No one had to pay money either way and I'm sure more than enough celebrity rags were dieing to get ahold of these pics. And whereas losers with too much time on their hands do want this stuff, if People magazine could print nudes, I'm pretty sure they would do it in a heartbeat and rake in sales.

The only real difference I saw was that "moral upstanding normal" people love their "gates" and blasted Google with "celebgate" while permavirgins were labeling it "the fappening" because, while I understand how they came to call it that, they are just as moronic as normal people when it comes to naming shit except they are mildly more original.

[Xisiqomelir]

Did anyone actually call this Celebgate? I've always heard it referenced as The Fappening.

[Elheru Aran]

Did anyone actually call this Celebgate? I've always heard it referenced as The Fappening.

I think Fappening was the more Reddit-savvy term, while the more conventional news services tended to refer to it as Celebgate.

[Broomstick]

Did anyone actually call this Celebgate? I've always heard it referenced as The Fappening.

I'm the other way around - didn't hear of "fappening" until this thread, but I have heard "celebgate".

So, yes, some people do say celebgate.

[TheFeniX]

I was trolling the Internet after the whole thing broke. Stumbled across at least one article talking about how the narrative of "Internet Trolls" was hilarious when every rag was clickbaiting their way to victory. Celebgate and Fappening were both trending heavily on Google. Like him, I was pissed that everyone seemed to dump blame on the scumbag who got the pics (well deserved hate and blame, not arguing that) and "Internet Trolls" that helped spread the word and host the data. Once again, well deserved hate and blame.

But they ignored the hate and blame on the group that also deserved it: all the idiots blasting Google in a desperate bid to see tits. And to help you on your way, "moral upstanding sites" talking about it constantly, leaving you bread-crumbs to follow to find glorious GLORIOUS TITS and/or posting SFW edits to drum up more clicks while decrying the whole thing as vile while also trying to dump all the blame off on the Internet's resident scapegoats everyone loves to hate, but they also love because they "profit" (in the form of titty picks and clicks in this case) from every once in a while.

I would have let this pass had Google just been blasted with "Fappening" because, as said, this was what people would use going in knowing what was happening would use, hence likely already a part of the problem. But "celebgate" trends put that idea to bed.

Like always, "normal people" are quick to call a pot a pot and talk about how shitty the whole situation was, while simultaneously performing desperate google searches to try and see grainy pics of boobs. You know, because normal people are shitty too. But you lose clicks calling normal people out for being shit. It's easier to let them feel like they aren't a huge part of the problem when they give these types of privacy invasions validation and exposure rather than ignoring them.

I could be biased though. We ended up with a (2 fucking year) subscription to People (which is why I bag on it) way back because I was helping out my Nephew with a school thing. That magazine is like... holy shit. The "normal mode" creeper handbook. I do not understand the obsession with every day celebrity. I'd dropkick a Grizzly bear to be able to sit down and have a few drinks with Patrick Stewart and just shoot the shit with him. But giving a shit <random celebrity> looks good in a bikini? Get a fucking life people.