The F.B.I. seized Chicago man’s computer and cell phones in Celebrity nude photos leak, ‘The Fappening’ investigation.
Last summer hundreds of photos were stolen from the phones of famous women. Many perverts called it “The Fappening,” a pornographic holiday without any clear reason. But even as the horny internet moved on with their lives, the feds have been avidly searching to identify the men or women behind ‘The Fappening’ and today, they’ve narrowed in on one particular man.
According to reports, a federal search warrant and related affidavit pertaining to the FBI’s investigation into the iCloud hacking ring shows that the feds are closing in on the culprits. On October 15, 2014, federal agents entered the home of Emilio Herrera on the South Side of Chicago. According to the sworn affidavit by Special Agent Josh Sedowsky of the FBI’s Cybercrimes Unit, someone in that house was on a hacking spree.
“Based on victim account records obtained from Apple,” Sedowsky wrote, “one or more computers used at [Herrera’s house] access or attempted to access without authorization multiple celebrities’ e-mail and iCloud accounts over the course of several months.”
The affidavit for the first time confirms that the FBI is actually looking for the victims of the iCloud hack.
From Gawker:
Herrera’s alleged iCloud cracking went way beyond that narrow list of celebs: between May 31, 2013, and August 31, 2014, his IP address “was used to access approximately 572 unique iCloud accounts,” and “in total, the unique iCloud accounts were accessed 3,263 times.” The FBI doesn’t disclose the exact number of famous accounts breached during this account, but notes that “a number” of them belonged to “celebrities” involved in the Fappening, and “the majority of the other accounts accessed from [Herrera’s home] were accounts of celebrities, models or their friends and families.” The affidavit cites an additional (perhaps unrelated) 4,980 attempted reset attempts against 1,987 different password. The sealed warrant reported by the Sun-Times reports an equally prolific iCloud hacker at another Chicago address:
The IP address on Narragansett accessed 330 unique iCloud accounts between May and August 2014, according to the other. Of those, 291 allegedly belonged to people who registered their accounts outside Illinois. Those 291 accounts were accessed more than 600 times, the agent wrote.
This was way more than a hobby but more an elaborate plan or even job. In addition, the FBI affidavit offers new details of how the hacking event went down. Abigal Spencer revealed “recalled getting locked out of her online accounts” between April and May 2014—that’s several months before the leak. “All [stolen] photos were taken with her iPhone and sent through iMessage to her boyfriend”.
Apparently the hackers would phish emails and password reset the account.
The agents confiscated several computers, a cell phone, storage devices and a Kindle Fire. But, it begs the question – how were these people caught?
The nude celebrity photo leak featured NSFW photos of Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Mary E. Winstead, Victoria Justice and Kirstin Dunst.
Last year, a user posted on , an internet bulletin board, posted a warning that several celebrity nudes would leak on Sunday night. Photos were posted into various message boards across the internet, including Reddit.
The hacker allegedly gained access to celebrity private photos via Apple’s iCloud. Threatening to release more photos, the user posted a screenshot of his desktop filled with an several photos he or she has yet to release.
Previously, a man was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2012 after hacking into Scarlett Johansson’s and Mila Kunis’s private online accounts and posting their photos online.
For the full story visit Gawker
Discuss this story with fellow Project Casting fans on Facebook. On Twitter, follow us at @projectcasting.
