Posted on 06/10/2015 9:28:30 PM PDT by Swordmaker
The stunning leak of nude and intimate photos of scores of celebrities may reach far wider than was previously known, involving the breach of almost 600 online storage accounts, according to unsealed federal court documents.
The "Celebgate" hack resulted in the posting on Aug. 31 of almost 500 purported photos of Hollywood stars, models and other celebrities — including Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst, Kaley Cuoco and U.S. soccer star Hope Solo — to the Wild West-like Internet forum 4chan, from which they quickly spread.
Apple Inc. confirmed the next day that the photos were obtained through a "targeted attack" on personal information used to maintain storage accounts on its iCloud system. The FBI's Cybercrimes Unit launched an investigation.
As early as October, the investigation began zeroing in on an address on the South Side of Chicago, the FBI said in a search warrant affidavit recently unsealed in U.S. District Court in Chicago.
Using phone records and computer identification information called Internet protocol, or IP, data, investigators found that the compromised accounts were accessed by a single computer linked to two email addresses belonging to Emilio Herrera, 30.
The FBI — which did not say in the affidavit that Herrera is a suspect — said only that the investigation is ongoing.
No other documents have been publicly filed in the case since the affidavit was unsealed, so it isn't known what investigators found at Herrera's home. But in asking for the warrant, the FBI revealed that potentially hundreds — theoretically almost 2,500 — iCloud accounts were targeted.It's important to note that the identification of Herrera — who has no apparent criminal record — doesn't mean he is necessarily a suspect. IP and email addresses can be masked or spoofed through a variety of technologies, and Internet data can be routed through third-party computers without their owners' knowledge using any of a number of software packages.
According to the affidavit, the computer address was successfully used to accessed 572 unique iCloud accounts — each of them an average of about six times. In addition, it said, the computer address was used in almost 5,000 attempts to reset 1,987 other iCloud passwords.
The affidavit doesn't specify whether that number includes multiple attempts to hack the same accounts or whether almost 2,000 individual accounts were targeted. Nor does it say how many of those other attempts were successful.
"A number of them were accounts of celebrities who had photos leaked online," and most of the rest — that is, accounts of people whose photos weren't published — belonged "celebrities, models or their friends and families," according to the affidavit.
Only a handful of alleged victims are identified, and even then only by their initials. They are described as "a female celebrity who has appeared in several movies."
The affidavit tends to support Apple's insistence at the time that the underlying iCloud technology itself wasn't breached — instead, it indicates that users' account names, passwords and security questions were the means of entry, as Apple contended.
But Apple did add additional steps to keep hackers out of user accounts, and it launched a campaign to encourage users to take stricter security measures.
My three year old granddaughter would love that image.
One of my brothers-in-law won't do that, he doesn't write them down and then he forgets them. He relies on me to remember them for him. Been going on for years, sigh. Latest thing he was panicking about last week was a screen page warning him to pay $500 to the FBI via a link. After telling him it was a spammer, had to show him how to clean out history and cookies, again for the n'th time. Some people can't handle computers.
Did they change the users’ passwords? I thought they were pilfering content.
If they accessed the accounts for an extended period of time (once an evesdropper knows someone is creating nude content, they know they may get more if they keep their mouth closed and just wait) they didn’t change a password.
I thought the news of the hacked accounts was unknown to the victims until the photos were leaked. Changing the password would lock the celebs out of their own access. They’d call in and get the situation changed ASAP.
So Getty is in possession of a stolen celeb nude selfie and applying their own copyright to the image?
Sounds like typical of Getty.
College students were never "forced" to pose for nude photos anywhere, that's total bunk. But it's interesting the article then calls it a "ritual" some were "subject" to. That smacks of initiation rituals for frats, sororities and secret societies.
The junk science of Somatotyping was once more common.
It may have been a requirement at the schools. It was done across the lifespan at some hospitals.
The notion that body composition (not merely weight but proportions of the trunk, limbs, etc.) is indicative of psychology was bunk. But some of it even today creeps into the Body Mass Index kooks’ beliefs.
For the accounts the breached by using the security questions, they had to change the users' passwords to get into the account to pilfer the content. Without changing the password, they could not get in.
They still would not know the password because the system doesn't know the original password to reveal it to anyone. It merely gives someone who "proves" they are the owner by answering the security questions the opportunity to change the original password to something else. There is no way there can be two passwords simultaneously. Ergo, the original owner is locked out.
The celebrity who had her password hacked would then use the same method to get back in and change it to some thing else (Apple does not allow an already used password to be re-used), locking out the bad guy. . . who can then rinse, and repeat so long as the owner doesn't change the security questions to something NOT in her fan biography.
I have no idea what kind of nude pictures Getty may have in its inventory. . . but any use of any Getty image without permission will unleash them and their demands for unreasonable licensing fees. . . in perpetuity. They will demand thousands of dollars for using one of their images, even one without a copyright notice, or inadvertently, and will they will be like a pit bull with a bone, demanding payment, threatening lawsuits, and other dire consequences unless and until you pay up. Eventually, they will unleash their attorneys on you for another round of demands with even higher dollar values for the use of their image or portion of an image.
How did you know what my wallpaper was? Facial recognition needs to be your password.
I for one, have zero interest in seeing any of those mentioned nude. I love females but it just wouldn’t feel right to me. It would make me feel rather scuzzy to invade someones personal privacy.
******
Miss Piggy of The Muppets fame: Is she on the list Of nude pictures? If she is, then I can't wait to see her nude pictures.
You must be a breast man. Miss Piggy has eight.
Resorting to name calling already I see. Well if you can’t win with facts... Attack the person.
I’m not arguing Getty’s tenacity, but I’ve seen them slap their name on all sorts of images they clearly don’t own.
I wonder if the celeb even knows what Getty has claimed.
I think if 600 celebs (many of whom probably personally know each other) had their passwords changed on them multiple times, there would (A) have been chatter going on around Hollywood “Did that happen to YOU too?” and (B) some removal of more compromising images.
At this point have there been public statements by any of the hacked celebs that they did indeed have to change their password to access their systems? Sounds like hundreds should have that tale.
P@ssw0rd
No, just recognizing you as a delusional member of the anti-Apple Hate Brigade doing what you always do on Apple threads: act and post delusionally about everything Apple. I'm just recognizing reality.
How would that work for a celebrity whose image is posted everywhere for a bad guy to get to hold up in front of a computer? Again, for John and Jane Doe average person, Facial Recognition works great for day to day usage. For celebrities, not so much.
So posting what you posted is delusional? I only reposted the last line in the article that YOU posted. So you’re pretty much saying you’re delusional. I think you nailed it!
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