hackers of the rich and the famous

The Hacker Behind the Hollywood Nude-Photo Scandal Has Been Sentenced

142nd Kentucky Derby - Celebrities Seen Around Churchill Downs
Kate Upton, Whose Photo We Include For No Reason Whatsoever Photo: Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images for Churchill Downs

Ryan Collins, the hacker behind 2014’s massive celebrity-nudes leak, has been sentenced to 18 months in jail according to The Hollywood Reporter. THR also notes that Collins, who previously took responsibility for obtaining the photos, took a plea deal that reduced his sentence from five years in a federal prison to a year and a half. The leak, known colloquially — as in, by your grossest college friend — as “The Fappening,” ensnared over 600 famous women, whose private, digital images were dispersed online to the public. Interestingly, the case against Collins does not name any of these women individually, but as the collective “female celebrities,” a classy move that prevents Ye Olde Google Machine from providing your grossest college friend with a list of possible nudes to search for anew. And while hacking celebrities and sharing their most intimate images with the internet is regrettably still a thing that happens (ask a certain Ghostbusters star who shall remain nameless because we, too, are classy), this case’s outcome will hopefully deter any enterprising future hackers, or as we like to call them, colloquially, “Fackers.”

The Celeb-Nude-Photo Hacker Has Been Sentenced