The man who hacked Hollywood

Chris Chaney used to be a celebrity cyberstalker, said David Kushner in GQ. In 2008, the 33-year-old loner was browsing the Internet when he came upon a leaked, half-naked photo of Miley Cyrus, stolen from her own email. Chaney wanted to know how the hacker had gotten into her account. “I was like, ‘How hard could this be?’” he says. By guessing celebrities’ email addresses, and doing some basic Internet research to answer password security questions—often the names of their pets—the unemployed Floridian accessed hundreds of stars’ accounts. He says he found shots of a well-known actress in her “mid- to late-40s” posing naked, and messages suggesting that some leading men were “batting for the other team.” Chaney became obsessed with cracking accounts and rarely slept. “It’s the whole Star Trek thing. Going where no man has gone before.” He kept his hacking secret for two years, but in 2010, “I let my curiosity—and I think my marijuana—get the best of me.” He leaked nude shots of singer Christina Aguilera and actress Scarlett Johansson online, but didn’t cover his digital tracks. Chaney was arrested last year, and now faces up to 60 years in jail. “I’m glad [they arrested me], because I wasn’t going to be able to stop this on my own.”

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