Remember “The Fappening?” Oh yea I remember. Well the man responsible for leaking all those stolen photos of nude celebrities back in August 2014 has been handed down his punishment. The Fappening hacker, Ryan Collins, has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison.
The 36-year-old man from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty to federal hacking charges and admitted to a two-year phishing scam to gain passwords of more than 100 people, including Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kaley Cuoco, Kirsten Dunst, Aubrey Plaza, Rihanna and Avril Lavigne. In March, he pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information.
To steal the naked pics Collins tricked celebrities into providing him with their usernames and passwords by sending fake emails that appeared to be from Apple and Google to celebs and other women.
“In some cases, Collins would use a software program to download the entire contents of the victims’ Apple iCloud backups,” Pennsylvania US attorney Bruce Brandler said. “In addition, Collins ran a modeling scam in which he tricked his victims into sending him nude photographs.”
Investigators discovered that Collins gained access to at least 50 Apple iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts, many of which belonged to famous women. Officials say Collins ran the phishing scheme from November 2012 until September 2014.
However, FBI investigators did not uncover evidence linking Collins to the actual release of the photos “or that Collins shared or uploaded the information he obtained.”
There is absolutely no denying that this ghoul deserves to be in jail and punished for his crimes. But then again, this man probably brought a lot of happiness to so many people’s lives.