On May 19th the California home of Hao Kuo Chi was raided by the FBI. Unbeknownst to him his fate had been sealed since March of 2018 when a company that specialized in removing celebrity pictures from the internet informed an unknown Florida client that nude photos of them had been posted online.  

   Over a period of about 4 years, Hao accessed nearly 300 iCloud accounts, gaining login information using just two accounts designed to look like Apple Support. Under the moniker “icloudripper4you” he advertised himself as a hacker for hire who would break into requested iCloud accounts. By the time of his arrest, he had accumulated 620,000 photos and 9000 videos. After pleading guilty on August 5th, he faces 20 years in prison.  

   The Los Angeles Times reported that the photos and videos were, “organized in part on whether the content contained a “win” of nude images.” The word “win” was used to describe any nude images found within accounts.  

   This incident is similar (bordering on identical) to the iCloud leaks that occurred starting on August 26th 2014 to October 2014.  Over the course of several months, the nudes of over 100 female celebrities were leaked to various pornographic sites. This event, often called “the Fappening” or “Celebgate”, affected A list celebrities.  

   Jennifer Lawrence, Hunger Games star and one of the first victims of the leaks, denounced the incident on social media. “Just the fact that somebody can be sexually exploited and violated, and the first thought that crosses somebody’s mind is to make a profit from it. It’s so beyond me. I just can’t imagine being that detached from humanity.” 

   It wasn’t until August 29th, 2018 that George Garofano, the fourth and final hacker charged with the crime, was sentenced to 60 hours of community service: a slap on the wrist when compared to the 20 years that Hao now has to serve. Among the four perpetrators (Ryan Collins, Edward Majercyzk, Emelio Herrera, George Garofano) the longest sentence was 18 months in prison.