Despite massive media attention and heightened security, nude photographs of celebrities continue to be traded on the Internet.
Another set of photographs of minor celebrities in compromising positions were apparently leaked on Thursday. Though none of these leaks have yet to be confirmed officially, our exploration of the darker corners of the Internet indicate that hackers will target any celebrity, no matter how big or small, who may have images they wouldn't want released to the public.
he leaks, which have been dubbed, crudely, "The Fappening" ("Fap" is Reddit-speak for masturbation) began in late August and continued through September. It started with big names like Jennifer Lawrence, Aubrey Plaza, Kirsten Dunst and Rihanna, but hacked pictures of lesser known models, actors and actresses are also still being traded among images of bigger stars.
Based on conversations we saw online, compromising photos of actresses Annalynne Mccord, Nina Dobrev and Joanna Kruppa, model Erin Cummins and Nick Hogan, wrestler Hulk Hogan's son were apparently leaked Thursday. These leaks are still unconfirmed by official sources and it should be noted that a number of faked and photoshopped pictures have been surfacing throughout the duration of these leaks. The new images, however, did not appear to be photoshopped and most of them contained faces visible with no signs of being altered.
The photos have reportedly been surfacing on websites like 4chan, Reddit and AnonIB, however, the majority of the trading is likely being done behind closed doors in private, invite-only forums, IRC channels and subreddits.
Despite the fact that Reddit shut down the main subreddits that shared the original leaked photos, there are still plenty of pictures being traded throughout the site, and subreddits dedicated to them. One subreddit in particular, r/fappeningdiscussion has been incredibly popular. Those chatting in the forum, though, claim to be "only talking about pic[ture]s publicly released," not newly hacked images.
That's partly true: Most of the discussions start as conversations that then devolve into links to leaked photos old and new. Reddit admins and mods don't seem to be doing much to keep the conversation free of links to what are likely stolen photos.
Through the current discussion in this subreddit (and on other websites to which we aren't too keen on driving traffic), it's easy to track down links to websites displaying the leaked photos. These are complete with IRC chatrooms for trading and more discussion, complete archives, backup links and even timelines that show what photos were leaked when.
In addition to the websites we found, there was also a Bittorrent Sync set up, a computer program that automatically downloads files when a new nude picture is released. Though the Bitsync was still active as of Wednesday, reports suggested that it was down on Thursday.
Despite a litany of security measures, the nude-celebrity-photos genie is a difficult one to put back in the bottle — in our connected world, it appears data will continue to be breached regardless, or perhaps because, of how famous you are.
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