Hunter Moore is a bully and a misogynist. Hacking into people's email and posting their nude photos online as a form of blackmail is not anything close to free speech. I hope the feds win on every single count of their indictment, for which Moore was arrested yesterday.
Earlier today, FBI special agents arrested and indicted Hunter Moore, who once ran the revenge-porn website IsAnyoneUp.com, and his alleged hacker accomplice Charles "Gary" Evens. Both arrests occurred without incident. The pair were charged in a 15-count indictment, which claims the men were embroiled in a conspiracy that involved hacking into people's email to steal their nude photos and post them online. Furthermore, the FBI said Moore allegedly paid Evens for nude pics that the latter had hacked from hundreds of victims' email accounts.
Of course, Moore denies all of this, vehemently.
In a 2012 interview with Rolling Stone, Moore was sure that some of the site's nude photos were hacked. He maintained that he never hacked anyone himself and that he didn't know how to do it. Regarding the decision to sell the site that year, he said that "ruining people's lives with naked pictures wasn't, you know, the ideal job."
What an arrogant prick. He just wanted to hop out before he could get nailed with criminal charges. Too bad, Hunter. I shed no tears.
Formally, the indictment charges the men with conspiracy, seven counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information and seven counts of aggravated identity theft. The indictment lists seven victims by their initials only and said that their email accounts contained "among other things" nude pictures of themselves and others.
It also said that the pair, with others who are still unknown, conspired "against the United States" to "access a protected computer without authorization to obtain information for financial gain." It details 57 "overt acts," beginning in October 2011 in which Evens contacted Moore to discuss explicitly how to hack into emails and that hacking was illegal.
These guys could end up doing a lot of time in prison. According to the FBI, there's a 5-year sentence attached to each of the counts with some extra for the aggravated identity theft.
As for the FBI, It would be great if they could get a sense of proportion between what Hunter Moore did and what others have done. Consider, for example the case of Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer, who discovered already-published credit card numbers on AT&T's site and went to prison for 3.5 years.
There's a big difference between exposing a vulnerability one did not cause and hacking people's computers to blackmail them for fun and profit by publishing their private, stolen photos. Let's hope the FBI spends more time on the latter and less on the former.
