Man Who Hacked Nude Photos of Jennifer Lawrence Found Guilty of Computer Fraud

Ryan Collins has been convicted of violating the Computer
Fraud and Abuse Act for using phishing scams to obtain access
to nude photos of celebrities. The prosecutor has asked for an
18-month sentence. Photo: Goolge+.

In 2014 somebody posted nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence and other female celebrities on the Internet, where they quickly circulated and started a lot of arguments about privacy in the digital age.

Some people argued that the women in question shouldn’t have been taking nude photos in the first place, but they were wrong, because the problem was actually that people shouldn’t be hacking their phones and stealing their private information in order to release it on the Internet.

Well, the law is finally starting to catch up with the obviously correct answer in this case, and has tracked down the man responsible for stealing the information in the first place.

Ryan Collins of Lancaster, Pennsylvania is pleading guilty to that theft, and other crimes. He used a phishing scheme to steal data from a bunch of people, imitating Apple and Google customer service to access at least 72 email accounts and 50 iCloud accounts, from which he stole photos and other personal information.

As a felony violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, he could face up to 5 years in prison, though prosecutors are only asking for 18 months. To some of us that seems like too little time, likely including Ms. Lawrence and others who had their photos stolen.

Apparently Collins didn’t actually release the photos online, so maybe that’s the reason they don’t think it’s worth pushing for the full penalty, but whoever did share those photos got them from him somehow.

The appearance of the photos online was called a leak or a scandal by much of the media, but as Ms. Lawrence pointed out, those words are not sufficient. It was a sex crime—one that happens far to often to be ignored.