Earlier this week, a 35-year-old Jacksonville man, Christopher Chaney, pleaded guilty to charges that he hacked into celebrity email accounts and leaked nude photos of several of them, including Scarlett Johansson and Mila Kunis. He faces up to 60 years in prison, according to the Associated Press, for gaining access to more than 50 celebrity email accounts. He also might end up being on the hook for millions of dollars in fines and restitution.
My original plan was to use court documents to explain how he did it, but Ars Technica did a great job of that already -- surprisingly, he didn't need an ounce of technical know-how; he used Google to guess the "I forgot my password" security questions on a popular Hollywood stylist's email address.
Once he was into her email, he got celebrity email addresses and did the same thing with them, setting up automatic forwarding of all their emails to an account he had set up for himself. From there, he got the saucy pics by... well, pretending to be a friend and just asking for them.
But there's something else in those documents that's interesting -- a partial list of victims. Johansson is on there, and Kunis, plus Christina Aguilera, actress Renee Olstead, and Simone Harouche, the stylist who started it all.
But there are seven other sets of initials in the original indictment that prosecutors never elaborated on. (Federal court filings from Los Angeles are for some reason much harder to obtain in PDF format, but I've chopped up the individual charges and included them at the bottom.)
Here are the initials of some of the email address owners that Chaney hacked into -- while we probably would have seen anything salacious from them if he'd gleaned it, the potential is still out there. Guess away!
- B.P.
- J.A.
- L.B.
- L.S.
- C.B.
- D.F.
- B.G.
And here are some of my best guesses:
B.P.
The hot possibility: Brad Pitt
The one I'm hoping it is: Former Dallas Cowboys coach (and Dolphins ex-VP) Bill Parcells
J.A.
The hot possibility: Jessica Alba
The one I'm hoping it is: John Adams, second president of the United States
L.B.
The hot possibility: ...Lisa Bonet?
The one I'm hoping it is: LeVar Burton
L.S.
The hot possibility: Model Lara Stone
The one I'm hoping it is: 60 Minutes anchor Lesley Stahl
C.B.
The hot possibility: Christie Brinkley
The one I'm hoping it is: Charles Bronson
D.F.
The hot possibility: Daisy Fuentes
The one I'm hoping it is: California Sen. Diane Feinstein
B.G.
The hot possibility: Bobcat Goldthwait
The one I'm hoping it is: Bobcat Goldthwait
