In mid-August, unknown intimate photographs of a Hollywood actress were posted online. The Interstellar star became another victim of The Fappening movement, although fans were left disappointed: Hathaway had already acted naked in films, so they didn’t see anything fundamentally new. remembered the origins of The Fappening and found out why the publication of racy photos of stars dragged on for years, despite high-profile investigations and arrests.

"Emma, ​​you're next"

The reaction to the March photo of actress Emma Watson, who actively advocates for women's rights and cannot boast big amount sexy scenes on screen. Hackers showed the world two videos and 123 photographs of the naked actress, mostly while taking a bath and trying on swimsuits. And it turned out that this is exactly what the world was waiting for.

Bullying Watson began back in 2014, when the website Emma You Are Next appeared on the Internet as a traditional announcement of the next leak of racy photos online. True, it either turned out to be a hoax designed to tickle Watson’s nerves and provoke her loyal “fans” who were examining photos from the ceremonies to see if the actress was wearing underwear, or the publication of the photographs was delayed for three whole years due to the arrest of one of the activists of the online movement The Fappening.

The first mass hacking of celebrity accounts occurred in August 2014. The event was called The Fappening from English words"fap" and "happening". To this day, the stolen images form the basis of the classic blog The Fappening, although among the long list of photos and videos of hacked stars there are “people who look like the attorney general” - erotic photos featuring made-up models. Then, in 2014, the attackers posted some of the pictures without censorship, and tried to sell some for bitcoins.

The Fappening followed a standard pattern: hacking into a celebrity's phone and iCloud data storage, gaining access to pictures not intended for the public, leaking them to image boards like 4chan and related Reddit threads. The total fappening has been going on for three years now.

But the long-time target of hackers, Emma Watson, was extremely upset. For many years, the star “” has been the subject of a direct request from netizens who were experiencing the development of sexuality along with the maturing heroes of the saga. And all these years, the actress endured the press's exercises in the art of a cool headline and the audience's unhealthy fixation on her underwear. In 2017, when she turned 27, the fatal age for many rock stars, the public finally got what they wanted.

Need more fapping

After the reaction to the first leaks of film industry stars, who were afraid for their privacy, they began to investigate what happened. The bureau quickly managed to reveal the identity of the attacker - he turned out to be 36-year-old Ryan Collins, who obtained photos of stars directly from their smartphones between 2012 and 2014. He was sentenced to 18 months, which, however, did not mean that the stolen array of photographs would not surface anywhere else.

During the trial, she stated that she was not involved in what happened, because the iCloud storage facilities were hacked through no fault of hers.

This was indirectly confirmed by the accused in the case of the second wave of fappening, Edward Maerczyk. He obtains the usernames and passwords of stars on behalf of Apple and sends them letters leading to phishing sites. The companies recommended their users to use complex passwords and two-factor identification to eliminate the brute force method, and were completely victims of fraud.

It is noteworthy that despite high-profile lawsuits, sites with star nudity are still operating. The fact is that even after the arrest of the people who directly extorted the personal data of celebrities, the distribution of the obtained materials was carried out by a faceless and uncontrolled army of anonymous people. The content of sites with dubious content is also the prerogative of the ubiquitous anonymity: one resource will close and the next one will immediately appear.

People against the naked and defenseless

The fappening phenomenon itself fits into four points. Firstly, as a rule, the victims are relatively young and famous women. Secondly, fapping represents power. As with most sexual crimes - for example, rape - the reason lies not in the unbridled need to satisfy the instinct, but in the feeling of unlimited power over the victim. So it is with fapping: the feeling of being able to undress a celebrity, even without being a world-famous director, gives the user a sense of self-importance.

Thirdly, fapping provides the opportunity for public condemnation, and this is the most widespread way to relieve tension. It is based on humanity’s favorite cognitive error, called the “illusion of a just world.” Being in the grip of this distorted perception, a person is confident: if I do everything right, nothing bad will happen to me. If something bad happened to someone, it means that someone behaved badly and will be punished.

Fundamental errors of attribution are the root of all evil in the formation of public opinion, even though, thanks to the media, the thesis “it’s your own fault” has ceased to be a statement and has become a subject for open discussion. This question not only makes television talk show participants tear out each other's hair, but also makes us think deeply about the position of women in modern society.

And fourthly, users interested in fappenigs don’t just duplicate the criminal’s request - they create it, and this is the most important point in the whole story. Users say: “Yes, we want to see these rich bitches humiliated and insulted!” The only argument against public bullying is the traditional thesis that Watson could have been “your daughter, mother or sister,” that is, a function, not a person.

Bye, privacy!

After the first wave of fapping, it became clear that the stars were unlikely to meet with understanding among ordinary users, guided by basic principle“Why does a decent girl need such photographs?”, and that new leaks are inevitable. The average consumer of racy star photos believes that since a woman was naked for filming, then there is nothing wrong with making her intimate photos public.

It is not surprising that, in the absence of world-class stars in big cinema, small-town fappening appeared in Russia. This was the search and de-anonymization of porn actresses using the FindFace application and the VKontakte database. The creators of the program do not see any ethical contradictions here.

Meanwhile, the legal history of fapping continues: now an organized group of hackers, calling their mission Celeb Jihad, refuses to remove Watson’s March photos from the network, whose lawyers have already prepared a lawsuit and are ready for another lawsuit. And it doesn’t matter that it is by definition impossible to remove anything from the Internet: the stars are ready to follow the principle. Be that as it may, The Fappennig is unlikely to be stopped by arrests. Public demand and reaction to the forbidden leave no doubt: leaks will continue, and celebrity lawsuits will hang around in the courts for years.

Intimate photos of celebrities on the Internet. Today, their victims were a 26-year-old and a 31-year-old. And if in the case of the British actress the photographs are not too explicit - none of them show Watson naked, then among Seyfried’s photographs there are also pornographic ones. Photographs of Emma Watson apparently date back to 2016 - a few months ago, one of the pictures in which the actress tries on a transparent blouse was published online by an American journalist. The sources of the leak were not disclosed at the time, but Watson sued the media representative. Photos of Amanda Seyfried were taken more than nine months ago, when she was not yet pregnant.

Until today, there have been several more cases of intimate photographs of stars being leaked. The last one was recorded on December 22, 2016 - then it was published on the Internet candid photos star of the series “Charmed” Rose McGowan, and in addition, a new erotic photograph of Jennifer Lawrence appeared on one of the sites, one of those that no one had seen before. Who exactly keeps posting on forums? candid shots world celebrities remains a mystery.

The first mass leak of such footage occurred on September 1, 2014. Then Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst, Kate Upton, Scarlett Johansson, Rihanna, Avril Lavigne, Victoria Justice, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and many others suffered from the actions of hackers. Almost two years later - in June 2016 - it became known that FBI agents had detained Ryan Collins, who was charged with theft of celebrity personal data. According to investigators, in order to obtain user passwords, he had to resort to phishing - stealing passwords by replacing letters. The victim received a fake email from Google or Apple asking them to confirm their previously set password, and after clicking on the provided link, the user was redirected to a fake website.

The hacker personally surrendered to the police - a report from the Vesti. Duty department", 03/16/2016

A month later, another hacker suspected of leaking erotic photographs of stars admitted his guilt: 28-year-old Edward Maerchik from Chicago was accused of gaining access to more than three hundred accounts Apple iCloud and Gmail, including those belonging to celebrities. Considering the lack of any reaction from both the stars who suffered from a new leak in 2016 and the FBI, this moment It is not clear whether law enforcement agencies will search for people responsible for another theft and subsequent publication of personal data of actresses, models and singers.

The stars complained about hackers to the FBI - Russia 24, 09/21/2014