On Hunt for Nude-Photo Hackers: FBI, Apple, Reddit

Who is behind the huge leak of celebrities' nude photos? The FBI says it is "addressing" the photo dump, Apple says it is "actively investigating" reports that its iCloud service was breached, the Los Angeles Times reports—and Reddit users are also on the case. Redditors have used clues in a screenshot to identify 27-year-old Georgia man Bryan Hamade as the culprit who leaked the photos of celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton to 4chan, but he insists he is "just an idiot" who was trying to "pull one over" on 4chan users to make bitcoins.

"I am not a hacker," Hamade tells BuzzFeed. "I have no idea how the hell someone could hack into all those accounts." According to Engadget, "how the hell someone could hack into all those accounts" may have involved a bug in Apple's "Find My iPhone" app, which could have enabled a hacker to access scores of accounts through "brute force"—trying countless different passwords until the account is cracked—after obtaining just one celebrity's email address. Developers say the problem has now been patched. Click for a roundup of reactions to the photo leak, which one commentator calls a sex crime that "deserves the same social and legal punishment as meted out to stalkers and other sexual predators." (More Apple stories.)