CELEBRAGEDDON Hacking Scandal Update: Edward Majerczyk Sentenced to Nine Months
Posted: January 24, 2017 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Entertainment, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Amber Heard, Celebrities, Chicago, Edward Majerczyk, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hack, iCloud, Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst, Los Angeles, Phishing, Plea, Pornography, Theft, Twitter Leave a comment
Majerczyk faced up to five years in prison. His lawyers argued in a sentencing memo that his participation was limited to the unauthorized access of information on his personal computer, ‘for his personal use and viewing only.’
“Majerczyk sent phishing emails to his victims, tricking them into providing their usernames and passwords to a third-party website, according to a plea agreement. He in turn used the information to access their accounts, leading to material belonging to more than 300 victims.”
CHICAGO — A Chicago man was sentenced to nine months in a plea deal Tuesday for hacking the electronic accounts of 30 celebrities and stealing their personal data, including nude photos and videos.
[ARCHIVE – The CELEBRAGEDDON of 2014: Jennifer Lawrence Requests Nude Pics Investigation]
[MORE – Social Media Goes Cuckoo Bananas Over Massive Celebrity Nude Photo Leak]
Edward Majerczyk, 29, was accused of orchestrating a phishing scheme from November 2013 to August 2014 that netted personal information from celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and many more in Los Angeles.
Lawrence likened the privacy invasion to a “sex crime” and said she worried about its impact on her career.
Majerczyk, the son of two Chicago police officers, did not plead guilty to distributing the images. His plea was limited to
his role in obtaining them.
“At the time of the offense, Mr. Majerczyk was suffering from depression and looked to pornography websites and Internet chat rooms in an attempt to fill some of the voids and disappointment he was feeling in his life.”
After his case was transferred from California to Chicago, he pleaded guilty in September to one count of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information.
A spokesman for the US attorney’s office in Los Angeles told the Chicago Tribune that the investigation into who leaked the sensitive information was ongoing.
[Coconuts: Kirsten Dunst Leads Celeb Anger at Apple Over Stars’ Nude iCloud Images Stolen]
[MORE – Nude Celebrity Leak Panic on Horizon as Mainland China Attacks Apple’s iCloud]
Majerczyk sent phishing emails to his victims, tricking them into providing their usernames and passwords to a third-party website, according to a plea agreement. He in turn used the information to access their accounts, leading to material belonging to more than 300 victims, according to the plea agreement.
Majerczyk faced up to five years in prison. His lawyers argued in a sentencing memo that his participation was limited to the unauthorized access of information on his personal computer, “for his personal use and viewing only.” Read the rest of this entry »
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 Official Trailer: ‘We March Together’
Posted: July 23, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: Jena Malone, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Katniss Everdeen, Liam Hemsworth, List of The Hunger Games characters, Mockingjay, Sam Claflin, The Hunger Games universe, Willow Shields Leave a commentStarring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Willow Shields, Sam Claflin, Jena Malone, Natalie Dormer, with Stanley Tucci, and Donald Sutherland.
With the nation of Panem in a full scale war, Katniss confronts President Snow [Donald Sutherland] in the final showdown. Teamed with a group of her closest friends – including Gale [Liam Hemsworth], Finnick [Sam Claflin], and Peeta [Josh Hutcherson] – Katniss goes off on a mission with the unit from District 13 as they risk their lives to liberate the citizens of Panem, and stage an assassination attempt on President Snow who has become increasingly obsessed with destroying her. The mortal traps, enemies, and moral choices that await Katniss will challenge her more than any arena she faced in The Hunger Games.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 is directed by Francis Lawrence from a screenplay by Peter Craig and Danny Strong and features an acclaimed cast including Academy Award®-winner Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Academy Award®-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Willow Shields, Sam Claflin, Jena Malone with Stanley Tucci and Donald Sutherland reprising their original roles from The Hunger Games and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. The impressive lineup is joined by The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 co-stars Academy Award®-winner Julianne Moore, Mahershala Ali, Natalie Dormer, Wes Chatham, Elden Henson and Evan Ross.
[VIDEO] Preview: Jennifer Lawrence with a Shotgun in David O. Russell’s ‘Joy’ Trailer
Posted: July 15, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: American Hustle, Édgar Ramírez, Bradley Cooper, David O. Russell, Diane Ladd, Isabella Rossellini, Jennifer Lawrence, Joy Mangano, Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook Leave a commentMike Ayers writes: The final installment of “The Hunger Games” isn’t the only chance to see Jennifer Lawrence later this year…
“Don’t ever think the world owes you anything. Because it doesn’t.”
…“Joy” is the third Russell film to star Lawrence in the last three years – they previously worked together on 2012’s “Silver Linings Playbook” and 2013’s “American Hustle.” She won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in “Playbook.” Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Dad vs Step-Dad in Will Ferrell & Mark Wahlberg Comedy ‘Daddy’s Home’
Posted: June 19, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: Adam McKay, Christmas, Cinema, Hannibal Buress, Jennifer Lawrence, Linda Cardellini, Mark Wahlberg, Movies, Oliver Stone, Sean Anders, The Other Guys, video, Will Ferrell Leave a commentIt’s dad vs. step-dad as Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg reunite in the upcoming comedy Daddy’s Home.
Ferrell and Wahlberg, who previously teamed up for the 2010 action-comedy The Other Guys, will once again be at odds, as they hilariously attempt to outmaneuver one another while competing for the affection of two children.
Ferrell portrays Brad, a amiable radio executive who aspires to be a dad. Brad’s dream comes true when he marries Sarah (Linda Cardellini) and becomes the step-father to her two kids. But conflict arises in the form of the children’s biological father, Dusty, an outgoing special-ops agent played by Mark Wahlberg. Read the rest of this entry »
BREAKING: Chinese Hackers Reveal They Have Archive of Hillary’s State Department Emails, Offer them to GOP in Rare Deal
Posted: March 12, 2015 Filed under: Diplomacy, Global, Humor, Mediasphere, The Butcher's Notebook | Tags: American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Barack Obama, Chinese Hackers, GOP, Hacking, Hillary Clinton, Israel, Jennifer Lawrence, John Boehner, Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst, National security, Politico, Republican Party (United States), satire, United States Department of Homeland Security 2 Comments
Chinese hackers offer Clinton Archive in Exchange for Exclusive Access to Future Celebrity Porn Leaks
HONG KONG – Chinese hackers contacted John Boehner‘s office this week, offering their archived record of Hillary Clinton’s email database, in exchange for a guarantee of exclusive access to future leaks of celebrity nude images and videos, sources inside the capitol have confirmed. The Department of Homeland security, however, denies any knowledge of a deal being offered by the Chinese, and authorities in Beijing decline to comment. “This is either a rogue operation, or a prank”, said Eric Holder, when contacted for comment. “There’s no evidence the emails they claim to have are authentic.”
Other officials disagreed, conceding that military and non-military hackers inside Chinese have long held copies of every email written and received by cabinet officers in the U.S. “We know they keep records of our correspondence, probably even more complete ones than we do”, said one official. “There’s really not a lot we can do about it. We might as well benefit from it.” Boehner agreed, and suggested that negotiations with A-list actresses are already underway.
“I’d do my part, if it meant this scandal could be neutralized”, said actress Kirsten Dunst, “but only if other actresses do it, too, and only if the images don’t appear outside China.” A spokesperson for Jennifer Lawrence said that under certain conditions she might allow personal photographs to be shared among Chinese hackers, but declined to say what those conditions are. “Jennifer is a patriot,” her spokesperson said. “But she’s also a realist. She doesn’t necessarily trust the Chinese to honor non-disclosure agreements. Another actress, Kate Upton, declined to participate, “If they wanted picture of me, they’d have them by now. Everyone else does”, she said. Read the rest of this entry »
‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1′ on Course for $10 Million Opening Day in China
Posted: February 8, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Asia, China, Entertainment | Tags: Catching Fire, Francis Lawrence, Guardians of the Galaxy (2008 team), IMAX, Jennifer Lawrence, Katniss Everdeen, Lions Gate Entertainment, Mockingjay, North America, The Hunger Games trilogy, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Leave a comment
“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1” looks on course for a super-strong opening frame in China, the world’s second largest theatrical marketplace.
The film opened on Sunday (Feb. 9) on some 4,000 screens. Preliminary estimated data points to an opening day score of $10.1 million (RMB62 million).
That puts it miles ahead of previous “Hunger Games” excursion “Catching Fire,” which earned $12.9 million in its first full weekend, and ended with a final China gross of $27.9 million. Read the rest of this entry »
The Private Self(ie)
Posted: September 8, 2014 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere, Reading Room | Tags: Celebrageddon, Celebrity nudes, Discovering the Lost Virtue, Hacker, Intimacy, Jennifer Lawrence, JLaw, Modesty, Nude photos, Photography, Privacy, Selifie, Wendy Shalit Leave a comment
How Jennifer Lawrence’s Boobs Broke the Internet: Fake Links to Nude Celebs Overload New Zealand’s Telecommunications Network
Posted: September 7, 2014 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Science & Technology | Tags: Avril Lavigne, Celebrageddon, celebrity, Cyberwarfare, iCloud, Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst, Malware, Rihanna, Spark Capital, Sunday, Trend Micro, Twitter Leave a comment
Malware trap Brings New Zealand’s Internet to its Knees
AFP – It is believed a handful of computer users clicked links on Friday evening believing they would take them to the illicit images, but instead they inadvertently installed malware triggering a crippling Internet attack.
“For obvious reasons, clicking on links to ‘naked celebrity’ photos, or opening email attachments would be a very bad idea right now, expect criminals to ride this bandwagon immediately.”
It took telecommunications giant Spark, the rebranded Telecom Corp., until Sunday to fully repair what it termed a “dynamic” cyber-attack that overloaded its system covering more than 600,000 customers.
“Our scanning brought to our attention some freshly-concocted schemes targeting those looking for the photos borne from the aforementioned leak.”
[Also see – The CELEBRIGEDDON of 2014: Jennifer Lawrence Requests Nude Pics Investigation]
[More – Coconuts: Kirsten Dunst Leads Celeb Anger at Apple Over Stars’ Nude iCloud Images Stolen]
[More – Social Media Goes Cuckoo Bananas Over Massive Celebrity Nude Photo Leak]
The intimate celebrity photos, which included actresses Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst, and singers Avril Lavigne and Rihanna, were stolen from a cloud storage system.
BREAKING: Escaped Albino Cobra Snake Sending Tweets from Undisclosed Location
Posted: September 3, 2014 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Cobra, Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Los Angeles County California, Monocled cobra, Ricky Gervais, Snake, Thousand Oaks California Leave a commentReally, really sorry I bit that dog. In my defense, I had the sun in my face my monocle was glaring–thought it was a mongoose!
— AlbinoMonocledCobra (@AlbinoMonoCobra) September 3, 2014
Nudes of the @AlbinoMonoCobra have been leaked pic.twitter.com/n9dvhd7sKr — Erica Castro (@ecast2308) September 3, 2014
Why am I loose in Thousand Oaks? Heading down for a little shopping at the mall. I need a new hoodie.
— AlbinoMonocledCobra (@AlbinoMonoCobra) September 3, 2014
Since @AlbinoMonoCobra released an updated photo to the media, it seems only fair to give Tiko the dog a fair shake. pic.twitter.com/Xn5RSCo5gR
— Robert Holguin (@ABC7Robert) September 3, 2014
Coconuts: Kirsten Dunst Leads Celeb Anger at Apple Over Stars’ Nude iCloud Images Stolen
Posted: September 2, 2014 Filed under: Breaking News, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Apple, Emma Watson, Federal Bureau of Investigation, iCloud, iPhone, Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst 5 Comments
From Mail Online: Kirsten Dunst has become the first celebrity to publicly criticize Apple after it emerged that a flaw in the ‘Find My iPhone‘ function of its iCloud service may have helped an unknown hacker steal nude photos of her and ‘100 other celebrities’.
[Also see – The CELEBRIGEDDON of 2014: Jennifer Lawrence Requests Nude Pics Investigation]
[More – Social Media Goes Cuckoo Bananas Over Massive Celebrity Nude Photo Leak]
The Spiderman star tweeted ‘Thank you iCloud’ along with icons representing a slice of pizza and a pile of poo on Monday afternoon, the day after naked photos of her were published online.
Kirsten Dunst has become the first celebrity to publicly criticize Apple after it emerged that a flaw in the ‘Find My iPhone’ function of its iCloud service may have helped a hacker to steal nude photos of her and ‘100 other celebrities’.
The supposed hacker behind the scandal has claimed that they broke into stars’ iCloud accounts, including those of Dunst, Hunger Games actress Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and Rihanna, before publishing them on 4chan, the image-sharing forum.
A list of the alleged victims of the hack – a staggering 101 in total – has also been posted online; most of whom have not seen any photographs leaked by the hacker.
Yesterday, British actress Emma Watson, a friend of Lawrence, condemned the ‘lack of empathy’ shown by social media users towards victims of the hack.
She tweeted: ‘Even worse than seeing women’s privacy violated on social media is reading the accompanying comments that show such a lack of empathy.’ Read the rest of this entry »
The CELEBRAGEDDON of 2014: Jennifer Lawrence Requests Nude Pics Investigation
Posted: September 1, 2014 Filed under: Breaking News, Entertainment, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Academy Award, Actor, AnnaLynne McCord, Christina Aguilera, Emily DiDonato, Erin Andrews, Erin Heatherton, Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst, Lawrence, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Mila Kunis, Scarlett Johansson, Silver Linings Playbook 7 Comments
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jennifer Lawrence has contacted authorities to investigate who stole and posted nude images of the Oscar winner online, a publicist for the actress said.
Enetertainment Weekly‘s Kyle Ryan has this:
Various reports say nearly 60 photos of Lawrence in various stages of undress circulated after a hacker posted them to 4chan, the Internet’s screaming id, alongside similarly racy leaked photos of Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kate Upton, Victoria Justice, Ariana Grande, and allegedly many others—all of them women.
Kirsten Dunst photos were also swept into the controversy, though no statement has been issued
Winstead confirmed in dispiriting tweets that her pics were real, but Justice and Grande have denied it. (TMZ quotes a Grande tweet, “My petite ass is much cuter than that,” though it’s not on her Twitter page anymore.)
Meanwhile, the presumed stockpile of penis photos taken by Hollywood actors remains curiously untouched.
Intimate images of the actress, who stars in “The Hunger Games” film franchise and won an Academy Award for her role in “Silver Linings Playbook,” began appearing online on Sunday. Naked images purporting to be of other female stars were also posted, although the authenticity of many of the images could not be confirmed. The source of the leak was unclear.
“Once images and other data are uploaded to the cloud, it becomes much more difficult to control who has access to it, even if we think it is private.”
— Security researcher Ken Westin
“This is a flagrant violation of privacy,” Lawrence’s publicist Liz Mahoney wrote in a statement. “The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence.”
Mahoney declined to provide further details, including which authorities were contacted. Lawrence, 24, is a three-time Oscar nominee. Read the rest of this entry »
Social Media Goes Cuckoo Bananas Over Massive Celebrity Nude Photo Leak
Posted: August 31, 2014 Filed under: Breaking News, Entertainment, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Bosworth, Kim Kardashian, Kirsten Dunst, Rihanna, Scarlett Johansson, Selena Gomez, Twitter 4 Comments
Mashable (and everyone else on earth at the same time) reporting:
A massive leak of what appears to be celebrities in compromising positions has seen the Internet go into overdrive.
[Also see: The CELEBRAGEDDON of 2014: Jennifer Lawrence Requests Nude Pics Investigation]
On Sunday evening, a hacker posted photographs to 4Chan purporting to show dozens of stars naked or partially exposed. The images spread quickly across Twitter and other social media platforms.
The ‘master list’ released by the hacker includes some of the biggest names in the world such as Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst, Kate Bosworth, Kim Kardashian, Scarlett Johansson, Selena Gomez, Rihanna and many more. Read the rest of this entry »
The Banality of the Celebrity Profile and How it Got to Be That Way
Posted: May 9, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Reading Room | Tags: Adela Rogers St. Johns, Clara Bow, Hollywood, Jazz Age, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Downey Jr, Ryan Gosling, United States Leave a comment
For The Believer, Ann Helen Peterson writes: At its best, the celebrity profile fosters a feeling of warm intimacy. We read the profile, and we feel we have been granted access not just to the contents of the celebrity’s overnight bag but to the contents of his or her heart. Yet this same profile simultaneously manages to reveal no new information. We love it because it confirms our best beliefs. No other form so seamlessly constructs the necessary components of celebrity, exploiting the desire to see our idol as both “just like us” and nothing like us, as both the girl next door and a goddess above. It is, in other words, spectacularly banal.
[Pre-order Ann Helen Peterson‘s upcoming book: Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Sex, Deviance, and Drama from the Golden Age of American Cinema from Amazon.com
Yet the celebrity profile serves a crucial industrial function: it sells the media products in which the celebrity appears; it sells the magazine that publishes the profile; but, most important, it sells the celebrity’s image and the values that image is made to represent. A profile of Robert Downey Jr. labors to reinforce the central tenets of his image (the phoenix-like return, the affability, the specter of his party-boy youth); a profile of Jennifer Lawrence convinces us that the joking, off-the-cuff, cool-girl charisma we see in her post–Oscar win interviews is not a performance but her authentic self. Each profile is almost eerily on message: Ryan Gosling is introspective; George Clooney is charismatic.
“Historian Charles Ponce De Leon dates the emergence of personality journalism to the development of the ‘public sphere’ in the late eighteenth century…”
The trick, of course, is to make it look like the profile is not selling anything. It’s just a chat between friends, or a nonchalant trip to the desert to get tipsy, engage in some “real talk” that 
sets forth the celebrity’s most winning attributes, and meander to a discussion of his or her upcoming project. This elision is crucial to the celebrity process writ large: we want to believe that these celebrities give of themselves willingly, not because of economic imperative.
“…A man needn’t be a member of the aristocracy or even from a well-to-do family; he just needed to be public.”
These tensions within the celebrity profile—selling oneself versus erasing evidence of the sale, generating intimacy while disclosing nothing—have structured the profile for decades. And the profile of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century enacts a return to the publicity style of classic Hollywood, when the studios found raw “star material” in the form of pliable young talent, packaged it, labeled it with prefabricated type, and sold the star in a meticulously mediated bundle to the American public. Read the rest of this entry »
Free-Speech Wars: You Are What You Say, Not What You Do
Posted: December 27, 2013 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Think Tank, U.S. News | Tags: David French, Generation Y, Huffington Post, Jennifer Lawrence, Joan Rivers, Millennial, Social media, Steve Martin 1 Comment
David French writes: I appreciate Michael’s post about the latest Huffpo-reported controversies involving Steve Martin, Joan Rivers, Jennifer Lawrence, and many, many others. Peruse the pages of lefty news outlets like the Huffington Post and you’ll routinely run across headlines like, ”[Insert Celebrity Name] said WHAT?!?” or “[Insert previously unknown individual] fired for insensitive remarks.” Even the conservative press can sometimes feel like an engine of perpetual outrage over hateful or insensitive comments.
These “two minutes hates” are deeply corrosive to our free-speech culture, but they’re also the inevitable outgrowth of succeeding generations that increasingly define virtue not through actions but through attitudes. In other words, watch what I say. What I do is irrelevant. You’re a bad person if you say the wrong things, no matter what you might do for your family or your fellow man. A lifetime of good works can be rendered irrelevant by a single thoughtless tweet.
But what else can we expect when we live lives of increasing narcissism and when youth (the audience most fired up by social media) retreat from engagement with the real world? For years now, we’ve heard that Millennials were special – “Generation We” — the generation that was most concerned with social justice and helping others. Others said no, describing experience with a generation that was constantly managing its own image on social media, immersed in tweets and “likes” and selfies — all while expecting great returns for little work. But what do the data say? Is it Generation We or Generation Me? Here’s Jean Twenge writing in The Atlantic:
In my 2006 book Generation Me, I presented data showing generational increases in self-esteem, assertiveness, self-importance, narcissism, and high expectations, based on surveys of 1.2 million young people, some dating back to the 1920s. These analyses indicated a clear cultural shift toward individualism and focusing on the self. But perhaps both views were correct — maybe Millennials’ greater self-importance found expression in helping others and caring about larger social causes.
