Британский таблоид The Daily Mail назвал вероятного виновника появления в сети фото из личных архивов голливудских знаменитостей. Как пишет издание, ответственность за данное правонарушение несет 28-летний сисадмин из Самары Сергей Холодовский. При этом никаких доказательств своим утверждениям СМИ не приводит.
Как пояснил Холодовский, он не имел отношения к взлому iCloud. Программист подчеркнул, что все выложенные на сайте фотографии и так имелись в свободном доступе. Он также отметил, что не является владельцем сайта, а просто занимается его администрированием за зарплату, передает
Лента.Ру.
Издание дополнило материал о «хакере» фотографиями из аккаунта Холодовского в соцсетях — с женой, дорогим автомобилем и «убогой», по выражению автора материала, квартирой. Редакция The Daily Mail выразила сожаление, что западные правоохранительные органы не смогут добраться до жителя Самары и предъявить обвинение в обнародовании персональных данных, поскольку конституция РФ запрещает экстрадицию своих граждан.
Материалы по теме:
Russian programmer behind website hosting hacked celebrity nude pictures is Porsche-driver with pole-dancing wife who runs business from shabby flat
- Sergei Kholodovskii, 28, is technical brain behind Arizona-registered site
- It hosts famously hacked images of Rita Ora, Kim Kardashian and Rihanna
- It is "erotic with elements of porno", said IT worker from Samara, Russia
- His wife Yana Sotova, 25, even considers his site hosting work a "normal job"
- He claims stars leaked iCloud images themselves for "good publicity"
- Celebrities branded leak a "sexual violation" and gross invasion of privacy
Published: 19:12 GMT, 13 October 2014 | Updated: 23:17 GMT, 13 October 2014
A Porsche-driving Russian computer expert who has been unmasked as the brain behind a naked celebrity pictures website insists his pole-dancing wife doesn"t understand what the fuss is about.
Sergei Kholodovskii has uploaded thousands of leaked images, including of Rita Ora, Kim Kardashian and Rihanna, to the Arizona-hosted site from his flat in Samara, Russia.
He denies hacking the images from iCloud himself - claiming they are openly available on the web - and alleges many of the stars get "good publicity" from the exposure.
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What"s the problem? Drag racing driver Sergei Kholodovskii (right) has been unmasked as an IT expert behind a site which hosts nude celebrity images - and insists his wife Yana Sotova (left) has no problem with it
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Mr Kholodovskii (left) says his wife Yana Sotova (right) "studies" pole dancing and has no problem with the leak
He also dismissed claims by some of the victims that showing their hacked pictures and videos amounts to a "sex crime".
Among other stars whose personal photographs are featured without permission on the site are Scarlett Johansson, Kate Upton, Kelly Brook and Jennifer Lawrence, who has branded the hacking of nude images as "a sexual violation".
But drag racing driver Mr Kholodovskii said his 25 year old wife Yana Sotova - also a racer who is "studying" pole dancing in her spare time - is untroubled by his job.
"Of course she knows about it. She thinks it is a normal job, it is just site hosting, this is it," said Mr Kholodovskii, whose site has gained millions of hits and money from pop-up advertisements.
Asked if she objected to the stolen content of the women, he said: "No, no. I think it is because the world view has changed about it. All people think it"s OK, at least all my friends think so.
"I would call it erotic with elements of porno. There are quite revealing pix there.
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Unrepentant: Mr Kholodovskii claims many stars leaked the images themselves to get "good publicity"
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Drivers: The couple are both drag racing drivers and live in a southern Russian town where he runs the site
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Not so high-octane: The programmer"s town is most famous for producing the Soviet-era Lada car, pictured
HOW CELEBRITIES" INTIMATE PHOTOS WERE LEAKED
Actresses and models were outraged after intimate photos of them emerged online at the end of August, when they were shared by users of the anonymous photo-sharing site 4chan.
The images had been uploaded to iCloud, an online storage system available to all Apple users which synchronises with iPhones and iPads.
It is thought many of the victims would have had their photos uploaded automatically without realising they had allowed the process to happen through their devices" security settings.
Users" iCloud accounts are private, but hackers found a vulnerability in one of the site"s login pages which allowed them to enter multiple passwords until they cracked users" details.
Apple quickly fixed the glitch, but by then the damage had been done.
Today it emerged 100,000 more videos and images have been leaked online after they were intercepted from Snapchat (above).
The pictures are feared to contain a large cache of child pornography, as half of the app"s users are aged between 13 and 17.
Images sent using the app are designed to disappear after they have been viewed once, but recipients can take screenshots of the pictures and forward them to other people.
"Well, if you would like to know my opinion where these pictures are coming from, I think those celebrities release them themselves, for PR purposes.
"Because, I say it again: there are many celebrities nobody was aware of before, and now everyone is talking about them."
Asked to name stars who were happy about their intimate pictures being posted on the open internet or who may have released them voluntarily, he replied: "I don"t know the names, I am not quite interested who these people are, actresses or models."
He added: "To tell the truth, this is just a job for me. I wish they were cars. I like cars more."
Porsche-driving Kholodovskii"s role was first revealed in The Sun on Sunday.
He was tracked down to his jewellery shop assistant mother Tatiana"s home in the city of Togliatti, near Samara, the address he uses to register the sleazy site via an American company.
He has now bought a new home in an elite tower block close to her £30,000 flat in a five-floor block on Lenin Boulevard built when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev ruled the Kremlin.
The city is better known as the home of the indefatigable Soviet-era Lada car than for porn websites.
"I"m in charge of hosting and all technical matters to do with the running of this site," he told the newspaper.
"This is my job. I am paid for it. The site is owned by my partner. He is a Russian man but he lives in Europe.
"I know him for a while but only via internet."
This mystery man "is very bad with computers. He thinks he is more a businessman. I was offered a job and I said yes".
He claimed he "never met" the owner. "I do not know his real name and I do not care about it," he said.
"I am paid a fixed amount every month for maintenance of this website and I am satisfied with it.
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Anger: Celebrities who feature on the site include Kim Kardashian (left) and British model Kelly Brook (right)
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Victims: Singers Rihanna (left) and Rita Ora (right) were also targeted by the hackers in the iCloud leak
"I am not paid much - but I have many websites."
A notice was recently posted on the site to say that that "all the photos are freely available on the Internet. We don"t hack iCloud, email and other accounts".
The site has also stated it will remove pictures of any celebrities objecting to their images being displayed.
While insisting there is "no illegal activity" behind the site, he admits on his own social networking site to have had long experience as a programmer.
He posts an image of a book about hacking, and a code for the first programme he wrote a decade ago.
He also posted images of erotica that he "loves".
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Speaking out: The actress Jennifer Lawrence said of the leak: "It"s disgusting. The law needs to be changed"
Foreign websites pose a legal minefield for Western law enforcement agencies, and there is little prospect of Russian police acting against him.
Even if they did, the Russian constitution bars extradition of its own citizens.
Kelly Brook tweeted last week: "My lawyer is dealing with 18 women who have all had their iCloud hacked."
She warned that "some very young innocent women have been targeted - it"s so wrong".
A furious Jennifer Lawrence added: "It"s disgusting. The law needs to be changed."