Investigator says dark trade in revenge porn is only getting worse

A TECH journalist who researched the sickening trend has revealed the ways in which malware, blackmail and treacherous ex-partners can ruin lives.

The dark trade in revenge porn

BLACKMAILING women into performing for live sex shows, hacking their email for nude pictures and secretly broadcasting their most private moments online. These are the sickening depths to which “revenge porn” creators will sink.

A female tech correspondent who spent months investigating a depraved phenomenon of our times has shared her findings in a Reddit Ask Me Anything.

CNN Money journalist Laurie Segall spoke to victims who first heard there were naked images of them online from friends, and saw many photos of women she doubted had any idea their pictures were public.

Others regularly Googled their names to check for copies. Once the photos are out there, they are very hard to remove for good.

Malware installed on computers can turn on webcams.

She came across a number of instances of hackers turning on webcams and selling footage of unsuspecting young women on the anonymous “dark web”.

“I looked at a number of sites on the open web,” she wrote. “I also had a security researcher show me some of the darker revenge porn sites on the dark web. It was pretty awful. Women had their webcams hacked and people could buy access to live shows. The women were being blackmailed into performing for an audience on the dark web. There was also a trade going on where people could upload their own images and get free access, or pay $55 to buy access.”

The tactic is nothing new. “Miss Teen USA was a victim years ago,” wrote Ms Segall. “A hacker installed malware known as ‘blackshades’ on her computer. The tools to do this are bought and sold on the dark web. There are even hotlines and rent-a-hackers. That’s why it’s more important than ever not to click on a link if you don’t know where it’s coming from. Or put tape over your camera.”

“Revenge porn king” Hunter Moore allegedly made money through his secret website.

Ms Segall interviewed one “rent-a-hacker”, Charlie Evens, who worked for the “Most Hated Man On The internet” Hunter Moore. Moore’s now-removed website, isanyoneup.com, allowed people to anonymously submit explicit photos and videos of themselves and former lovers without their permission.

Photos were often accompanied by identifying details including names and addresses. Moore and Evens face criminal charges.

Evens, 23, hacked into women’s email accounts looking for nude photos to sell to Moore, who posted them on his website. “It was really s****y and really sick, and I felt horrible,” Evens told Ms Segall. “When I’m in my room, lights off, door locked, drinking ... you don’t feel the consequences. And then I’d go straight out and party with friends and try not to think about it. If I had to look somebody in the face to do that, it’d be a different story.”

He said the hacking was simple at the time, although Google had since fixed the loophole.

“It’s just scary how quickly I would drop my morals for so little. How much those women were worth, it was like $500 a week, $1000 a week.”

Rachel Lynn Craig, 28, became the first person to be charged with revenge porn last October, after sharing a photo of her ex’s new partner.

Earlier this month, Californian man Kevin Bollaert was jailed for 18 years for posting thousands of sexually explicit photos on a revenge porn site in what was described as the first case of its kind in US criminal history.

He also ran a parallel site that extorted individuals up to $350 each to remove photographs from the porn site.

Last October, Rachel Lynn Craig became the first person to be charged under a new “revenge porn law” after posting a picture of her ex-boyfriend’s new partner naked online.

Ms Segall said the issue was only getting worse. “The security researcher we spoke to says he’s seeing more of it and there’s now a market for it,” she wrote. “But it’s hard to get actual numbers.”

Desensitised hackers looking for a quick buck have ruined many lives.

She decided to look into it after realising how complex the topic was, in terms of the law, people’s reaction and the lack of resources to stop the life-ruining cycle.

“Easy to say ‘don’t take a nude photo of yourself’,” she said. “But now there are hackers that can turn on your webcam and record you.”

Clicking on links or spam can mean malware is installed on your computer, and sending pictures in a any format — even using apps like Snapchat that were deemed safe — is a risk.

Getting the pictures taken down can be even harder, since this is new territory. “We interviewed a woman who had to copyright her nude images,” wrote Ms Segall. “She felt pretty violated. But that’s how the law works unless there are some changes made.”

A shift in how we see privacy and security is taking place, and the problem has only just begun.