The Man Who Hacked Hollywood

35-year-old American Christopher Chaney (Christopher Chaney) out of sheer curiosity cracked the mailboxes of Hollywood stars and more than two years in 2008-2011, read their correspondence, looked at personal photos and watched the shooting of new films.

In March 2012, Cheney was convicted on nine counts. The investigation found that he gained access to the mail correspondence of more than 50 actresses, actors and employees of Hollywood studios and stars of show business. Among the victims - Scarlett Johansson, Vanessa Hudgens, Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus and others. GQ magazine interviewed this woe-hacker, who now faces up to 60 years in prison.

Every morning, Cheney began by parsing a mountain of about 800 fresh letters. Although he will spend the near future in prison, today this modest man is the most knowledgeable person in the world who knows absolutely all the secrets of the behind-the-scenes movie business.



Christopher Cheney said that he himself does not consider himself an advanced computer user. Quite the contrary, he bought a computer just a few years before he began his "hacker" activities. He picked up passwords for the star mailboxes manually, methodically trying different answers to the secret question. For example, it was well known that a hacker who hacked into Paris Hilton’s phone used the answer to the “secret” question about the name of the pet - this answer was easy to find on the Internet.

Christopher Cheney found out the maiden names of the parents of Hollywood stars from telephone directories and address books at the parents' place of residence or at their former place of residence, if they had already passed away. Almost always, someone else with the same surname remained alive in the town.

Cheney did not profess selfish motives. Although he poured some of the photographs he had obtained into the yellow press, he did it exclusively under the pressure of the paparazzi, who persuaded him to provide evidence. Simply put, they took on weakly. In general, he was engaged in espionage solely from boredom, depression and to satisfy his own curiosity. By 2008, he had already been unemployed for two years, he smoked “weed” and lived in his grandmother’s house, in a small room where a bed, a TV, a poster of the Fight Club and a large collection of DVDs could barely fit. He simply had nothing to do.

Cheney says that he tracked in detail the process of filming several films, including the science fiction film “Time” (In Time, 2011), starting with a script, such negotiations on actor contracts (for example, the main character’s agent spent several weeks negotiating with producers about how much money it will cost to expose the lower back a few centimeters below the back) and choose the location for each scene. He learned that there is a location scout profession - agents who travel around the country and abroad and look for suitable places to shoot each scene, then send the photos to the director.

After penetrating someone else's mailbox, Christopher put a redirect to his email. Then he read the mail with interest, writing down in the Word file the postal addresses of all the respondents whom it was possible to notice.



Christopher Cheney does not regret that the FBI calculated it (it was not difficult at all). During the arrest, he was relieved to tell the agents: finally you came, otherwise I could not have stopped. In the end, the prison cell is not too different in terms of living from his former room.

But for many years, Cheney will remain the most knowledgeable spy and keeper of the secrets of Hollywood. He still keeps secret some facts that he learned from mail correspondence, and does not name.

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