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Chris Chaney was a 33-year-old loner in Florida who decided to shake up his boredom by breaking into celebrities’ email accounts. Soon he discovered nude photos of Scarlett Johansson and other stars, and then the FBI came calling:

While perusing the e-mail of celebrity stylist Simone Harouche in early November 2010, he stumbled across photos of her client Christina Aguilera trying on outfits in a dressing room, wearing little more than silver pasties. Chaney found a random guy on a celebrity message board and sent him an e-mail telling him he knew ‘someone’ who had hacked pictures of Aguilera. Did he want to check them out?

Chaney freaked the moment he sent it. What the hell am I doing? he thought. He was using a phony e-mail address, but he didn’t know how to effectively cover his tracks. On December 8, a headline appeared on TMZ: ‘Christina Aguilera: My Private Sexy Pics Were Hacked.’ Aguilera’s rep told TMZ they were ‘attempting to determine the identity of the hackers and will pursue them aggressively.’

“The Man Who Hacked Hollywood.” — David Kushner, GQ

More Kushner: “The Hacker is Watching.” Jan. 15, 2012, GQ