King of Revenge Porn Arrested. Are You Safe Now?

On January 23, 2014, Hunter Moore, the so-called “King of Revenge Porn,” was arrested. Moore is the former owner of the site isanyoneup.com, notorious for posting nude photos of people—mostly women—without their consent. As if that weren’t bad enough, posts to the site frequently included personally identifying information such as the women’s names, address, places of employment, and more.

None of this occurred by accident. The purpose of the site was revenge porn. The photos and personal information posted often came from ex-spouses or ex-boyfriends of the photo subjects, out to ruin their former partners’ reputations.

It’s important that we point out no one has actually been indicted for any of these activities yet, so they’re all “alleged” perpetrators. And the site itself was sold in 2012 to Internet magnate and anti-bullying crusader James McGibney, who shut down the site (and all related domains) and rerouted the domain to his site Bullyville.com, which is focused on fighting cyberbullying.

For his part, Hunter Moore wasn’t arrested for running a revenge porn site. Instead, the charges include seven counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information, seven counts of aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy.

At this point, it’s the best the Department of Justice can do. Currently, no laws prohibit pornography outright, much less pornography posted for the purposes of revenge. Victims of this practice have little recourse, and continue to fight to make it illegal.

For the time being, with Moore behind bars and most likely on his way to trial, is the Internet safer now?

In a word, no.

Moore is not the only Web publisher in the revenge porn business, nor is he the only “professional troll” out there. Every day, personal information is stolen and published, much to the dismay of the victims who can spend months or even years trying to clear their names.

Until online practices such as revenge porn are made illegal, you can take some steps to protect yourself:

• Maintain control of your images. Think twice before you send intimate photos to significant others. Even if they never try to exact revenge after a breakup, it’s possible their computers can be hacked, and photos stolen.
• Protect your data. Keep computer anti-virus programs up to date to keep out hackers and malware.
• Update your privacy settings online. If you belong to any social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), check your account’s privacy settings to ensure you’re not making anything public that you’d prefer remain private.
• Take action if images are stolen. If you are hacked, or images are somehow taken without your permission, you do have recourse to remove stolen photos online.
• Only share personal information with trusted sites. Whether you’re shopping online, or signing up for a newsletter, only provide your name, email address, home address, credit card numbers, or any other personal data to sites you trust, and that offer a secure environment.
• Keep your own sites safe, too. If you’re a Web publisher, it may be possible for hackers and thieves to find your personal information through other means. How safe is your website? It may be time to evaluate security, and put measures in place to protect your site, and yourself.

We’ll keep you posted on the Hunter Moore case. In the meantime, stay safe both off and online.

Keep up with posts like this by subscribing to our RSS feed, or following @WhoIsHosting on Twitter.