Offshoot of Anonymous takes aim at Hollywood
Hollywood stars can now add their names to the ranks of corporations and government agencies as top targets of hackers in a group known as Hollywood Leaks.
A splinter group of hacker collective Anonymous is turning attention away from corporations and governments and toward the beautiful people.
According to multiple reports, the Hollywood Leaks team has announced its intent to target celebrities in film, TV, and music--evidently, folks like Miley Cyrus, Tom Cruise, and rapper Kreayshawn have already been hit. The hackers are looking for dirt, such as nude photos, embarrassing e-mails or memos, scripts under wraps, etc. In general, Hollywood Leaks wants to leave a trail of showbiz carnage in its wake.
So far, the fruits of their dastardly labor include publishing online a list of celebrity cell phone numbers (Cyrus and Ashley Green, Helio Castronoves and Corky Ballas, who both previously appeared on "Dancing with the Stars") and the pre-release script of the movie musical "Rock of Ages" starring Tom Cruise. This morning, they served up Gerald Butler's e-mail address. Admittedly, that's not the most devastating list of achievements so far, but these are the early days yet.
"Nothing like a #LEAK for breakfast," the group tweeted this morning.
A perusal of the group's Twitter stream is a confusing cross switch of comments, encouragements, threats, and counter threats. But the consensus theme is that Hollywood Leaks is in this for "LULZ"--a little laughter at Hollywood's expense. However, the group's vow to tackle the "Jew-controlled media" tends to kill the LULZ buzz.
In any case, the Hollywood spin machine might be scared. How do I know? Like a lot of Los Angeles-based journalists, I have an address book full of studio and independent publicists, and no one is talking. (Maybe I shouldn't say that in an article hackers will probably read, but if there's a hacker boring enough to check out my electro-Rolodex, that would be sad news.)
At any rate, I rolled through that contact list looking for a publicist willing to go on the record with a quote on the Hollywood Leaks operation and its potential to wreak havoc on the industry, and all of them demurred. I sent out a total of 18 requests for a statement over 12 hours and received either dead silence or a buck-passing to another possible contact, who would then respond with more silence. That doesn't mean any of them represent someone with a lot to hide, but it could mean none wants to tempt fate.