Revenge Porn Kingpin Hunter Moore Got a Visit From the FBI
The Village Voice's lengthy cover story on Hunter Moore's possible hacker connections at his former revenge porn site Is Anyone Up answers one question many of us have had: Yes, the FBI is looking into Moore and his now-shuttered site, something it has denied.
RELATED: Shutting Down Revenge Porn Site Won't Make Hunter Moore Any Friends
The piece by Camille Dodero (her second on Moore this year) is one of those classic Voice long reads that traces out the work of a hacker who goes by the name of Gary Jones and appears to be responsible for a lot of the photos that wound up on IAU. While we learn that Gary Jones is a creep, we don't learn who he is or what, exactly, his connection to Moore is. Though Moore does admit in the piece that he's paid for content, and that he's received content from hackers, the connection between him and Jones is never made explicitly. You'll recall Moore shuttered his site last month, saying he was tired of people sending him pictures of naked children. While Moore found himself universally unpopular thanks to his creation—a site where spurned lovers post pictures of their exes without consent— the FBI told the BBC in April it was not investigating the site. Dodero's reporting contradicts that:
The Voice has learned that the FBI's Los Angeles Internet Crime division has been actively investigating Hunter Moore and Is Anyone Up for months, according to four people who say they've been interviewed by the FBI about his now-shuttered site. The case's focus, according to those familiar with the investigation, was Moore's possible connection to a hacker who has repeatedly broken into the inboxes of countless victims, rifled through their attachments, and submitted the accompanying nudes to Is Anyone Up. (A Los Angeles FBI spokesperson would not confirm or deny such an investigation.)
"The FBI has been in contact with me," Moore admitted during the same conversation in which he threatened to burn down the Voice. "I have nothing to hide."
