Dutch Politician Faces 3 Years In Prison For Hacking iCloud Accounts, Leaking Nudes

An anonymous reader writes: "Dutch prosecutors have asked a judge for a three-year prison sentence for a local politician who doubled as a hacker and breached the personal iCloud accounts of more than 100 women, stealing and then leaking sexually explicit photos and videos online," reports ZDNet. The hacker (VVD politician Mitchel van der K.) is believed to have been part of the Celebgate (TheFappening) movement. Between 2015 and 2017, van der K. used credentials leaked at other sites to hack into iCloud accounts belonging to acquaintances and Dutch celebrities, from where he stole nudes and sex tapes. Some he leaked online, some he kept for himself. Victims included acquaintances, but also local celebrities, such as Dutch YouTube star Laura Ponticorvo and Dutch field hockey star Fatima Moreira de Melo. After he was arrested, van der K. claimed he was forced to hack his victims by other hackers, an excuse which the prosecution quickly knocked down, pointing out that half of his victims were friends and acquaintances, and not celebrities that would be of interest to other hackers. Days before he was arrested, van der K. was also elected to his city's council, a position from which he resigned.

Re:

[Joce640k]

In other news, the Dutch have politicians who aren't just suits.

Even harder in the multiverse

[Empiric]

Remember... keep a watchful eye on all of your selves.

Maybe he hacked the election too?

[Guy Smiley]

It would be interesting to see if the election was using online or election voting, and check if he was elected legitimately or maybe hacked his way in?

Re:Maybe he hacked the election too?

[JaredOfEuropa]

We still vote by paper ballot here. Voting machines were scrapped a while back. For the wrong reasons though, over fears the machines could be hacked, not because of the more fundamental and important objection that they cannot be audited by laymen. They are working on bringing back electronic voting though, with “better machines”.

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[Joce640k]

It would be interesting to see if the election was using online or election voting, and check if he was elected legitimately or maybe hacked his way in?

Maybe the Dutch are just cooler than other countries and don't just vote based on suits.

Re: Maybe he hacked the election too?

[St.Creed]

The election was done by paper ballot, which has been mandatory ever since famous Dutch security expert Rop Gongrijp showed it was easy to hack them, right after their introduction, and attempts to secure then by the builders were all broken in minutes.

What most Dutch people *don't* know is that attempts to secure them correctly were not pursued further by the ministry of the interior, because they didn't understand encryption and attempts to explain this topic to them all failed. A secondary concern was th

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

iCloud Rain

[ShoulderOfOrion]

Waters the woods with babes.

Anyone who posts nudies in the Cloud has a serious case of security-unconsciousness. It's not a question of if, but when, those selfies will come pouring out.

Re:iCloud Rain

[thegarbz]

Posts in the cloud? What are you talking about? No one posts in the cloud, they take selfies on the phone and the cloud magically happens behind the scenes.

Before you discuss the security implications of posting something to a cloud service, you firstly need to educate people about how Android and iPhone camera apps actually work by *default* if you activate the device with an Apple ID or a Google account.

Re:

[ShoulderOfOrion]

Yes, I'm well aware of that. What boggles my mind is that in the year 2019 everyone who uses a smartphone isn't aware that everything they do on that phone is posting to the Cloud. If folks aren't aware of that by now I'm not sure what else can be done to educate them.

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[thegarbz]

If folks aren't aware of that by now I'm not sure what else can be done to educate them.

You say that from a position of knowledge, but the reality is that someone without knowledge of fancy computery mumbo jumbo gets absolutely no indication when they first buy a smart phone what happens to their pictures or the implications of it.

People learn by being told how a feature works. The overwhelming majority of people when told to look in the cloud would look up to the sky confused. We learn from experience. You wouldn't know the implications of touching a hot stove intuitively, not without putting

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[AmiMoJo]

They know that now, but back then Apple was (and still is) promoting iCloud as the secure way to back up the contents of your phone.

If anyone deserves blame here it's Apple. They mislead customers with false promises of security.

If you put your money in a bank and it gets robbed because the safe code was 1234 (same as my luggage) then you blame the bank. They didn't do their job.

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[thereddaikon]

Concerns about storing personal data on someone else's computer aside, none of the iCloud breaches I've heard about have been due to a security flaw in iCloud. Each time its either users being lazy and reusing credentials or they were tricked into giving their iCloud credentials by a malicious app or website.

I don't think iCloud is insecure for backing up your phone assuming you practice good security. The problem is, always has been and always will be the human component. If people don't handle their passw

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

That's the security flaw. These days just having a password and maybe some recover questions isn't adequate.

Apple even failed to properly rate-limit password guesses or notify the account holder of multiple failed attempts.

Considering these accounts are tied to phones and tablets it really was inexcusable not to have 2FA enabled. They didn't even try to promote 2FA to users very much.

They have got a bit better now, you do get emails about logins to your account from new devices, and some actions by default

Only 3 years? That is ridiculous.

[risc8088]

The guy hacked hundreds of accounts with containing the most personally sensitive info. People have a right to privacy and when that is breached and even leaked to others then there should be severe consequences. What this guy did was disrupt hundreds of lives and put personal data out there that will never come back in. How much anxiety, embarrassment and other detrimental effects did this have on all these people? Hundreds of them! This guy is stealing countless moments of these peoples lives by making them ruminate on the effects and embarrasment of the privacy violation. This kind of damage cuts deep and is not good for society. I don't think society will survive unless we come to terms that this sort of violation should not be tolerated by any private individual OR business. This has got to stop.

Re:Only 3 years? That is ridiculous.

[thegarbz]

The only thing that is ridiculous is thinking that an extended prison sentence is any form of a) deterrence, or b) makes any changes at all to the victims. Europe doesn't have a prison industrial complex that needs to be fed with a steady stream of tax income so I know this concept may be foreign in every definition of the word to the American audience here.

Don't forget, for every extension you demand in a sentence you are additionally paying your own money towards maintaining their life. Does that make you feel better?

The punishment starts when the former disgraced politician who no longer has a career is back on the street looking for work.

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[ivothamdrup]

Plenty of political parties willing to pick up the bloke, "he's learned the lesson", "he's paid the price", etc. Also ten quid says in 3 years nobody remembers what he'd done, or just won't plain care because there have been another 100 turmoils and scandals meanwhile, so instead of looking desperately for a job, he's more likely to get offers to continue where he'd left off.

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[thegarbz]

Plenty of political parties willing to pick up the bloke

Really? Because in general the one thing that is clear from Dutch political system is they can't agree on anything and won't be caught dead working with someone on the other side,.... unless there's an Arsewipe party, I'm sure he'd fit in there.

Also ten quid says in 3 years nobody remembers what he'd done

I doubt that. The Netherlands is a country where criminals are a protected class in terms of their identity. Having someone's name published is a curiosity there which will be remembered for quite a while, and not lost in the annals of filth.

he's more likely to get offers to continue where he'd left off

I'm sure American politic

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[Canberra1]

Try good behaviour or community service- max. Contributory negligence. Anything in the cloud is public knowledge, and as credentials were leaked, there was no expectation of privacy. Hacking, no, just using old unchanged or weak passwords, and celebrities, especially should be on their toes as they are practically fair game, and should expect the expected(excluding minors). Now the EU has GDPR, so that could be serious against EU citizens, if the iCloud was in the EU. USA has no privacy laws, and bar a dire

Re:

[necro81]

Contributory negligence....and celebrities, especially should be on their toes as they are practically fair game, and should expect the expected(excluding minors)

And she definitely shouldn't have been out at night wearing that dress!

Re: Only 3 years? That is ridiculous.

[longk]

This is the Netherlands. Itâ(TM)s a miracle he was prosecuted at all.

The typical procedure for the police here is to delay the taking of your statement until all potential evidence (cameras, prints, etc) have been recorded over, cleaned, or otherwise become unusable.

Donâ(TM)t forget: the crime didnâ(TM)t happen until someone files a statement. Discouraging the filing of statements lowers the crime rate. Pretty ingenious really.

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[b9022730]

I bet you are american. Also a huge effing white knight

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[zmooc]

People buy a phone, set it up and check the "make backups for me" option without thinking about it. Or they do think about it because the reason they bought a new phone was that their old one broke, taking all data with it. Now all their stuff is on someone elses' computer too. Hurray!

Not a politician

[zmooc]

This guy never was a politician; he never got past the candidate stage because he never was elected. Note, however, that he was a member of the political party that has ruled the country for the majority of the time for the past 50 years and is well known for being a rather corrupted bunch. Below is a nice timeline of events, but this guy is missing from it (again, probably because he never was elected).

https://isereenvvderopgestapt.... [isereenvvderopgestapt.nl]

Bait and switch

[TimothyHollins]

Victims included acquaintances, but also local celebrities, such as Dutch YouTube star Laura Ponticorvo and Dutch field hockey star Fatima Moreira de Melo.

Come on, you know these weren't the links we wanted.

Re:

[campuscodi]

lol

Re: Bait and switch

[aRTeeNLCH]

I too have serious doubts. The guy is all but convicted on the public internet square, yet no proof has been given. Character assassination is so easy these days... IOW, pics or it didn't happen!