The hunt is on to find the mysterious hacker responsible for stealing hundreds of explicit photographs of female celebrities, including Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence.
And in the murky online world where the images were first released, digital sleuths have used their skills to identify at least two individuals who they say could be behind one of the biggest celebrity hacking scandals of recent times.
One of those people, Bryan Hamade, has now come forward to say he is innocent and, instead, is "just an idiot who tried to pull one over on [image-sharing forum] 4chan and lost big time".
The 26-year-old American software engineer admitted in interviews that when he learned that the hacked photographs had been released online, he attempted to sell the images to make some quick money through the online currency bitcoin.
But Hamade claims he was not the person who hacked the accounts of more than 100 celebrities. Suspicions have grown that iCloud backups were the source of the photographs, although the exact method of attack has not yet been revealed.
Hamade, a server administrator for Southern Digital Media in Georgia, said his get-rich-quick scheme ultimately failed and he was now being harassed by people, including some who had threatened to hack his mother's website. He has since deleted his social media accounts.
"It's been a nightmare and I haven't slept in 34 hours, now. 4chan users are harassing me with non-stop phone calls and emails. They email me constantly, emailing saying they'll hack my personal websites and keep calling my phone, calling me a fag and then hanging up. They also said they'll hack my mum's site, so I took it down," he told BuzzFeed.
According to a post circulating on the photo-sharing site Imgur, Hamade - who goes by the the username BluntMastermind - posted a screenshot of his computer on 4chan to show the folder supposedly containing the leaked photographs.
However that screenshot also inadvertently exposed his hard drive and network drive - information online sleuths used to track him down and publicly identify him.
"I am not behind this. It was so stupid - I saw a lot of people posting the actual leaks and bitcoin addresses and I've read a lot about bitcoin and how they're are valuable and I thought, 'Oh cool, I'll get free bitcoins'," Hamade told BuzzFeed.
"I am just an idiot who tried to pull one over on 4chan and lost big time and stupidly left this identifying information. They took my proof and back traced it - it isn't remotely true. I am not a hacker. I have no idea how the hell someone could hack into all those accounts,"
"I regret it so much," he said. "I didn't even get any bitcoin out of it. It's the stupidest thing I've done and I hope it won't ruin my life, though it probably will since it's just the biggest news story."
Hamade said he was in the process of trying to hire a lawyer to represent him.
'Original Guy' claims responsibility
Another person, who goes by the online name Original Guy but whose identity remains a mystery, appears to have claimed responsibility in a "deep web" forum where the hacked photographs were originally thought to have been posted a week ago.
It was only when the images were subsequently then uploaded to the 4chan anonymous image-sharing forum on Sunday that they were widely circulated.
In a message posted on an online forum which has been attributed to Original Guy, he revealed he had only pocketed $120 by selling some of the images.
"When you consider how much time was put into acquiring this stuff - I'm not the hacker, just the collector - and the money - I paid a lot via bitcoin - I really didn't get close to what I was hoping," he wrote.
The post confirmed that the images had been slowly assembled into a collection, acquired from different hackers in an online black market which specialises in stolen personal material.
Such black markets exist in the so-called "deep web", a largely unpoliced segment of the internet which is not indexed by "surface web" search engines.
It also suggests the release of the 423 images might be the tip of the iceberg.
The hacker has also said that he was being tracked online.
"Someone was tracking me, trying to find me," Original Guy said. "ISP [internet service provider] kept cutting out. Weird emails coming in. Kinda freaked me out and I had to leave for a couple hours."
The anonymous source of the images, who identified himself as a "collector" rather than a "hacker", said many of the the images were obtained via the backup systems which store material for iCloud accounts.
Though iCloud is owned by Apple, the tech giant has, for the moment, escaped widespread censure over the leak.
As the story unfolds, it is likely Apple's security procedures will come under heavy scrutiny, particularly in light of the claim that deleted images were still accessible via the iCloud.
Apple has not yet commented on the story.
A total of 423 images are reportedly in existence, affecting approximately 100 celebrities.
Among the names of those affected are actresses Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Lea Michele, Hillary Duff, Kaley Cuoco, Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez and Kate Bosworth.
The reality TV star Kim Kardashian is also named on the list.
Three Australian actresses, Teresa Palmer, Yvonne Strahovski and Emily Browning, are among those listed on a supposed "master list", in which all of the affected celebrities are named.
Fairfax Media
