There Are New Nude Photos Being Leaked - And This Time, 'Normal' Women Are At Risk

A hacker in Australia has reportedly stolen thousands of naked photos of women from across the country, and uploaded them to the Internet...

In news to make you throw your phone into the sea / stick a piece of chewing gum over your webcam / give up on humanity altogether, a hacker in Australia has reportedly stolen nude photos of up to 1200 women from across the country - and uploaded them to the Internet without their knowledge.

Yep, echoing events of last year (when nude photos of female celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence were stolen and released online), the hacker appears to have no direct connection to the victims. But while nobody in the public eye has been targeted on this occasion, women living in certain locations appear to have been particularly vulnerable.

The photos - featuring 500 women in Adelaide, and up to 700 women in Brisbane - were initially uploaded late week. But while they later disappered from the first website that they appeared on (without the police getting involved), they were re-uploaded just a few hours later.

The hacker has since vowed to continue uploading them - and has challenged investigators to do their best to try and stop it.

'Come at me aussie police,' the alleged hacker wrote on one forum.

And, believe it or not, it gets worse. Some of the women in the photos are reportedly identified, and in a few cases, their location is revealed, too.

But, as the police scrabble to identify the hacker, they've hit upon a stumbling block: most of the women whose nude photos have been stolen are unaware of it, meaning that they haven't filed a complaint. And without a complaint, there's very little that the police can do.

'We'll see what data we can obtain to see who was responsible,' said Fraud and Cyber Crime Group Detective Superintendent Brian Hay. 'The thing is, we don't have a complaint and the focus has to be on harm minimisation to try and get these things down so people's lives aren't ruined.'

'We certainly don't want to be directing people to these sites. When you've got a complaint then you've got an offence.'

And with that, we're off to bang our heads against the wall, weep about the state of society, and, well, scowl menacingly in the direction of any hackers. Because - after all - this shouldn't be a lesson in not taking nude photos. This should be a lesson in not tolerating people that steal them.