Bar manager jailed after hacking nearly 300 iCloud accounts to steal explicit pics and post them on a pay-per-view porn site

A BAR manager hacked nearly 300 iCloud accounts to steal explicit pics he then posted on a pay-per-view porn site, a court heard yesterday.

Craig Steinberg, 31, used computer software and clever guesswork to gain access to snaps of the Apple customers' most intimate moments.

He posted the photos on a website he ran and charged people a fee to view them, making around $3,000.

Steinberg was arrested after a victim in Essex discovered her sex pictures had been published online and alerted cops – who traced him to the other end of the country.

They used his IP address to track him down to his home in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, it was said.

He was jailed for 34 months at Newcastle crown court after admitting 14 offences under the Computer Misuse Act between November 2015 and February 2017.

Miss Recorder Jo Kidd told him: "You did not keep this to yourself, you uploaded sexual images of those people onto forums and shared it with other people with an interest in looking at private photographs of woman.

"This was a persistent and planned attempt by you to gravely undermine a number of individuals' privacy.

"Your motivation was sexual and entrenched. You benefited financially and also attempted to appear the 'big man' to gain friends and influence on forums you were using." Steinberg knew most of the victims, who were mostly women, and they had considered him trustworthy and respectful, it was said.

Prosecutor Mark Giuliani said: "He used Facebook to get information which allowed him to guess passwords to access the cloud." Mr Guiliani said the police investigation was launched after a woman in Essex contacted Action Fraud about her account.

"He then posted some of those images on a website he ran." Mr Guiliani said the victims have been left with a sense of "violation, fear, feeling unsafe and insecure that their personal information has been obtained".

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He added: "Some express concern that clearly personal and intimate images of them may be seen by people they know."

Lorraine Mustard, mitigating, said he been under great financial pressure at the time and had hoped to gain "financial assistance, not huge financial advantage" from posting the snaps.

Steinberg was sacked from the bar he managed in Newcastle city centre after his offending came to light.

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