IamA CNN tech correspondent who has spent months investigating the world of revenge porn. My name's Laurie Segall. Ask me anything!

Ugh.. Those revenge porn sites are so terrible. But there are so many of them, what websites did you investigate?

I'd rather not put them out there for people to click on. I looked at a number of sites on the open web. There are a handful of known ones. I also had a security researcher show me some of the darker revenge porn sites on the dark web. It was pretty awful. Women had their webcams hacked and people could buy access to live shows. The women were being blackmailed into performing for an audience on the dark web. There was also a trade going on where people could upload their own images and get free access, or pay $55 to buy access.

You mention the "dark web", do you mean Tor Services? Or did they use other technologies to create those anonymous servers, sites and infrastructure?

Tor services!

How are the women blackmailed if only their webcams are hacked? Do those people have access to their bank account and friends as well? Threatening to expose their photos or steal their money?

Sometimes hackers will record images and then threaten to expose those images, send to parents, post on FB. Victims feel forced to comply.

What brought you to investigate revenge porn?

We were set to interview a woman who was a victim of revenge porn. As we heard her story, we realized it was a bigger problem and wanted to take a deep dive into. It was interesting to learn about the laws, how people react to this type of harassment, the limited resources etc.

Are there instances of revenge porn against men?

There are. It can happen to both men and women. Most of the content I saw of women but I spoke to a lawyer who is representing a male victim and there are definitely men on some of the sites.

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you should ask the head of community at reddit. From her op-ed: "Since images are often accompanied by personal information, the economic and emotional costs can be enormous. If clients or colleagues find out, it can damage a woman's career. (And make no mistake: Almost all victims of revenge porn are women.)" http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/26/technology/reddit-revenge-porn/index.html

If a victim of revenge porn never finds out about the porn, how likely is it to be taken down? In other words, do friends / acquaintances / family of a victim notify the victim, or just turn away in embarrassment?

Some of the women we met were informed by their friends that they were naked on the web. Pretty awful call to take. I don't think many women on the sites we looked at actually knew they were on those sites. That's pretty scary. Some are informed by friends, others are informed when they google their name, apply for a job. It ranges

What advice do you have for someone like myself (a 21 year old girl) to protect myself from something like this happening?

I'm sure there's more to just "don't take nude pics of yourself". Thanks!

Sure. Easy to say don't take a nude photo of yourself. But now there are hackers that can turn on your webcam and record you. First of all, let's state the obvious - be careful who you share photos with. Operate under the assumption that privacy and our concept of privacy is changing. But digging in a bit - you can put tape over your webcam, be REALLY careful about clicking on links or spam. If you don't know the person sending it, be careful. This is how malware is installed on your computer. If you are going to share photos of yourself, just remember that every time a company like snapchat has deemed the service safe, we've had moment where we realized our images could be stored. If I were you, I would be really careful about taking pictures and sending them to someone, even if I trusted them. I'm a tech reporter so a bit paranoid.

Easy to say don't take a nude photo of yourself.

This is truly the only good advice you can give.

But now there are hackers that can turn on your webcam and record you.

This has been possible since webcams were invented. All systems/devices contain security vulnerabilities and they always will. Trusting your webcam to only be on when you want it to be on is no different than being surprised that your uploaded nudes were compromised in an iCloud hack.

There is no such thing as completely safe/secure online content if the media is accessible. There is always a chance it will be compromised.

I think we're just now as a society beginning to understand that and reimagine privacy :(

My dad is in communication branch in the army And always covers the webcams or has tape over the one on his laptop...

I got a older web cam(fusion) and it has a nice built in cover that hides it and he would alway close it if i forgot it open.

good idea.

What laws exist to regulate this? Do you see this issue gaining traction in state and federal legislatures?

States are just now beginning to pass laws criminalizing revenge porn. 17 as of today. But it's really hard if this happens to you. Because this is relatively new territory, it can be hard to prosecute and get your pictures off the web. You can file a takedown notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. You have to own the copyright in order to try to get some of these sites to take down images. Here's where things get weird - if you want to get the copyright, you have to send the naked photo that's on the web to the copyright office in Washington. That's just how it works. So you actually have to send naked pics there in order to get the copyright, in order to try to get the site to take it down. They don't have special rules if you're a victim of revenge porn. We interviewed a woman who had to copyright her nude images. She felt pretty violated. But that's how the law works unless there are some changes made. Story here: http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/26/technology/copyright-boobs-revenge-porn/

Out of all the porn that is available on the internet, it seems that a lot of the pictures and videos seem to be 'staged' as a sort of revenge porn in order to entice viewers into thinking it's real or just to set itself apart from regular scripted porn. How much of this do you think is actually revenge porn and how much is just porn?

Good question but tough one to answer. Some of the photos on the dark web I saw were pretty awful. Possible they could have been staged. But can't give concrete answer on that

Hey guys - thanks for the questions. I'll come back to this thread a bit later and answer any other questions you have. Follow me on Twitter (@LaurieSegallCNN) for updates on when I'll be on TV with these stories. Also -watch/read the series when you get the chance. What do you think of it? I'd love to know. Will be back later to check in. http://money.cnn.com/technology/revenge-porn/index.html

Do you think that the easy access of porn via the internet is changing younger peoples minds about what is publicly acceptable in terms of nudity and sexual behavior? Also fuck, marry, kill: eggs, bacon, pancakes?

I think there's a huge shift happening online. There's so much available, younger people are exposed to quite a bit at an earlier age. I worry that sometimes behind a computer, people can become desensitized. They may lose a sense of empathy. When I interviewed the revenge porn hacker, he said it just didn't feel real when he broke into a woman's inbox. That struck me as interesting. He said he would never have done it if he had to look at these women in person. I think the internet has made people more open to certain things regarding nudity and sexual behavior, but it also comes at a price. Also - um - marry, pancakes?

What inspires people to post revenge porn?

I think it varies. I'm no psychiatrist but I'd say revenge is a part of human nature. but some people take it to a different level. I think it's inspired by anger, hurt, a desire to humiliate and control.

Do you feel that if society removed it's irrational taboo centered around, sex, porn, and nudity that revenge porn would still be an issue?

I do. I think at the end of the day, some of the themes I've seen when it comes to revenge porn are shaming, control, humiliation, a lack of empathy. Putting photos of people out there without their consent is violating and even if we make sex and porn less taboo, I think those themes when applied to revenge porn will remain

Do you plan to interview people who view and pay for revenge porn?

I didn't. We interviewed a hacker that got paid to steal photos for a site but it would be really interesting to talk to someone who views and pays for it. Do you know anyone?

For anyone who isn't familiar with Laurie, she's pretty awesome:

Sex, Drugs & Silicon Valley series (CNN)
Related iAMA

But back on topic: how did you manage to get an interview with Charlie Evans? Did you believe what he had to say, or were there parts that stuck out or seemed suspect? If the interview was set up through his lawyer, I sense that he's trying to set the tone with his "off my bipolar meds" comment.

Also, did you ever figure out what the loophole was?

(Charlie Evans interview for reference)

Hey -- It wasn't through his lawyer. I found out his number and called bunch of times. He finally answered. I asked if we could record and he was alright with it. It almost felt like he wanted to get it off his chest. I was pretty hard on him in the interview and it seemed like he answered honestly. He seemed pretty aware of what he did. He talked about addiction and meds, how he was hacking when he was drinking and in a bad place. that is certainly not an excuse AT ALL. It did seem pretty honest. He called himself a monster. It was really interesting. I have a feeling his lawyer would have advised him not to talk to me.

Has there been any cases where you talked to where a male was the victim?

From what a gather, a majority of the cases are women. That being said, there are definitely male victims too. I spoke to a lawyer representing a man who is a revenge porn victim.

Laurie on some of the sites I showed you there are many men too that are victims. Yes, it happens but is much more often female victims.

Certainly can be a problem for both.

Do you think it's possible to remove something from the internet? Once a picture is out there, there is no controlling where it goes.

People can really try and potentially have some luck. But it's hard once these photos are out there and they're picked up by third party sites. If you are able to get the photo down early on, you may have better luck. Many of the women I interviewed have set up a google alert for their names. As the pictures pop up, they file takedown notices. Once something is out there on the web, it's VERY hard to make it go away.

Are there hacks that can turn a webcam on without giving any indication to the owner/user that its on? Like disabling the power-indicator light or whatever?

Yes. There's malware available that enables hackers to do with. Miss teen USA was a victim years ago. A hacker installed malware known as "blackshades" on her computer. The tools to do this are bought and sold on the dark web. There are even hotlines and rent-a-hackers. That's why it's more important than ever not to click on a link if you don't know where it's coming from. Or put tape over your camera.

Has anyone ever uploaded Revenge porn of you?

Thankfully no.

You mentioned web cam hacking as a means to gain pictures. How common is this?

I don't know how common this is. It would be difficult to tell. The security researcher we spoke to says he's seeing more of it and there's now a market for it. But it's hard to get actual numbers. That's because it could be happening without someone realizing it. If a women is aware and being blackmailed, she might be afraid to come forward.

Is it legal to click on some of those dark-web sites? Did you take steps to protect yourself legally before clicking?

We had to be very careful about this. We didn't click on any of the photos. Just saw the website. We didn't download because then we would be in possession of some material that might not be legal.

So the images might be the result of an illegal activity but viewing them isn't? :/

squopmobile actually I worked with LaurieS1285 on this story so I hope I am not out of line, but if you click and view on an image of rape, or abuse and it happens to be of someone under 18 you are committing a crime and that image is now on your computer.

Be very cautious and best to avoid this filth all together.

Yeah, warning not needed, but thanks! :) You can't know what's going to show up on a page when you type a URL and hit enter though. Did you have the legal department on board is what I'm getting at, really. Or would a journalist's credentials be an adequate defence if it came to that?

we had a lot of internal discussions about this before. We wanted to be 100% sure we weren't breaking the law. We wanted to raise awareness and let people know this exists. Not break a law.

Can someone please create a superhero(ine) who finds these guys and kick them insanely hard in the balls?

Seriously though have you heard any stories of revenge on the perpetrators of this crime?

I love the idea of a revenge porn superhero(ine). I haven't heard of people getting actual revenge on their perpetrators. In doing all this research, we found that there are some pretty badass women getting in front of the issue. There are women who've been victims who are now speaking out against the issue. Check out Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. They are working to change things. There's a law firm taking on many of these cases pro bono. See our story below: http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/26/technology/copyright-boobs-revenge-porn/

One of the women we interviewed got the best revenge: she says she's been through it all and after everything, has learned to love herself in a way she never had before.

Whatever happened to twitter-famous Hunter Moore?

He took a plea deal. I believe his sentencing is in June

Can't click on any of those links because of my current environment (maybe I shouldn't even have clicked the one to this AMA...), but are you familiar with Hunter Moore and his old site isanyoneup? If you do, what do you think of that whole ordeal?

I have. As part of the series, I actually spoke with Charlie Evens who was the guy that hacked for Hunter Moore. You can listen to my interview with him here http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/26/technology/charlie-evens-revenge-porn-hacker/

In general, before I did this, I didn't realize that these online communities really existed. It was interesting to get the other side too - to speak with a guy who actually hacked into women's inboxes and sold photos to hunter moore.

A few posters have asked if you ever found revenge porn on Men; I don't see an answer - you found none? Or is this about something else?

Hey - there are some posts on the sites I've seen. Also - i spoke with a lawyer who is representing a man who was a victim of revenge porn. While it's simple to say this happens to women more frequently, it wouldn't be right for me to say it doesn't happen to men. It certain does.

Are you Jennifer Lawrence in disguise?

I'm not.

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Sorry dude. not going there