UPDATED: Kim Kardashian, Beyonce, Ashton Kutcher Among Those Targeted in ‘Doxxing’ Hacker Scheme

Beyonce, Kutcher, and Kardashian. (Ray Amati/George Pimentel/Doug Meszler/Getty Images/Splash News)

By Kathleen Perricone | omg!

Move over, swatting … there's a new prank in Hollywood, but this one is much more serious.

A dozen celebrities and politicians, including Kim Kardashian, Beyonce, Jay-Z, Michelle Obama, Ashton Kutcher, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Donald Trump, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sarah Palin, Hulk Hogan, and Mel Gibson, all recently had what appears to be their personal financial information hacked from credit agencies and banks, and published online in a cyber-crime called "doxxing."

The website (which omg! has viewed but will not name or link to) has posted documents including what very much appears to be these very public figures' social security numbers, mortgage amounts, credit card information, car loan information, and important banking statements. Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Eric Holder, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were also victims, but apparently not as much of their financial information was obtained. omg! has looked through the site extensively and while we can't verify the documents' accuracy, the documents appear to be very real.

omg! spoke with the LAPD and FBI, both of which are on the case, but neither could provide many details at this time as the investigation is ongoing, although the FBI did confirm that it's "aware of the website in question."

The FBI also explained that this latest hoax is called "doxxing," which means "the process of obtaining or deducing information about a person based on a limited set of initial information," and that the bureau has had experience dealing with it before.

Ironically, in addition to the celebrities and politicians who were targeted, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and FBI Director Robert Mueller were also victims.

The LAPD issued the following statement Monday evening: "LAPD detectives are investigating the recent disclosure of Chief Beck's personal information. Apparently this is not necessarily a hacking incident. It is called 'Doxxing' ... This has happened to the Chief on two other occasions prior to this in a similar nature post Occupy LA. We are not at liberty to discuss the others mentioned in the web post. There will be no further comments or press conference on this matter."

Kutcher and the Kardashian-Jenner family were also the victims in the past several months of "swatting," which involves tricking emergency personnel by making a false report, usually via a 911 call.

A 12-year-old boy has claimed responsibility for the swatting incident involving Kutcher. Last October, he called 911 and claimed people inside the home of the "Two and a Half Men" star had guns and explosives, which, of course, was not true. The same boy was also charged with swatting Justin Bieber, but TMZ reports that charges will likely be dropped when he is sentenced, which is expected to happen soon.

Britney Spears’ Lucky magazine controversy

By Suzy Byrne | A-Line: Celebrity Style

Oops … she did it again! Britney Spears has found herself smack dab in the middle of another controversy pertaining to her photo spread in the December issue of Lucky, which hit the web on Friday.

"The X Factor" judge dons several different relatively conservative outfits in the mag and reveals some of her fashion secrets — for example, she hates socks. While the whole thing seems pretty innocuous, there's been a big backlash from her fans, who are complaining that the entertainer seems to be wearing a bad wig in pictures that appear to be heavily retouched.

In the photos, the 30-year-old singer's hairline does look lower than usual and her part is in a different spot. The texture of her locks also seems different — it's much fuller and more unnatural looking than what we see when she's seated at the judges' table, prompting rumors that she's wearing a wig or some type of a weave. One fan even tweeted at the mag, "Did @britneyspears even show up for the photoshoot or did you just photoshop her face on a body[?]"

To us, Spears' tresses scream Kim Zolciak — and we all know that "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" star is all about the wigs.

In the Lucky interview, Spears also talks about her issues dealing with acne, but you can't see a single mark on her face in the pics. While magazines are known for retouching, fans found this to be an "extreme" example with some saying she looks "unrecognizable." Her teeth are so pearly white that she could be the poster girl for the latest dental bleaching product.

The fashion mag is aware of the criticism and addressed the topic on Twitter over the weekend, writing, "Thank you all for sharing your thoughts on our cover! As always, we will share with our team and we're sorry to have let some of you down."

As for Spears, she's kept mum on the topic. Her tweets have instead been about "The X Factor" as well as the upcoming campaign for her Fantasy Twist perfume. But then again, she also hasn't tweeted about the ongoing court battle her parents are in with her shady ex-manager, Sam Lufti. People magazine reports that Spears — who remains under the legal control of her father and her fiancé, Jason Trawick — is "aware of the trial but isn't really asking questions." Although Lufti lived with her in 2007, Spears "doesn't remember" much about him "but knows that he didn't act in her best interest."

New Documentary Catches Up With Chris “Leave Britney Alone!” Crocker

Chris Crocker today [photo: Twitter]

 

 

 

 

By Lyndsey Parker | As Heard On

Before there was Rebecca Black, Justin Bieber, or David After Dentist, there was Chris Crocker, one of YouTube's original "ceWebrities." Back in September 2007, the bleached-blonde Tennessee teen found instant and unlikely fame when a camcorder rant he shot at his grandparents' house, "Leave Britney Alone!"--a sobbing defense of his fallen idol Britney Spears, after she caught flak for her disastrous VMAs performance--went superviral. (The clip racked up more than four million views in just two days, and as of this writing, it has been watched almost 44 million times.) But there is more to Chris Crocker than just those two minutes and 12 seconds of online infamy, as a surprising new documentary that premiered at Sundance earlier this year and aired on HBO this week, Me @ The Zoo, now reveals.

The film, which was executive-produced by R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, co-directed by Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears's husband Chris Moukarbel, and scored by Bjork/Usher/Philip Glass collaborator Nico Muhly, chronicles Chris's troubled upbringing as the effeminate, frequently bullied son of a meth-addicted teen mom. (His mother was only 14 when she gave birth to him, and Chris says, "I think I saw some of my younger mom in Britney when I was a kid.") Chris--who stopped going to school during his junior high years to avoid daily bullying for being "overtly gay," and basically became a teenage shut-in from that point on, living with his paternal grandparents--explains in one of the film's scenes that he posted his flipcam videos on MySpace and later YouTube as a "way of defending myself against the people in my hometown without having to fight back physically."

But of course, Chris also reveals that the bullying he endured for most of his young life hardly went away once he became an overnight Internet sensation; in some ways, it just became more high-profile. In one of Me @ The Zoo's many sad scenes, a "Glenn Beck" television clip shows the notoriously conservative cable news host stating, "I'll leave [Britney] alone, if I can target this guy for a while."

Chris, who has pursued an electropop music career and reportedly even once considered doing porn after his YouTube star started to fade, has clearly matured a great deal since he uploaded "Leave Britney Alone!" (which, he explains in the film, was shot from "a child's perspective"). He continues to post personal videos on his YouTube channel, which still boasts about 355,000 subscribers and a to-date total of more than a quarter-million views. But long gone are his trademark peroxided emo-bob and tear-smeared eyeliner (with his new clean-cut, masculine look, he is nearly unrecognizable), and his videos are much more serious and thoughtful in tone. In one recent angry commentary he posted about Rihanna's controversial decision to record a duet with her former abuser Chris Brown, titled "Rihanna, WHY?," Crocker surprisingly eloquently discusses his mother's own abusive past, and questions Rihanna's ability to be a role model for other female domestic abuse victims. This is obviously a far cry from the sniffling, screeching viral video that made Chris Crocker famous five years ago.

"I was 19 years old at the time. I'm 24, going to be 25 now, and my priorities have changed," Chris, who actually lived as a girl for several years in his teens, says in the film. "I'm not obsessed with pop culture, pop music, or anything the way I once was as a teenager, for sure....I'm into poetry. I'm reading my Sylvia Plath."

Some naysayers may question why any documentarian would want to create an entire film about a "D-list" Web star years after most YouTubers have likely forgotten all about him and moved on to the latest fleeting Internet meme. But in a Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr/Foursquare/Pinterest age when almost everyone lives online, bullying is a hotter topic than ever, and Britney is enjoying her own comeback, Chris's story truly resonates. The film's co-director, Valerie Veatch, explains to HBO: "In some ways [Chris is] the first gay person online to express an aggressive, confident persona that I think so many young kids look to and model themselves after. On one level, he's extremely entertaining and has a great aesthetic. And on another level, he's a very brave person. And I think his bravery and his honesty are what people are drawn to."