FBI Raids Home Of Condé Nast Fashion Hacker

Last December, Condé Nast sued a fashion blogger for posting unpublished pictures from Vogue, Teen Vogue, and Lucky. The culprit? 22-year-old fashion-obsessed community college student Ross Ulrich, who once said his “heroes” were Bruce Weber, Steven Klein, and Mario Testino.

Earlier this year, the Feds raided Ulrich’s family’s home in Columbus, Ohio, although he does not yet know if he will be charged with a crime. Ulrich downloaded more than 1100 files from the Conde Nast system, but found the information he needed to do so via a Google search — discovering a list of servers and passwords that had been posted online. He tells The Smoking Gun that he could access the Condé Nast stuff and “poke around… without having to brute force anything.”

The motivation was just to have images first — and hi-res images at that. Ulrich had a blog called FashionZag (which is now down) and was also a starred commenter on The Fashion Spot. An enthusiast, who went too far. Ulrich, who also “improperly accessed” Warner Bros. servers, agreed to pay Condé Nast $12,500 to settle the copyright claim. And when it comes to fashion, Ulrich — who used to subscribe to Vogue — says simply: “I’m kind of over it.”

FBI Probe IDs Conde Nast “Hacker” [The Smoking Gun]
Earlier: Conde Nast Sues Fashion Blogger