Lindsay Lohan's Nude Playboy Photos: Alleged Hacker Speaks

USMagazine, Saturday, December 10, 2011, 9:34am (PST)

Lindsay Lohan has always been precocious -- which is why it's no surprise that her talked-about issue of Playboy will be arriving sooner than originally planned.

Last week, the 25-year-old's Marilyn Monroe-inspired cover -- followed by the totally nude pictorial inside -- were leaked online in advance of planned Dec. 15 reveal date.

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Founder Hugh Hefner and the Playboy team accordingly decided to move up the release date.

"Because of the interest & the Internet leak, we're releasing the Lindsay Lohan issue early," Hefner tweeted Friday. "The Lindsay Lohan issue of Playboy is going to be a true Collector's Edition . . . Lindsay Lohan was the top search name on the Internet yesterday. Her issue goes on sale late next week. Hot. Hot. Hot."

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Lohan had initially planned to reveal the cover herself on an upcoming episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

How'd it leak, anyway? "Someone took photos of Lindsay's pictorial in an advanced copy of the January/February issue. They posted the photos online without permission. We are not releasing any official images or information until December 15," a rep for the mag said in a statement.

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An anonymous Russian hacker took credit for the big-time theft, explaining to FoxNews that he discovered the sought-after photos on a file-sharing website in Russia -- although he had no idea how the images landed on the file-sharing site in the first place.

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"All I cared about is how I got them," said the hacker, who says he has hacked images from Playboy before as a hobby, and has received cease-and-desist letters from the men's magazine.

"When I've done it before, Playboy sent a e-mail to take down the links, and I do," he said.

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