He has posted on and moderated forums on asexuality and cocaine use

Meneses has struggled to find regular employment in the world of tech and was turned down as an Apple Genius in the Apple store

Meneses joked: 'I've never taken any naked photos of myself and I don't plan to'

He agreed with Ricky Gervais, who was criticized for suggesting that celebrities were to blame for the hack for taking the pictures in the first place

The man who broadcast dozens of stolen celebrity nude photos to hundreds of millions of people around the world told MailOnline: 'If people want to call me a hero or a cyber warrior then I'm not going to stop them'.

John Randall Meneses, from Las Vegas, said 'I've done nothing wrong', despite his role in spreading the extremely graphic and personal stolen pictures of 101 celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and Kirsten Dunst.

Meneses, 33, collected the lewd celebrity snaps – stolen by hackers from the iCloud accounts of stars - on a Reddit forum called The Fappening.

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'I've done nothing wrong': Meneses defended his role in spreading the hacked pictures of celebrities clicked on an 250m times on Reddit through The Fappening sub-Reddit that he started

Not happy: Without irony, Meneses (pictured in his Twitter profiles) says that he regrets using a traceable username that has brought him unwanted attention for spreading private pictures of naked celebrities

Meneses told MailOnline that he only has one regret - that he posted the photos online under his own username and not an anonymous account.

Without irony - given the gross invasion of privacy that the celebrities suffered - he now bemoans that his OWN privacy has been invaded because of his part in The Fappening (which is a play on words Happening and Fap - internet slang for masturbating).

Referring to a brief, anonymous piece on him in the Washington Post, Meneses said: 'I'm not happy about all this, but it happened. The Nixon administration couldn't stop the Washington Post exposing Watergate so what hope do I have?'

While it's clear Meneses didn't take part in the original hack or have anything to do with stealing the photos, he made sure the material was quickly disseminated to be viewed 250 million times, claims Meneses.

Meneses, who spends hours posting on web forums and blogging under his handle johnsmcjohn, told MailOnline that he spent 40 hours over the Labor Day weekend ensuring that his sub-Reddit became the go-to location to view the explicit material - which had originally leaked out on a more underground site called 4Chan.

The actual hackers are going to go to jail, there's no doubt about that, and they deserve to go to jail. But as for the rest of the internet finding these pictures and posting them – it's already out there

'Memorable Labor Day weekend!' he tweeted as the celebrity photos became big news. When MailOnline tracked down Meneses, originally from Colorado, he rejoiced over the his worldwide success, proudly claiming that more people have viewed his post than any other in Reddit's history.

MailOnline found him in Las Vegas on Tuesday and he agreed to meet at a Starbucks in the west of the city.

He was quick to deny any wrong-doing and said he didn't take any material off 4Chan and only reposted links that already had the pictures in them.

Initially nervous during the chat, he said: 'I didn't necessarily share the content with millions, I just created the sub-Reddit and tried to ride the wave.

'I only put up links to other posts that were doing well, I never uploaded a single thing and I never downloaded a single thing.

'That wasn't why I created The Fappening, I created it because I liked the name and I wrote out what happened, but if people want to call me a hero or cyber warrior then I'm not going to stop them.'

As lawyers for the celebrities circle for somebody to sue for copyright and theft, a defensive Meneses says he didn't 'do any of the hacking' and says he made sure all his posts were within Reddit's rules.

'It wasn't me who brought these photos to the mainstream, the users did that,' he said.

However, Meneses does concede that the hacking which produced the photos in the first place was wrong.

'The actual hackers are going to go to jail, there's no doubt about that, and they deserve to go to jail,' he said. 'But as for the rest of the internet finding these pictures and posting them – it's already out there.

Viral: Meneses is proud to state that The Fappening broke records for traffic on Reddit. But he says 'It wasn't me who brought these photos to the mainstream, the users did that' adding 'I did not upload a thing'

Legal threat: Lawyers for the 101 victims of the hack, which include Kate Upton and Jennifer Lawrence, are taking a keen interest in bringing the original hacker and others who uploaded or distributed the images

Shut down: Reddit closed down The Fappening last week to the upset of Meneses - especially as there are still pages on the site titled things like 'cute female corpses'

'Celebrities have to understand that there is a certain demand for these type of photographs and they probably shouldn't have trusted iCloud with their personal photos, but that's an issue for them and iCloud.'

HOW REDDIT STRUCK 'GOLD' AND RAKED IN CASH FROM SCANDAL The nude celebrity scandal earned Reddit enough money to run its servers for a month, Meneses claimed. He told Wired that he based his calculations on how many times somebody who joined The Fappening signed up for Reddit 'gold', a premium service that costs $3.99-a-month. However, he did not speculate on a total cash amount. Meneses said: 'If Reddit had wanted to, they could have banned us on Sunday when our traffic broke their servers. Instead, they chose to milk a week of publicity and a month of server time in Reddit gold before they stepped in.' Menses added: 'It’s sad that Reddit already made their money and then made a show of banning the site'. His estimates did not include any extra advertising revenue The Fappening brought in, Meneses said. Reddit did not respond to WIRED about Meneses’s claims about the amount of cash it raked in from the scandal. When Reddit finally shut down The Fappening, CEO Yishan Wong wrote in a blog post: ''While current US law does not prohibit (Reddit) linking to stolen materials, we deplore the theft of these images and we do not condone their widespread distribution,' Wong wrote in a blog post. 'Nevertheless, reddit’s platform is structurally based on the ability for people to distribute, promote, and highlight textual materials as well as links to images and other media. 'We understand the harm that misusing our site does to the victims of this theft, and we deeply sympathize. Having said that, we are unlikely to make changes to our existing site content policies in response to this specific event.' Advertisement

He also told MailOnline that he agreed with Ricky Gervais's controversial tweet in which the comedian told celebrities not to take naked photos in the first place. He joked: 'I've never taken any naked photos of myself and I don't plan to.'

The tech geek disagreed with Reddit taking down his page last week - especially when there are pages still on the site titled 'cute female corpses' and other such sick topics.

'I think the difference is celebrities have lawyers,' he said. Bizarrely, Meneses claims he and other Reddit users tried to use The Fappening's popularity to raise money for charity - but the cash raised 'got thrown back in our faces,' he said.

He added: 'We tried the Prostate Cancer Foundation and a water charity - we raised almost $10,000 between the two of them but they chose not to take it.

'We knew we had a good thing going with all this traffic so we thought 'let's make the most of this situation - let's use the power of this community to make some money'.

But Meneses said the charities shut down all the donation pages and refunded the money back to people – obviously unwilling to accept donations from an immoral source.

'There was a joke on Reddit that we were literally worse than cancer at that point,' he said.

Meneses said he would 'love' to use this experience to further his online reputation and blogging career.

But for now, he said: 'I think I'm going need a break for a while, I need to let it die down before I get back into it.'

Last week 4Chan announced it would enact a DMCA policy to let content owners get illegally shared material removed. The FBI has said it is investigating the hack. Apple has confirmed that some celebrities' iCloud accounts were broken into, but says it has found no evidence that this was caused by a breach of its security systems.

Meneses was raised in Colorado Springs but has lived in Las Vegas since moving in 2009.

Down on his luck, he has bounced around between low paid sales jobs, but spent most of his time in the virtual world.

Meneses loves gaming and the World of Warcraft, and also likes to play professional poker. But even gambling hasn't brought him much luck. He wrote in one blog entry about losing $400 at a poker tournament. And money worries are never too far from his mind.

Score! In one Reddit post, johnsmcjohn posted this picture of what appears to be cocaine on a mirrored tray. The caption reads: 'I found this in Goodwill today for $2 and wanted to share my find'

Ambitions: Meneses tweeted this picture of his 'office'. He has struggled to make it in the tech world

'$100 needed to keep utilities on', he posted on Reddit last week, requesting a cash from a stranger to pay his gas bill.

Meneses also spends his time moderating Reddit's cocaine forum, where he advises other users on the intricacies of finding safe dealers, snorting lines and passing drug tests after you've used.

In one of the 68 posts he's made on the /r/cocaine sub-reddit, johnsmcjohn has uploaded a picture of what appears to be cocaine on a mirrored tray over his laptop with the caption: 'I know I posted a pic last week, but I found this in Goodwill today for $2 and wanted to share my find.'

He told MailOnline: 'I moderate the community. I've written about it, but I am working toward being sober.'

And on Asexuality.org and WrongPlanet.net — forums for people who are asexual and have autism — John has detailed his struggle with 'undiagnosed Asperger's' and his gradual realization that he wasn't 'attracted to anyone'.

If people want to call me a hero or cyber warrior then I'm not going to stop them

'About two weeks ago some friends from back home came to town and the first thing they wanted to do was hit the strip club,' he wrote at one point. 'I went and was bored to tears'.

On another sub-reddit, r/asexuality, he wrote: 'I don't desire sex at all. looking back I never have. But FAR more importantly, I'm ok with that.'

In real life, he has been avoiding debt collection agencies over unpaid utility bills and credit cards.

Meneses, who is single, is currently being chased by Capital One over an $816 credit card bill and a separate collection agency is chasing him over an unpaid $455 fine for a traffic offense.

Meneses was charged with the traffic misdemeanor on January 2, 2012 for failing to obey a police officer, but rather than pay the $100 citation he chose to dodge the fine.

According to court records the authorities have handed his case to a third party debt collections agency and the fee is now closer to $500.

To make matters worse Meneses was evicted from his former home, a run down studio apartment in the Grand View Apartments complex in the center of Vegas.

One former neighbor described him as an 'odd' character who came back and forth from his second floor flat at all hours of the day and night.

The neighbor said: 'He was always very noisy, trudging in and out, he seemed a little odd to me, but kept to himself.

Fault: Meneses also told MailOnline that he agreed with Ricky Gervais's controversial tweet in which the comedian told celebrities not to take naked photos in the first place. Meneses, 33 and single, joked: 'I've never taken any naked photos of myself and I don't plan to'

'I never saw any other people come to the apartment, he didn't seem to have a girlfriend or many friends.'

Meneses came to Vegas in the hope of finding his 'dream job' in the city's bright lights. He had become disgruntled with home life and his job as a machine operator at Pikes Peak Plastics, a plastic moulding firm in Colorado Springs.

In a blog post Meneses said he made the move after a 'period of homelessness, despair, and depression', before landing a telephone sales job in Vegas.

He left that job briefly to sell grant writing services before returning a few months later. But Meneses' run of bad luck continued when he was fired in July 2010 after admitting: 'I didn't make many sales'.

'I never wanted to make another sales call as long as I lived,' he wrote on his blog.

Unemployed for months Meneses applied for a job as an Apple Genius at his local Apple store. But after being knocked back for the role he moaned about the firm's lengthy recruitment process in a post on his blog.

He admits to being a huge fan of the iPad, which changed his life 'forever'. In his spare time he enjoys wandering the aisles of the Apple store, regularly commenting on Twitter about new gadgets he spots. He has also written dozens of posts about the merits of iPad technology.

In 2011, after getting laid off from a YouTube tech video series for which he was working, Meneses lost his car, his laptop, and his iPhone.