Your Prurient Interest Story of the Week
[guest post by JVW]
I am loathe to blog about matters that better belong on a site like TMZ or Egotastic, but there is an interesting matter pertaining to cultural mores that is worth exploring, so here goes:
Over the weekend the Hollywood-gossip portion of the Internet was all abuzz with news that a hacker or a group of hackers had managed to access naked “selfies” of several pop culture icons and had begun posting them to places like Twitter and Reddit. These photos (and perhaps in some cases videos) were obtained by the hacker(s) allegedly figuring out the owner’s password on the iCloud, and downloading them from there. Roughly a dozen celebrities had their photos posted over the weekend, and some reports indicate up to one hundred total celebrities accounts compromised, with the hacker(s) promising more postings in days to come. Though the photos have very quickly been removed from Reddit and Twitter, they no doubt are still available on the more obscure and unregulated corners of the Internet.
So as of this week the new battleground for the culture wars is to what degree should any of the blame be assigned to those celebrities who took nude pics and somehow expected that they would never see the light of day. Girls actress and creator Lena Dunham, last noted here fawning over Barack Obama, seems to take an absolutist stance that her fellow celebrities are entirely blameless:
The "don't take naked pics if you don't want them online" argument is the "she was wearing a short skirt" of the web. Ugh.
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) September 1, 2014
Meanwhile, over at Forbes, their cybersecurity reporter thinks that anyone who shares personal files on a cloud-based systems – especially celebrities – is setting herself (since thus far, the celebrities targeted have all be female) up for trouble.
I’ll open up the comments to anyone who wants to chime in: Do you feel sorry for the celebrities involved? Do you find Lena Dunham’s response vulgar and disrespectful to rape victims, or did she pretty much get it absolutely right? To what degree do you assign part of the responsibility to the celebrities who felt they could take these pictures and store them on the cloud without having any security breaches?
– JVW
UPDATE BY PATTERICO: I feel about this pretty much the same way I do about other behaviors that put one at greater risk of being victimized by criminals. Namely, I teach my children not to engage in the behaviors — but when someone else is victimized, I put the blame entirely on the criminal. I don’t see how it helps anything to get on a soapbox and start lecturing the victims on their poor judgment — and virtually all of the lecturers make their own data vulnerable to hackers in some form or fashion. Ultimately, criminals are the ones responsible for crime, not victims.
That doesn’t mean you can’t teach your children avoidance strategies. Just try to be less haughty about those who haven’t learned them. So my view is: Teach your children the lessons they need to learn, and then hold your tongue when criminals victimize people.
I have always been suspicious of the safety of storing anything “on the cloud”. Passwords are an inconvenience but unfortunately an all too necessary part of daily life in the internet age. If you store your stuff on the cloud, it’s security is only as good as the password you use. Since you need to remember it, it’s easy to use a simple to remember password. Unfortunately, those are easy to break. A long, complicated one is way safer, but also way more difficult to remember. The old rock and a hard place problem. Maybe it’s actually better to not use “the cloud.”
Do I feel sorry for them? Not really.
Bill M (906260) — 9/2/2014 @ 4:31 pmO tempora! O mores! and all that.
JVW (638245) — 9/2/2014 @ 4:34 pmLena Dunham is unattractive.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 9/2/2014 @ 4:35 pmI never feel sorry for anything that happens to Hollywood’s phonies, perverts, and floozies. And if these exhibitionist, narcissistic sluts were not exhibitionist, narcissistic sluts in the first place they would not be in the business they’re in.
nk (dbc370) — 9/2/2014 @ 4:35 pmThe celebrity naked pictures phenomenon is only a thing because they sell their sexiness. That is their product.
This is also why Lena Dunham wasn’t a target. (And because pictures of her grotesque nude body has already flooded the marketplace. Where Jennifer Lawrence is marble, Lena Dunham is gravel.)
DejectedHead (9b0c64) — 9/2/2014 @ 4:49 pmWhat utter nonsense from Dunham not that I expect anything else from her. It’s similar to the feminists who are up in arms over the date rape drug detecting nail polish somehow being an encourager of ‘rape culture’.
It all comes down to protecting yourself to a degree you feel comfortable with and being smart.
There is always a risk when you give information to someone else. Be it a secret to a friend, or a naked picture to a cloud service provider.
Usually we are careful with who we tell our deepest secrets to, trusting that they will not reveal it willingly… and are not likely to be tortured into giving up the secret as to what you really did last Thursday when you told your wife you were working late.
Anytime you send an email, make post a comment on Facebook or upload a file to a computer you do not control there is the possibility of someone seeing it (and someone who doesn’t work at the NSA).
While you’ve a to protect your account to this service or that… chances are there is a server admin somewhere who can look into anyone’s account because the powers that be know that they will receive a subpoena from time to time and will require such access… but this same power can also sometimes be abused.
We like to think that the company storing your data will take meaningful steps to prevent other users from getting into your account… some do it better than others.
We like to think that using the same password across multiple sites will be ok… until one site is compromised and the bad guys start trying to those credentials on other sites.
If you absolutely cannot risk certain information/content being leaked… the only choice is to limit it’s existence, or where it lives and in what form.
Even storing the photos on a simple point and shoot camera means that they could be retrieved if the camera is lost or stolen.
Want to be secure? Use strong passwords (plural) and encryption… both on your local device but also at rest in the cloud. Before any sensitive content leaves your device it should be encrypted so that even if someone does hack your iCloud account (which we now see isn’t that hard) it will be worthless to them without the decryption key.
Brendan (dce2f6) — 9/2/2014 @ 4:54 pmIt was a horrible idea, if the information was to be private, then it was. What bothers me is that celebrities – if they are good looking – are fair game – that is very wrong
EPWJ (e66119) — 9/2/2014 @ 4:57 pmMost of them show their tits in movies as a way of enhancing box office receipts. Since they wIllfully do this for a fast buck, their privacy claims about these pics should fall on deaf prostittute ears.
Robert (1c758d) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:01 pmWhat bothers me is that celebrities – if they are good looking – are fair game – that is very wrong
Point taken, but shouldn’t celebrities who are surrounded by publicists and image consultants be the ones who are best educated on the idea that nothing you put up on the Cloud is 100% safe from being hacked? It’s not like this is the first time a celebrity’s nude picture got hacked and disseminated on the Internet; this has been going on for years. By now shouldn’t they wake up to the idea that it just isn’t a safe environment?
JVW (638245) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:05 pmThe “cloud” has inherent risks, the cost of convenience. I don’t use cloud services myself, but if you want to, go ahead. But don’t be shocked, shocked at security holes.
mojo (4a927a) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:09 pmI don’t feel particularly sorry for them. In this day and age, everyone should know that nothing you put on the Internet is private (and the cloud is on the Internet). But what pisses me off is that the FBI is investigating this. The same FBI that can’t be bothered to investigate the IRS, or the VA, or voter fraud, or any of a dozen other things potentially politically damaging to this administration. And does the FBI investigate when random college girls get their phones hacked? If someone hacked my phone, would the FBI give a flying rat’s donut? Because I seriously doubt it.
Edoc118 (c37322) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:11 pmI place 100 percent of the blame on the hacker(s). Imagine that twenty years ago someone broke into someone’s house, stealing private Polaroids, making copies of them and posting them on street poles all across town. I doubt anyone would have placed the blame on the people who took the photographs. This is the modern version of that scenario.
Joe (33fd9a) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:14 pmI never store my nude selfies on the cloud precisely because of what happened to these celebrities.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:20 pmThankYou, daleyrocks.
mg (31009b) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:26 pmEither it’s okay for Snowden to do it or it’s not okay for these clowns to do it. Can’t have it both ways.
John Hitchcock (5131d7) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:29 pm*If* you’re going to store something on the cloud, either (a) be ok with it being leaked due to poor security, or (b) make sure you have the strongest authentication and password setup you can use.
From what I hear from my friends in network security, they failed (b). So … ok, maybe it’s a system problem with the cloud software not making it easy enough to have real security, but i’m skeptical that I should be terribly concerned about it.
aphrael (c3fb9a) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:32 pmSexual assault, both in the criminal law and in common parlance, means unwanted sexual touching.
Certainly those who hacked and stole the photos have committed crimes; certainly their conduct is immoral; nothing I’m writing here ought be interpreted as endorsing or excusing or minimizing their behavior.
But it’s not unwanted sexual touching. They haven’t committed a sexual assault.
Calling what the hacker(s) did “sexual assault,” though, is stupid. I’ve never been the victim of unwanted sexual touching (with or without violence), but I certainly think that anyone who has (or even anyone who’s been dramatically affected by a real sexual assault, e.g., a victim’s parents), would have ample grounds to feel insulted by Lena Dunham’s trivialization of what’s happened to them by conflating all bad things with the very worst of things.
Beldar (fa637a) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:33 pm@Joe, your scenario is off base and jumps to the wrong conclusion.
I’ve not heard anyone say that the hackers are not blameless. The issue here is if the celebs who took/stored the photos share any blame.
The issue is with the security around them was adequate.
A more accurate analogy would be the naked photos being taken by the film processing lab… which during being robbed, the bugler noticed a few naked pictures coming out of the automated machine and grabbed them in addition to the cash.
Is the primary blame to be put on the burglar? Absolutely.
Is there at least some blame for the person who delivered naked photos to someone else for storage/development? Very much so, as there was also the risk that someone with legitimate access to the development process might just decide to make a couple extra copies for themselves.
Brendan (dce2f6) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:33 pmJohn Hitchock – I think there’s a good argument that it’s ok to publish secrets while at the same time holding that nude pictures are offlimits. Furthermore, i’m more sympathetic to publishing secrets of *institutions* (governments, businesses, etc) than I am to publishing the secrets of *individuals*.
aphrael (c3fb9a) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:33 pmSure, the hackers shouldn’t have done it.
But … i’m a lawyer. If I stored client data in the cloud and used the quality of security these people did, and it leaked, I could be disciplined.
At the end of the day, the internet isn’t secure by default, and if you want it to be, you have to make positive efforts to ensure that it is, rather than simply *assuming* it will be.
And as a software engineer who has followed internet security issues closely since there was an internet, this is a point I think needs to be driven home.
aphrael (c3fb9a) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:36 pmJoe, honestly, it’s more like if they had stored their polaroids in a folder in an unlocked filing cabinet in the public library which was in theory only accessible by asking the librarian for access but which was in practice accessible by anyone who had the guts to jump over the desk while the librarian was busy.
aphrael (c3fb9a) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:37 pm*If* you’re going to store something on the cloud, either (a) be ok with it being leaked due to poor security, or (b) make sure you have the strongest authentication and password setup you can use.
aphrael, when I was composing this post I was trying to find a quote that I vaguely remember from 6 or 7 years ago. It was from a story where a campus dean (or some other administrator) had caused a brouhaha because she (I kind of remember her being female) had addressed a group of newly-arrived freshmen and shared this bit of wisdom with them: “If your boyfriend or girlfriend asks you to film a sexual encounter with him or her, you should assume that it is going to eventually be shared on the Internet.” The brouhaha was that some upperclass students who like to style themselves as “sex-positive” had complained that this was a very old-fashioned and reactionary view of a sexual practice that they apparently greeted with enthusiasm. Alas, my somewhat cursory check on Google didn’t turn up any good info so I had to omit that part, but the administrator’s quip pretty much sums up how I feel about nude selfies.
JVW (638245) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:38 pmJVW,
they really are just people like you and me – I do online banking yes I know the risks but if they want they can get into my account – and most of these were very young and Many were not the custodians of much of the material taken
EPWJ (fa0e23) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:39 pmYou can still get Polaroid film, just sayin’…
ElSuerte (67a884) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:40 pm“Very much so, as there was also the risk that someone with legitimate access to the development process might just decide to make a couple extra copies for themselves”.
Does anyone remember that Robin Williams movie where Robin’s character worked at a photo-lab who did just that? It especially creeped me out in the scene where he meets the son of the family he is stalking.
felipe (40f0f0) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:41 pmI’m reasonably sex positive. I have no per se objection to videotaping in a consensual sexual relationship. But there’s certainly an internet risk that you should be careful of. That’s true even for *photos*, let alone videos.
To a certain extent at this point anything can end up on the internet.
aphrael (c3fb9a) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:44 pmThe first Hannibal Lecter book and movie, Red Dragon, lo mismo, felipe.
nk (dbc370) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:44 pmthey really are just people like you and me – I do online banking yes I know the risks but if they want they can get into my account – and most of these were very young and Many were not the custodians of much of the material taken
I get that, but I am not a multimillionaire, so if someone wants to hack my bank account they can wipe me out, but they really aren’t going to get rich. It would be the same if I had nude selfies on the Internet. Sure my account could be hacked, but nobody really wants to deal with my flabby middle-aged nudes (if they existed, which I assure everyone they do not).
But if I were very rich I don’t think I would have all of my banking information available online protected by one or maybe two layers of security, and if I were a Hollywood star or supermodel I’m pretty damn sure I wouldn’t have my nude selfies available online protected by nothing more.
I do feel bad for the celebrities because I know they didn’t intend for this to happen, and I have a friend whose daughter had her phone hacked and had some nude pictures she had taken posted online, so I have an idea of how embarrassing and frustrating it can be. But I am way more in the Forbes guy camp than the Lena Dunham camp on this, and I am not going to feel too sorry for airheaded celebs and their worthless retinues.
JVW (638245) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:45 pmAnd we allow our banking info to be stored online because it is convenient for us — we can use mobile devices to access our accounts and we can pay online bills, etc. What reason do celebs have for storing nude selfies online?
JVW (638245) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:46 pmThe difference between online banking and nude pictures is that you can get your money back… eventually. There is no way to eliminate every unauthorized copy of a naked picture from the internet, text messages and peoples memories.
Brendan (dce2f6) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:53 pm“(if they existed, which I assure everyone they do not)”.
Just as MG said to Daleyrocks, thank you, JVW!
Red Dragon! nk, yeah, brrrrr!
felipe (40f0f0) — 9/2/2014 @ 5:57 pmI want to hear from
nk (dbc370) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:05 pmAnthony WeinerHuma Abbedin about this.The security threat runs much deeper than nude photos. The security of the “cloud” and the business model that many companies are moving toward is very much in question.
I’m glad any naked pics I was associated with were on Polaroid! Those days, are long past…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:09 pmand I have the thanks of a grateful nation to comfort me in my old age. Why in my day, we flirted with a wink and a longing glance, not our wedding tackle.
UPDATE BY PATTERICO: I feel about this pretty much the same way I do about other behaviors that put one at greater risk of being victimized by criminals. Namely, I teach my children not to engage in the behaviors — but when someone else is victimized, I put the blame entirely on the criminal. I don’t see how it helps anything to get on a soapbox and start lecturing the victims on their poor judgment — and virtually all of the lecturers make their own data vulnerable to hackers in some form or fashion. Ultimately, criminals are the ones responsible for crime, not victims.
That doesn’t mean you can’t teach your children avoidance strategies. Just try to be less haughty about those who haven’t learned them. So my view is: Teach your children the lessons they need to learn, and then hold your tongue when criminals victimize people.
Patterico (9c670f) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:09 pmHow would one go about guessing her password, I wonder?
felipe (40f0f0) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:10 pmHuma’s password, NOT patterico’s!
felipe (40f0f0) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:12 pmButt Fuglies should never preach about the beauty in this world. Especially the “star” of “HoseBeasts”.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:14 pmIt’s “li’l oscar”, felipe…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:15 pmJVW,
I can’t blame people for their private stuff being stolen, also – I really want to emphasis – many of these people are naked IN THE COURSE of their employment – and – many of these stills come from illegally taken photos – people are all over the internet going yeah serves em right – I know you aren’t but others out there are – oh I just see pat wrote what I was going to write so enough said
EPWJ (e8c813) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:18 pmlol!
felipe (40f0f0) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:18 pmI read that only Lois Lerner can truly make data vanish.
Another point about this is issue is that of consequences. If you’re Jane Doe posting nude pics, a miniscule amount of people, if any, will be searching for them. And if they find them, the consequences will surely pale in comparison to if you are a famous actress and nude pics are found. It seems bizarrely naive that these women didn’t seem to realize this. Fame is a double-edged sword. Just as fame provides a uniquely different lifestyle of wealth and privilege and all the trappings that are radically different than the average person’s, so too are the consequences of decisions made. Fair or not, that’s the reality. What a devastating way to learn the lesson.
It’s also incredibly dumb or naive to not realize that if governments can be hacked and seriously classified information can be obtained and leaked, what makes anyone think that their accounts can’t be as well? And if your famous – and naked – there’s even more motivation to break in and steal.
While the hackers have of course committed a crime, it’s unfortunate that so many young women made such foolish choices of where to put their trust.
Dana (4dbf62) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:21 pmPatterico – sure, my data are vulnerable to hackers. ALL OF OUR DATA are. Because our systems aren’t secure.
The best way I can think of to make our systems more secure is to shine public attention on the issue and generate public pressure around it – and the very visible hacking of private pictures of celebrities seems like a great time to do that.
Unless there’s a massive shift in public opinion about the importance of this issue, nothing is going to change, and our systems will remain highly, highly vulnerable.
aphrael (c3fb9a) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:22 pmi kind of hope these people are somehow able to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives and move forward
happyfeet (8ce051) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:23 pmMe too, happyfeet. It’s got to be just horrible to go through.
Dana (4dbf62) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:25 pmThat’s what I’m trying to say. If you use the Internet, you’re vulnerable to all kinds of attacks.
Patterico (9c670f) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:25 pmAnd some attacks have far greater and more far-reaching consequences.
Dana (4dbf62) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:27 pmI don’t have a major disagreement with Patterico’s thoughts on this matter, and as a prosecutor I imagine he has a better insight and more empathy for victims than I undoubtedly have. If I were standing in front of Kate Upton or Kirsten Dunst or Jennifer Lawrence, I don’t think I would shake my head dismissively at them and say, “What the hell were you thinking?” I imagine I would try to be very sympathetic to their plight.
But one reason I blogged on this matter is because I really had a visceral reaction to Lena Dunham’s Tweet (which I found out when a Facebook friend of mine approvingly posted it to her wall). To me it cuts too close to one of the troubling pathologies of modern America, which is the idea that when something bad happens to someone we simply aren’t allowed to go beyond the very simplistic notion of “bad people hurt the victim; the victim should therefore be blameless.” If your buddy comes up to you and says, “I parked my new Mercedes right on the street in a really bad part of town where the cops are notorious for not patrolling and when I came back it was gone and the cops think it’s probably already chopped up and on the way to Mexico,” then it probably wouldn’t be cool for you to say, “You idiot; why did you park it there?” but it doesn’t mean that this isn’t a legitimate thought to cross your mind. Unfortunately, it is more and more an article of faith among some of our fellow Americans that certain victims — you know, the ones we really like because we know them or because their plight helps our political cause — get a cultural free pass for really, really bad decisions.
JVW (638245) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:32 pmDon’t be such a h8tr, feets… afterall, some of them are gay.
Colonel Haiku (4aa570) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:33 pm@Brendan
I hear what you and others are saying about the importance of using tough security standards. I couldn’t agree more. However, if someone breaks into my home or into a photo processing place (it is irrelevant where the theft occurred) do you place all the blame the thief or do you split the blame between the thief and the person who was robbed for not putting on a strong enough lock?
Even if someone doesn’t take all the necessary precautions one could possibly take against a thief I would still place all the blame on the thief.
Joe (33fd9a) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:34 pmHow would one go about guessing her password, I wonder?
Jennifer Lawrence’s was probably something really tricky like “Hung3rGames!” or something that no one would ever figure out.
JVW (638245) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:38 pmAs with the “doc” (@11): The FBI? Really? The MFM last night along with this story, had the one about the thousands of “immigrants”… those with student visas… who came here under that guise and now, as they have stayed beyond the time limit on that visa, are no place to be found. The reporter used the line that trekking through the Sonoran Desert was so “yesterday”; the new way is to get a student visa and then never leave. I would prefer that my tax dollar was spent on finding these “missing students”. Other sources put the numbers orders of magnitude higher by including work visas. So the FBI is actually “looking into” the lost nude selfies?
We are doomed.
Gramps, the original (7adb80) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:51 pmThey knight these chippies over where Great Britain used to be, Gramps, so what do you expect these days?
nk (dbc370) — 9/2/2014 @ 6:56 pmHEH
Dustin (7f67e8) — 9/2/2014 @ 7:15 pmI think many younger regular users of technology such as these actresses are, on one level, very adept with their sophisticated devices. They love their fancy apps and twitter and facebook, on and on. But I am not at all sure most of them are even minimally conversant on how the internet works, or how the convenience they crave and try to achieve by linking devices using the cloud and saved passwords makes them extra vulnerable.
elissa (c92042) — 9/2/2014 @ 7:41 pmThe upside to this is that it provides concrete object lessons for my daughters.
JD (e4a094) — 9/2/2014 @ 7:54 pmdon’t forget to remind them that, if they lose their minds and take a nude or partially nude selfie, or anything along those lines, they can be charged with manufacturing and distributing kiddy porn, with all the attendant legal problems to follow. same same if they let their significant other do it.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 9/2/2014 @ 8:45 pmas a moron, i’d be remiss is failing to mention that Ace went over much the same territory this morning, including the social aspects of the issue.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 9/2/2014 @ 8:49 pmwell there’s another local story,
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-california-judges-censured-sex-courthouse-20140902-story.html
narciso (ee1f88) — 9/2/2014 @ 8:58 pmhttp://xkcd.com/936/ Password wisdom
JWB (c1c08f) — 9/2/2014 @ 9:08 pmFirst off, Lena Dunham is right, but she is also so, so wrong. Current American culture seems to embrace this idea that being a saint and a whore at the same time is appropriate.
That applies to young men as well as young women.
We all sit around trying to make rules in a society that long ago left rules long behind.
In our world just being a decent human with feelings is wrong because at some time in history being decent resulted in a bad thing.
Honestly, how do young women and men make a connection in a world of hate against men for being men and an objectification of women as some sort of class warriors when we’re all just human?
I really hate communists. But, you know what, at least communists have a ideology with a goal.
However, I really hate the stupid, worthless class of booger-eating shits who never labored a day in their worthless lives who continually lecture us because they have access to a keyboard and the Internet.
I also dislike their leader.
[Note: Reclaimed from moderation. Please try to avoid using curse words in the comments so that your submission doesn’t get trapped there. – JVW]
Ag80 (eb6ffa) — 9/2/2014 @ 9:12 pmThanks, JVW. Was booger the problem? :)?
Ag80 (eb6ffa) — 9/2/2014 @ 9:22 pmWordPress is cool with “mocos,” “nose-licorice,” and “snot,” but “b***er” is definitely a banned word.
JVW (638245) — 9/2/2014 @ 9:28 pm5hit usually seems to fly right through though…just like in real life.
😎
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 9/2/2014 @ 10:01 pmMOAR password wisdom, as originally seen on FB…
warning for the faint of heart, etc, it has a few f-bombs in the text
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 9/2/2014 @ 10:03 pmand Lena is an idiot: the problem isn’t that they took the photos.
they were dumb enough to put them on the net: THAT was their big mistake.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 9/2/2014 @ 10:04 pm“I read that only Lois Lerner can truly make data vanish.”
Dana – I think it’s Congressional investigations that make the data vanish.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/2/2014 @ 10:12 pmPeople above have talked about tighter security, bigger locks, etc. I am reminded of what my youngest brother said some 25 years ago.
Locks only serve to keep honest people honest.
John Hitchcock (5131d7) — 9/2/2014 @ 11:46 pmI’d been guessing that Lena Dunham might have been related to Barak Obama through
Ibidem (463c59) — 9/2/2014 @ 11:47 pmAnn Dunham, but no such luck. Unfortunately, she’s a distant cousin of mine
(something on the order of tenth or eleventh cousin, who knows how many times removed.)
I still say it’s either okay for Snowden or it’s not okay for these clowns. You still cannot have it both ways. Show me a moral relativist and I’ll show you a person with no morals.
John Hitchcock (5131d7) — 9/2/2014 @ 11:48 pmToo stupid to live. Take all the naked pictures you want, I don’t care.
And since it’s Lena Dunham and if you’ve even seen her with her clothes on I think it’s pretty obvious I really don’t care. Make prints and put them in a photo album. That’s secure. Or if you have to store them digitally, store them to disc or a thumb drive. Just don’t store them in the cloud. Then they’re already online.
What’s next?
Steve57 (e0f6ab) — 9/3/2014 @ 12:12 amApple is claiming that these pictures were accessed from their system with the proper usernames, passwords and other security checks. So this doesn’t appear to be a broad based cracking of the servers. I suspect either a spear fishing attack or someone set up a wireless network at some event and captured network traffic from these celebs phones. (Spear fishing is specifically targetted emails sent to lure someone to a dummy website that looks like a site the target would normally visit and need credentials for.)
Xmas (f65ded) — 9/3/2014 @ 1:05 amottimo articolo, complimenti
compra bitcoin skrill (546641) — 9/3/2014 @ 4:28 amThe problem with your high minded position on this (I’m addressing my comments to our host) is that in reality everyone makes judgments about victims culpability everyday. If I leave a stack of hundred dollars bills laying in plain sight on the seat of my vehicle, no one, and I mean no one, will feel sorry for me when someone breaks in and swipes it.
It has become a given in our culture that rape victims have no culpability WHAT SO EVER in their victimization and as a general rule this is correct, but a woman who decides to take a midnight stroll in her Victoria’s Secret teddy is too stupid for me to waste pity on.
Society has a right to expect everyone to exercise common sense so law enforcement isn’t spending inordinate amounts of time rescuing cats from trees.
Mark Johnson (ecd980) — 9/3/2014 @ 5:46 amThanks for posting that. It’s the first thing I thought of when I read this story. It’s a shame that online entities won’t cooperate with such a simple thing. When online poker was still quasi-legal, I had to point to a picture and use some key phrases to access my account. Which was much more secure than adding $ instead of S, and capitalizing a letter or whatever.
Unless you have read every word of the privacy agreement when you set up your phone / table / whatever, you should have sympathy for these folks. Their privacy is being violated, and that doesn’t make them stupid, immoral or guilty. Just victims.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 9/3/2014 @ 7:22 amMy thoughts on this:
1) As a human being, I feel sorry for the humiliation that these actresses must feel for having their photos, which were intended for a private audience, stolen and publicized without their permission.
2) I feel sorry for those who may have inadvertantly uploaded their images to the cloud; I know that the default on my phone was to do so, and I had to turn it off. If you aren’t technically savvy, you might not realize that a phone will do this.
3) Taking nude photos of yourself, even intended for a private audience, is not risk-free, and clearly unauthorized disclosure is one of those risks. Engaging in risky behavior sometimes backfires.
4) It is pointless to lecture the offended parties that they should have done something different, as this is both an obvious observation and smug dickishness. It is *not* pointless, however, to warn those who may not have realized the risks of their behavior, that those risks exist and that steps can be taken to mitigate that risk.
5) The people who did this are slimy skumbags, the existance of which has been known as long as people have existed; is should surprise no one that these people are out there and, considering the enormous interest people have to see pretty girls sans clothing, it should also not surprise anyone the lengths skummy people will go to in order to get those photos.
6) If you are a man and you are in a relationship with a woman, it is unethical for you to request sexy phone pictures, because by your request you are opening your girlfriend up to this sort of invasion of privacy.
Pious Agnostic (7eb3b0) — 9/3/2014 @ 7:26 amPious – what settings did you have to change?
JD (46bf87) — 9/3/2014 @ 7:45 amJD – It wasn’t hard.
On my iPhone, under Settings, there is an iCloud menu. Within that, you can specify various media that will be uploaded automatically. “Photos” is one of the options.
Pious Agnostic (7eb3b0) — 9/3/2014 @ 7:59 amPA – Did you forget 7. Where are links where I can view these pictures?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/3/2014 @ 8:20 amDeadspin linked a photo of Ms. Kate Upton yesterday, in the context of Justin Verlander’s photos being leaked. She looks good, but I feel a little guilty about seeing it.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 9/3/2014 @ 8:26 amtherapy dogs all around I say
happyfeet (8ce051) — 9/3/2014 @ 8:27 amDaley, you remind me of what my father told me:
“Once you’ve seen one girl naked, you want to see them all.”
Pious Agnostic (7eb3b0) — 9/3/2014 @ 8:28 amPA – Your father sounds like a very wise man. 🙂
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/3/2014 @ 8:39 amcarlitos – Don’t torture yourself over the guilt.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 9/3/2014 @ 8:40 am🙂
carlitos (c24ed5) — 9/3/2014 @ 8:50 amCarlitos, I saw that same Deadspin post and link. I kind of feel guilty too, except that Ms. Upton has posed semi-nude so many times that we kind of already knew what to expect.
JVW (638245) — 9/3/2014 @ 8:57 amYeah, JVW … that looks like a lot of fun. My ERA would probably suffer a similar fate.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 9/3/2014 @ 9:02 am1. Bill M (906260) — 9/2/2014 @ 4:31 pm
If you store your stuff on the cloud, it’s security is only as good as the password you use.
Only as secure as the “lost your password” recovery procedures.
A lot of personal information about celebrities, that would answer many of these security questions they have, may be public, or the posisbilities may be public. They may be sent to e-mail but that may be compromised, also.
Sammy Finkelman (da8ac2) — 9/3/2014 @ 9:12 am75. Pious Agnostic (7eb3b0) — 9/3/2014 @ 7:26 am
2) I feel sorry for those who may have inadvertantly uploaded their images to the cloud; I know that the default on my phone was to do so, and I had to turn it off. If you aren’t technically savvy, you might not realize that a phone will do this.
There’s something very wrong with the whole way computer storage is set up. It should be very clear to everybody exactly what they are doing. It wouldn’t be that hard to write software that way, but they don’t want people to realize what s going on or how things work.
Sammy Finkelman (da8ac2) — 9/3/2014 @ 9:32 amFirst of all you have to buy a camera before you can take a picture. SO before the moralizations, a person has to make a conscious decision to buy a camera and do the other things required for a nude selfie to appear on the net. Every step of the way accompanied by a money transaction with the explicit goal of sharing the moment with third parties who were unable to attend the original unveiling.
What really bugs me about this is the bully tactics. Every bullying I have encountered started off with some form of “How dare you look at me.” “What are you looking at?” “You better look somewhere else.”
What a non surprise that Lena Dunham and liberal presstitutes resort to the “Don’t you dare look at me” attack, first, foremost, and always.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 9/3/2014 @ 9:06 pmIf Lena Dunham wants to go out in public and not be seen, she should wear a bag over her head.
Hell, she should wear a bag anyway, as a courtesy to the general public. But I wouldn’t force her to wear a bag, because that would be wrong, in the same way telling people what they had better not look at would be wrong.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 9/3/2014 @ 9:19 pmWhen my house was broken into, and my TV stolen, nobody would think of tsk-tsk’ing me for having a TV. What’s the difference here, other than the slut shaming? Or, I suppose the PC term is now “battleground in the culture war.”
ghostofkeynes (1467a4) — 9/4/2014 @ 2:40 pmIf you set your big screen in the window, and then shared your porno vids with the neighbors, that would be about the same.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the NSA skyped Katnip’s hoohah.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 9/4/2014 @ 6:45 pm