You’ve heard about this, right?
(Buzzfeed) A leak that started as the latest round of personal pictures hacked from celebrities’ phones turned Monday into a vast invasion of the privacy of actress Jennifer Lawrence and a handful of others — and a kind of festival on Reddit, 4chan, and other online spaces — with continued release of pictures and videotape purporting to be taken from stars including Lawrence, Kate Upton, Lea Michele, and more.
The extent of the leak — with dozens of incredibly personal photos and a few short videos — was unanticipated even by some of the people at its center, hitting all corners of fame from athletes to American Idol contestants. One publicist told BuzzFeed Sunday she was hoping the leak would stop with one photograph of her client, only to see a half dozen more make the rounds the next night.
Beginning Sunday night, a massive quantity of nude and risqué photos that appeared to be of huge stars such as Jennifer Lawrence, Ariana Grande, Victoria Justice, and Kate Upton leaked online, first appearing on the /b/ thread on 4chan (NSFW link).
Some celebs are saying it’s not them, some, like Jennifer Lawrence, confirm the pictures. They are very upset about this, and have their attorneys and law enforcement involved. The FBI is also looking in to the incident.
(Mediaite) Actor and comedian Ricky Gervais had a different take on the hacked nude celebrity photos today. While he made it absolutely clear he finds the release of such photos horrible, he did make a joke about how no one would be able to obtain naked photos of celebrities if said celebrities didn’t take naked photos of themselves in the first place.
Here’s the tweet in question, which has since been deleted:
That didn’t exactly go over well. And while Gervais did take down that tweet, he continued to defend himself on Twitter, arguing that it’s really not worth it to be outraged by a joke:
Sadly, he did delete a very simple common sense piece of advice. How many times has it happened that someone allowed risque pictures and/or vids of themselves to be taken, or taken by themselves, and they end up on the Internet? Not just celebs, but average citizens? Maybe a boyfriend or husband (or female friend) talked them into it. Maybe they were just taking a selfie. Next thing you know, they’re mortified by it being out there for the world to see. This has been going on since the 1990’s, with the Internet becoming accessible to everyone. Heck, even before then things happened. Remember Vanessa Williams?
In a case like this, taking nude photos, many which appear to be selfies, and putting them in the cloud is asking for problems. This is not to blame the celebs, who are the victims….well, yes, it is. Actions have consequences. This “taking pictures of yourself naked” meme is not limited to these celebs. It seems to be more and more common amongst the under 30 crowd. I’ll never get wanting to take a risque selfie in a public bathroom, but that’s a different story. If you take them, there’s always a possibility that someone will get their hands on them. Especially a Hollywood celebrity.
If you want to take them, don’t put them on the cloud. Don’t leave them on your phone. Put them on an external hard drive, with massive password protection. Better yet, if you do not want people to see them, don’t take them.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
[…] wrong with what he said? It’s just common sense, but now common sense is offensive to people. Is it any wonder everything is such a mess in the […]
I liked that tweet. Wish that he had been tough enough to stand behind it.
I wish that people would stop saying “the cloud” like it’s some kind of magical place in the heavens. Every time you see “the cloud”, replace it with “someone else’s server” and you’ll get a better idea of how safe it can be. I don’t store anywhere else but local, and there is nothing on any of my PCs or devices that would give me any trouble with my family, wife, boss or a DA.
I will allow that you have to be careful with the new devices, particularly the iPhone. It is my understanding that the iPhone can automatically archive material to the iCloud (“someone else’s server”) automatically if you do not opt out of doing so. Bottom line: YOU have to be aware of what you have and where it is kept.
Frankly, my give a damn capacity is pretty low right now. A bunch of celebrities had their privacy invaded. Big deal. Elsewhere in the world, ISIS hacked off a American’s head, Russia is invading the Ukraine and giving us the finger, and our government from POTUS on down seems to be totally clueless about how to do anything other than “Harrumph!”. Sorry, J-Law. Sucks to be you. Learn from it and move on.
I agree. No one should ever put anything private online or on their cell phone or say anything private over the telephone or in an email.
Whose fault was it when Target was hacked and all those credit cards were stolen? That’s right, the customers.
In most crimes, the victim is largely to blame.
Sexual assaults? She was begging for it because of what she was wearing.
Wife beating? She deserved it for what she was saying. Or at least how she said it.
If someone breaks into your house and steals old love letters that end up embarrassing you, it’s your problem for saving them. Of for accepting them in the first place.
Jeff:
Your attempt at sarcasm falls a little short.
Yes, the celebrities are victims. However, victims can also be stupid. Sometimes they are victims because they didn’t take some basic precautions.
Tell me, Jeff, Do you lock your doors at night? Do you leave your car keys in the ignition? Do you leave a loaded gun on the kitchen table? No? Then maybe you will admit that it is necessary for people to take some basic precautions in life.
It’s illegal to break into houses and steal stuff. Guess what? It happens anyway.
It’s illegal to hack a person’s account and steal data. Guess what? People are going to try to do it anyway. That’s why you change passwords, encrypt data, or take other precautions if it is sensitive.
The bottom line is that all of these people took a certain amount of risk by putting this material on their phones. They didn’t secure it sufficiently and got taken. Pretty much the same as someone who left his keys in the car. Sucks. They were victims, yes, and the perp should be caught and prosecuted, but maybe they’ll be more careful next time.
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Jeff, let’s not go overboard. I know it is extremely difficult for you.
Whoops, managed to wipe out most of my comment.
They are not necessarily at fault, but, regarding the pictures, they are negligent. I once had a customer who left her car running in the fire lane to come in and pay her bill. A kid was sitting on the çurb waiting for this to happen,because ccustomers did this all the time. He stole her car. Was she at fault. We can debate that, the kid was the thief.she was damned sure negligent, was she not?
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