Any opinions on the hacker who got naked

[Hillbeans]

I definitely think that this is a crime and that the hackers should be prosecuted. No question about that.

However, I just can't feel that sorry for the celebrities. If you don't want nude pictures to be found, don't take them. This should be common sense for everyone, but celebrities especially should realize this. And if you somehow can't refrain from taking nude pictures of yourself, take the pics with a regular camera. There is, of course, still a very real possibility that those could end up being exposed as well, but it seems particularly risky to have them accessible on the internet in any form.

Ironic this story is making me think of the Vanessa Williams scandal 30 years ago. Once a picture is out there, even 30 years ago before the Internet and iPhones, it's out there to stay. I also don't want to "blame" the victim, but I do tell my kids all the time to not ever take a nude photo and send it around because you'll NEVER get it back, and it will NEVER be private, no matter who you send it to.

 

[JanaDee]

No sympathy from me. If you don't want naked photos to go public, there is an easy fix ~ don't take them to begin with.

 

[Colleen27]

There's only one real problem with your analogy... the people that are the victim of these hack aren't just "someone". They are celebrities. This isn't the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th time something like this has happened. It's the umpteenth. The only thing notable about this incident is the number of people impacted at once. The fact is that there's a hacker culture out there gunning for these people. If I knew that people were gunning for my specific financial information, I do think I'd be a little more selective with regard to my on-line transactions.

But they are. How many major retailers have been hacked just in the past year? It happens on a regular basis. I've had fraudulent transaction attempts from two national chain retailers, and countless other notices to change passwords and even replace debit/credit cards because of security compromises. But we still don't tell victims of identity theft or credit card fraud that they should have known better than to bank/shop online, pay at the pump for gas, or engage in other legitimate habits that thieves target.

IMO, saying that celebs played even a small part in criminal invasions of their privacy smacks of the argument that a woman bears some responsibility for her rape if she was drinking, dressed provocatively, or out alone at night.

ETA: It you take the sexual element out of it, would you still feel the same? That celebs shouldn't, for example, take those cutesy but embarrassing photos we all take of our kids over the years unless they're prepared to have them punished? I doubt many people would make that case. It is only because nude photos are taboo that people are so comfortable dismissing the invasion of privacy as primarily the fault of the celebs rather than of the hackers.

 

[JanaDee]

But they are. How many major retailers have been hacked just in the past year? It happens on a regular basis. I've had fraudulent transaction attempts from two national chain retailers, and countless other notices to change passwords and even replace debit/credit cards because of security compromises. But we still don't tell victims of identity theft or credit card fraud that they should have known better than to bank/shop online, pay at the pump for gas, or engage in other legitimate habits that thieves target.

IMO, saying that celebs played even a small part in criminal invasions of their privacy smacks of the argument that a woman bears some responsibility for her rape if she was drinking, dressed provocatively, or out alone at night.

If you don't have nude pictures of yourself, then no need to worry about them going public.

 

[Tiggeroo]

I think we should all be entitled to some level of expectation of privacy. If you have things stored in an area that is password protected and meant for you alone nobody should be accessing that and making it all public. I am bothered that people think it's ok because celebs are involved. You can't have rules for some people and not others. Don't go and look at the pics.

 

[JanaDee]

I think we should all be entitled to some level of expectation of privacy. If you have things stored in an area that is password protected and meant for you alone nobody should be accessing that and making it all public. I am bothered that people think it's ok because celebs are involved. You can't have rules for some people and not others. Don't go and look at the pics.

I am talking about people in general, not celebs in particular.

 

[Geoff_M]

But they are. How many major retailers have been hacked just in the past year?

No, I mean "me" personally... not as some part of a larger collective pool of compromised CC numbers which may or may not then be used. I can assure you that efforts that have been expended to-date to hack into my personal e-mail accounts pales in comparison that the efforts that no doubt have been directed at the accounts of Miley Cyrus, Scarlett Johanson, Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, et el. by any number of hormone-driven young male hackers. But if I had reason to believe that such efforts would be directed at me too, I think I'd behave in a manner that would be a little more prudent with regard to my on-line security and behavior.

I know that a lot of these hacker groups like to pretend like they're some kind of hacker criminal genius super-minds, but when all is said and known, a lot of times their "tricks" are pretty simple. Reportedly, in these cases the early technique they are looking at is the celebrities' use of "weak" or common passwords on the accounts. Not exactly "Tom Clancy" stuff!

 

[Jex]

Silly iPhones.

 

[ZachnElli]

I wouldn't trust naked photos on the cloud to stay private any more than I expect electronic medical records to stay private.

I love how anyone who doesn't trust electronic storage of data to stay private is accused of having a tin foil hat. Then when it leaks out people say "well, what did you expect?"[/QUOTE]

SO TRUE!

 

[tasha99]

Ironic this story is making me think of the Vanessa Williams scandal 30 years ago. Once a picture is out there, even 30 years ago before the Internet and iPhones, it's out there to stay. I also don't want to "blame" the victim, but I do tell my kids all the time to not ever take a nude photo and send it around because you'll NEVER get it back, and it will NEVER be private, no matter who you send it to.

But these were never sent to anyone. I wonder if many if the celebs hacked even knew that backups would end up auto saving to icloud. This is where your old fashioned Polaroid would be better . . .

 

[WowLookAtThat]

It sucks that these pictures were hacked. Nude or not, its wrong. Someone broke into their account and put out these pictures that were considered private. Taking nude pictures isn't my thing but that doesn't mean that the celebrities (or really anyone) deserve to have their personal account hacked and pictures posted online. The hacker should be prosecuted. It doesn't matter if the women in the pictures were nude or not. The hacker did something illegal.

 

[zurgswife]

There are reportedly hundreds of people's pictures. I think the first batch was about 20 females.

Completely agreed. I liked Emma Watson’s (who thankfully was not one of the women involved in this) response on Twitter earlier today:

Sorry to break it to you. Emma Watson's topless photos were included in the pictures hacked.

I think more people then not think if they take pictures on their phone and don't send them anywhere then they are not at risk. It's more lack of knowledge of how things work. I don't think anybody should have to deal with this crap no matter what type of photos they take in the privacy of their own home.

 

[LBIJim]

I think this is really not ok. And sure this time it's a celebrity but what if it was your sister or your daughter? I think as the general public we need to stop supporting this nonsense. Somebody is buying these pictures and somebody is looking at them. If you're looking at pictures like this you are part of the problem. All this "don't take nude pictures" talk is blaming the victim. It's like when people say a girl dressed a certain way deserves to be sexualized. We have to stop blaming the victim.

No sister, but if it happened to my daughters I'd say they're just as stupid as these celebrities. Want naked photos of yourself? Fine, use a digital camera and view them from a flash drive or other external device. Don't save them to anyplace where they could be hacked or retrieved by others. If that's blaming the victim, so be it. No sympathy whatsoever. It's a far cry from blaming a rape victim on how she was dressed or behaved.

The smart so-called victims are ignoring this incident. No real harm. A handful who have expressed manufactured outrage are getting mercilessly eviscerated on social media.

 

[okeydokey]

I do hope they find the hacker and prosecute them. I think most people believe if they take a photo with their own phone and never share or send it to anyone, it will be safe from public view, as it should be.

I believe that currently, even if you delete a picture, it gets captured in the cloud forever.

 

[hallie]

I'm not a naked person, so I don't understand the whole taking nude pics of yourself thing BUT what happened is so wrong. One should be able to take pics of themselves on their own phone and have them remain private. What the hacker did was not only morally wrong, it's illegal and I hope they rot in jail.

 

[jasta]

I feel no sympathy for any of them. In this day and age YOU KNOW that nothing is private. These are all young, immature stupid girls. For years this has been going on and they are still taking nude pictures! If they haven't leaned by now, then it's their own fault.

 

[hallie]

Yeah and that's some of what I was trying to get at. I've seen so many comments today (not here) that implied or said outright that these people deserved it because they took revealing pictures of themselves. Never mind that it was in their own homes. For or with their spouses/partners. And because they're 'celebrities', we should all get to see those pictures.

What couples do in their homes is no one's business but theirs, no matter how famous they are. And this stunt is no different than peeking in someone's bedroom window.

There's also a lot of misinformation out there; a lot of people seem to think that these were pictures taken for publicity purposes that the celebrities put on the internet, and somebody found.

The other purpose of my post was to make everyone aware that this was a data breach that anyone using iCloud for data or photo storage or backup was vulnerable to. Who knows what other data these losers got. I doubt it was just celebrities' racy pictures.

Um....are people not understanding what happened here? This was not staged for publicity. These were photos that these people took on their phones, not photos that they 'put out there'. Many of the photos were taken from backup files on iCloud - for those of you with iPhones or iPads, these are the backups that your device automatically makes when you sleep the device and connect it to power. And it's not just photos that are in those backups.

Sooooo.....it's OK for hackers to get into a celebrity's phone backups, take their personal photos and information, and sell them all over the internet?

 

[RadioNate]

I feel no sympathy for any of them. In this day and age YOU KNOW that nothing is private. These are all young, immature stupid girls. For years this has been going on and they are still taking nude pictures! If they haven't leaned by now, then it's their own fault.

To me this is akin to saying to someone who's credit card number was stolen and used fraudulently "YOU KNOW credit card numbers are stolen. For years this has been going on and you are still using credit cards. You are stupid and immature and it's your own fault the data network was hacked"

Only in America, where we couple a puritanical view of the human body with a raging Madonna/***** complex, is this a raging scandal where these women are portrayed as idiots that should be embarrassed rather than as the crime victims the are.

 

[pioneer89]

To me this is akin to saying to someone who's credit card number was stolen and used fraudulently

I disagree, it's like saying:

"YOU KNOW credit card numbers are stolen. For years this has been going on and you are still using credit cards without taking the proper precautions and using a fraud-protected card. You are foolish if you don't acknowledge that anything you put into a computer or phone is open to the world if you don't take precautions."

 

[okeydokey]

Some people are just so mean spirited. Just because someone is an actor, doesn't mean they should not expect private things to remain private. And just because someone uses a personal phone to take a pic, doesn't mean they should expect their private pics (even after being deleted) to be public. I blame the hacker.