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Arts and Entertainment

Celeb hacking: Pathetic invasion of privacy

Nude photo leaking showed callousness and cruelty
Jennifer Lawrence, seen here arriving at the Oscars in March, is one of the victims of a recent Internet hacking that leaked nude photos online.

On Sunday morning the day before Labor Day, a sizeable folder of private nude pictures of famous women – most of them actresses – was posted on the website 4chan and subsequently Reddit.

Within an hour the pictures made it to Tumblr and LiveJournal, and more were leaking by the hour by the original poster. The victims of this invasion included movie stars Jennifer Lawrence and Kirsten Dunst, model Kate Upton (plus boyfriend Justin Verlander), Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney and TV actresses Kaley Cuoco, Aubrey Plaza, Victoria Justice, Jessica Brown-Findlay and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. The hacker also posted a screenshot of a complete list of celeb pictures he claims to have.

By the end of the holiday weekend, the websites’ moderators had removed the vast majority of the photos, but the hacker (or hackers) continued their posting of newer pictures, despite the FBI’s eventual involvement.

The photos were apparently hacked through phones via iCloud or other back-up services. Apple responded to the incident by suggesting the hacker was able to access the photos by staging an attack on user names, passwords and security questions. Whatever the case, a big handful of women were humiliated and taken advantage of unfairly, to say the least.

Nude photo scandals are not a new thing. Several celebrities, such as Debbie Harry, Cameron Diaz and Geri Halliwell, had old photos that were taken at the beginning of their careers while they were still unknown resurface after they became famous.

Young ingénues like Drew Barrymore, Jessica Biel and Christina Aguilera have also attempted to break through as mature, grown-up actresses or singers by posing in racy magazines as Playboy or Maxim.

The difference in this instance is that the women weren’t taking these photos with the intention of sharing them with the public.

Most of these actresses are low-key to begin with, even A-listers like Lawrence or Dunst, who largely steer clear of paparazzi or hot spots in LA.

The recent theft is unbelievably cruel. Despite how comfortable the women are with showing skin in legitimate film and magazine content, the hackers still felt a pathetic need to traumatize them by exposing their lives in the bedroom.

The infamous event has scared most of us into turning off iCloud on our phones, but it should also be taken seriously as a lesson to mind each other’s own business and suffer the consequences when you steal what’s not yours.

mbianco@durangoherald.com. Megan Bianco is a movie reviewer and also contributes other entertainment related features and articles.



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