Celebrity Nude Photo Leak

The hackers are suspected to have gotten into individual iCloud accounts using regular hacking methods

Fantasies came true on Sunday when the internet was flooded with nude photos of Hollywood celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence. Unlike morphed images, it soon became clear that these were the real deal, mostly selfies shot by the celebrities themselves. The site that first featured these photos was 4chan.org, a bulletin board with plenty of anonymous users. The images immediately got picked up by other websites like Reddit.

The photos, it is suspected, were procured after the iCloud accounts of these people had been hacked into— taking it into the ambit of a criminal violation of privacy. Besides Lawrence, celebrities whose photos got leaked include Kirsten Dunst, Kate Upton, Ariana Grande, Mary Winstead and many more. Lawrence said she was horrified and asked the authorities to prosecute those who had breached her privacy. Winstead said that the photos of her were shot when she was with her husband many years ago.

Some people failed to realise at first that what happened was a crime. Blogger Perez Hilton reposted the nude photos of Lawrence and Victoria Justice and then pulled it down. He later put up a video of himself admitting that he hadn’t considered the repercussions of what he did. The FBI has begun an investigation. Apple Computer says that iCloud is safe and has no systemic problem; and that the hackers had got into individual accounts using regular password hacking methods.

All said, the scandal has frightening implications for the privacy of anyone on the internet. Ever since cloud computing has become de rigeur, all private information is backed up online. If hackers can get hold of it, then nothing about a person is safe from those with mala fide intentions out there.

iCloudJennifer Lawrencenude photo leak