Kevin's Watch

Just in case you didn't hear about this, on 31 Aug a selection of 200 or so pictures of different celebrities [mostly in various states of undress] was hacked from thier accounts with Apple's Cloud Services suite iCloud and the images posted online for all and sundry to goggle.

Now I've got very little sympathy for anybody silly enough to 'selfie' themselves in the nip and then store it away in the Clouds, but to be fair, is there not a dire warning contained within this seemingly silly story. As cloud services become more and more the norm for all of us in respect of storing literally everything that is of import to us, should the idea that the security of acess to this matereal is as easily breached as this, not make us shudder with horror. In short order this will be the way all your information [personal and pertaining to you] is stored and have you not the right to expect the absolute fullest of security measures to be in place for your protection.

who in their right mind believes that anything to do with the interclouds is safe? very little sympathy for pop tarts who end up nekkid on the web. don't put stuff where others can get at it.

Aww...don't make me feel bad about myself. I already have enough general guilt about sex as it is.

Although what most people haven't noticed is that most web mail clients have slowly changed their terms of use over time, and that there have been quite a few instances of email accounts being hacked.

Most of us don't think twice about emailing something, but it's inherently no much different than cloud storage - both store files on servers that rely on similar security and rely on the users choosing strong passwords.

My password is "strong"

Common sense ought to prevail, of course. But yes, these folks had their photos stored in what they believed to be secure accounts. Your house wouldn't be impossible to break into -- but if someone did it and stole your stuff, you'd be right to be mad at the person who said it was your own fault for owning stuff that tempts burglars.

Chuck Wendig did a great blog post on this:
terribleminds.com/ramble/2014/09/02/a-psa-about-nude-photos/

Vraith wrote:There is a dire warning, of course...

But, besides that, you SHOULD have sympathy for the victims here.
I see little difference [except of course for less chance of physical violence] between this and me breaking into your house and snapping some quick pic/vines/vids of you taking a shower or enjoying a little something [with yourself or other(s)]

Hell, the people who LOOK at these things are guilty of a crime, too, and a worse one than downloading free copies of music/movies/books.

WORD.

To say they deserve to be hacked if they store stuff on their smartphones or put it into clouds - and nobody here actually said they deserved it - is a bit like saying women who wear short skirts are to blame if they get raped. It might be stupidity on the side of celebs (or whoever puts stuff online) but stupidity is no crime.

Yes. Fuck victim-blaming bullshit. The hackers, and the people who gleefully view and share the resulting stolen items, are the only ones in the wrong.

Well, you gotta blame The Cloud a little bit too. That's like blaming the guy who convinced everyone on your block to lock their doors with his fashionable cellophane tape a little bit when you've been burglarized. (Had these pictures been in a drawer in someone's bedroom, this could not have happened.)

wayfriend wrote:Well, you gotta blame The Cloud a little bit too. That's like blaming the guy who convinced everyone on your block to lock their doors with his fashionable cellophane tape a little bit when you've been burglarized. (Had these pictures been in a drawer in someone's bedroom, this could not have happened.)

Unless somebody broke into the house and went through the nightstand, Way.

I get that if you lock stuff up, there are people out there who are going to get their jollies by trying to pick the lock. But the term for them is criminals, and the term for the people whose locks were picked is victims of a crime. There is no functional difference between a physical lock and a password.

wayfriend wrote:Well, you gotta blame The Cloud a little bit too.

No, you don't.

Not only do you not gotta, you're wrong if you do.

If Apple's Cloud security was less than it ought to be, then it could be held partially responsible, but in this case what has been claimed is that it was compromised account passwords that allowed access, not a hacking into the storage systems themselves.

aliantha wrote:There is no functional difference between a physical lock and a password.

Well, I agree that breaking passed either one is a crime. And I'm not saying that the use of either one mitigates that crime. But I disagree that they are both equally effective security. In clearer terms: I think that people are duped about how safe their data is in The Cloud. After a break in, if someone duped you about how safe your belongings were using their security, you should be a bit mad at them.

Vraith wrote:

wayfriend wrote:Well, you gotta blame The Cloud a little bit too.

No, you don't.

Not only do you not gotta, you're wrong if you do.

If you store something at a bank and it gets stolen because they weren't carrying out proper security measures, it would be in part their fault.

Same with the Cloud.

Orlion wrote:

Vraith wrote:

wayfriend wrote:Well, you gotta blame The Cloud a little bit too.

No, you don't.

Not only do you not gotta, you're wrong if you do.

If you store something at a bank and it gets stolen because they weren't carrying out proper security measures, it would be in part their fault.

Same with the Cloud.

Sure -- but that's not what happened here. And people are judging the folks who trusted the cloud providers because (snigger) they're famous and (snigger) they got nekkid.

aliantha wrote:

Orlion wrote:

Vraith wrote: No, you don't.

Not only do you not gotta, you're wrong if you do.

If you store something at a bank and it gets stolen because they weren't carrying out proper security measures, it would be in part their fault.

Same with the Cloud.

Sure -- but that's not what happened here. And people are judging the folks who trusted the cloud providers because (snigger) they're famous and (snigger) they got nekkid.

It seems to me that a lot of people (outside of kevin's watch, of course) are righteously indignant about all this because it's the hip thing to do... particularly when famous people are involved. Nude photos have been stolen from private sources for a while now... I believe there's a Reddit forum all about it... but it did not matter to anyone until it happened to enough famous people at the same time (remember when the same thing happened to Scarlett Johansen? No one sneezed at that).

I mean... what is everybody's game, actually? I sincerely doubt most of the internet's sincerity... (Not Murrin's or ali's or others here... you have been very consistent with your beliefs the past few years)

Storing in a cloud - security failure - exposed data - theft
Wearing a pantyhose - run in the pantyhose - exposed skin - rape

aliantha wrote:

Orlion wrote:

Vraith wrote: No, you don't.

Not only do you not gotta, you're wrong if you do.

If you store something at a bank and it gets stolen because they weren't carrying out proper security measures, it would be in part their fault.

Same with the Cloud.

Sure -- but that's not what happened here.

I am thoroughly sure that's what happened here.

The Cloud is not safe.
It is promoted as safe. But it's not.
Half of American adults hacked this year.
They lure you into it with convenience.
And they fail to advise you of the risk.

It's not safe because there's no such thing as a hack-proof server.

It's not safe because anyone can go after your things from anywhere in the world.

It's not safe because millions of people have their information in one place.
This makes it worth almost any amount of investment to hack.

It's not safe because no one knows what is stolen unless someone put what they stole on reddit.

Did Apple tell you that they cannot prevent what you put in the Cloud from being stolen? I think not.

(Ask Hashi sometime about his computer that has no network connections. And why he wants it.)

Orlion wrote:

Vraith wrote:

wayfriend wrote:Well, you gotta blame The Cloud a little bit too.

No, you don't.

Not only do you not gotta, you're wrong if you do.

If you store something at a bank and it gets stolen because they weren't carrying out proper security measures, it would be in part their fault.

Same with the Cloud.

Heh...maybe I should have quoted that a bit more extensively, but I wasn't talking about the Cloud itself. People can hold Apple partly accountable if they want.
But I'm really talking about the people with no sympathy for the actual victims. Which weren't Apple.

Not one person here has a single possession...up to and including their own bodies...that is truly safe or secure. So, no matter what anybody does to you, by any means, it's your fault. Absurd.

It's funny, though, that people think hacking is so much easier than breaking into a house and stealing.
It's a lot SAFER...especially for the criminal.
But almost any fool can break into a house.