The Fappening

figmentPez

Staff member
There are a lot of names floating around as part of this leak. A shocking number. Any idea if this is limited to celebrities, or are a lot of unknowns going to start appearing on amateur sites and such with no credit, no names, and possibly never know they've been shown to the world?
 
http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/01/h...tential-access-to-celebrities-private-photos/

The service that runs find my iPhone did not have basic brute force protections in place, allowing relatively simple brute force programs to guess passwords as long as you knew the account email.

This vulnerability was found and distributed within the last week or two, so it's likely that this was used for this attack, and that it wasn't a more general attack on non celebrities.
:cry:

No one wants our HalfNudes.
 

Dave

Staff member
They think this may have happened at the Emmys. Apparently there's an unsecured wi-fi connection for anyone to use there, and a vulnerability that allowed someone to use this connection to gain access to anyone's account that was using the iPhone or an iCloud device.

Purely conjecture at this point, though it seems likely to have had such a range of access.
 
There are a lot of names floating around as part of this leak. A shocking number. Any idea if this is limited to celebrities, or are a lot of unknowns going to start appearing on amateur sites and such with no credit, no names, and possibly never know they've been shown to the world?
this post coupled with your avatar adds a real air of concern and worry.... like we should be worried about stumbling onto figmentPez amateur porn....
 
They think this may have happened at the Emmys. Apparently there's an unsecured wi-fi connection for anyone to use there, and a vulnerability that allowed someone to use this connection to gain access to anyone's account that was using the iPhone or an iCloud device.
http://www.wallofsheep.com/pages/wall-of-sheep

Many connections (such as iCloud, web banking, many email providers, etc) use https at a minimum as the default, so these would not be affected. However, there's no guarantee that the attendees were practicing "safe computing" while they were attending the festivities, which would've likely at least leaked their email addresses, allowing someone to start the brute force process.

--Patrick
 

figmentPez

Staff member
I wonder if any of these actresses could sue for lost wages. They likely could have gotten more money for their first nude appearance, if these photos hadn't been leaked.
 
Dammit, I was going to post that hours ago, but had to upgrade my Minecraft server and three clients to pacify my family, install MCEdit for my wife, and fix my father-in-law's sister's iPad, all before Noon on my day off.

Wait, this isn't the rant thread?

--Patrick
 

Necronic

Staff member
This whole thig is interesting on a lot of levels, and has made me have to re-evaluate a lot of stuff. Honestly, I really don know how I feel about this.

My first inclination was to get on board with the whole "this is so incredibly wrong!" shtick. Then I started really wondering what Jennifer Lawrence looked like naked, and I think I tried to rationalize looking at it.

Then I ran across a reddit post talking about whether or not this will start a conversation about candid pornography. Large amounts of the amatuer porn on the internet either gives no reason to believe there is no consent in the posting, or actively promotes the idea that there *isnt* consent (like those "revenge porn" sites). Ironically, the latter usually has consent and is just a gimmick, but there is a LOT of amatuer porn out there that does not have consent.

Thing is, I enjoy amatuer porn. Not because it doesn't have consent, I just like real amatuer stuff.

So it begs the question. Is it worse that if it's a celebrity or a nobody? Why? Does that even matter? If not, why weren't we talkin about this before?

Because let's be honest, while the scope of this leak is unprecedented, conceptually it's nt that different from paparazzi sites or celebrity sex tapes that have been leaked before. Lots of people actually used the Ke$ha pics as an excuse to call her a nasty slag.

Anyways. This whole thing has been weird for me, because all of what I said may seem like an argument for it being ok for me to look at JLaws funbags, but they are also an argument for me giving up all the amatuer porn I like. I just don't know which way to go with this.

If it had just been one celebrity would it have been easier to ignore?

I still haven't looked at the pics yet....but I probably will. I think it's good that the conversation is happening though, and I hope it goes beyond a conversation lamenting the plight of these celebrities, who, while they have absolutely been violated, are a very small drop in a very large bucket of non-consensual amatuer porn.

Ed: maybe it's like the Freddy Mercury/Rock Hudson thing. Even if there are lots of victims, celebrities being victimized helps spread awareness. So maybe, in a weird way, there's a silver lining.
 
I think there is a real discussion to be had, and this ties a lot into the ongoing discussions we've been having regarding women, sexism, and privilege.

I won't rehash the whole thing, but this is really wrong any way you slice it. Even if it's not because of the pornographic nature, I think we can all agree that having ANY person pictures or info stolen from your computer is a violation. Imagine that this wasn't naked pictures of these celebrities, but rather their personal email addresses. I don't think anyone would have a problem calling that wrong, but there would still be people who would be tempted to go ahead and use those personal emails for whatever reason that you would want to, even if your intent isn't malicious, you're still exploiting a violation of someone's privacy and that's wrong, ethically and legally if not morally.

I'm not saying that doesn't mean that there will be people who use this and have no issue with it. People do stuff that's wrong all the time. I, for instance, "procure" quite a bit of television, and I don't feel the slightest bit bad about it, even though I know that it is wrong.

My biggest issue is that people are going to use all sorts of justifications. If you want to JO to pictures of Jennifer Lawrence, knock yourself out, just don't try to justify it under any cloak of vindication because there's really none to be had.
 

Necronic

Staff member
No, there's definitely no justification. And honestly, I looked at a couple and...meh. I mean, I don't see the draw from the viewer angle. Maybe if I was younger, I dunno. But porn is so god damned prolific and specific these days, what in the world do I get out of a still of a celebrity?

As a side question, and I REALLY want to be clear that i am not blaming the victim here, but I am really surprised so many of the have nude pics on their phones. Is this a common thing for people to do?

I took a picture of my ball sack and sent it to my brother once, but that's about it.

...Oh actually I do have a sex tape. If anyone has seen Bad Neighbours there's that scene where Seth Rogan is on top of his wife and his fat rolls are everywhere, that's what my video looks like. It's not great. I should probably delete it,
 
To quote Willam Belli from RuPaul's Drag race:

"Never look on a gay man's phone unless you want to see some dick, because there will always be some on there."
 
To quote Willam Belli from RuPaul's Drag race:

"Never look on a gay man's phone unless you want to see some dick, because there will always be some on there."
This is very true. An actual reaction I've had upon borrowing a friend's phone. "... WHY IS IT THE WALLPAPER?"
 

Dave

Staff member
The thing is, though, that these people didn't send it to anyone or even try and make the pictures remotely public. The Apple iCloud backup thing just kinda takes it upon itself to update and put the stuff in the cloud and you'd THINK that they'd have had a bit better security. This is about the same as going into someone's house and rifling through their stuff to see what you can find. It's theft and harassment, plain and simple. You can dress it up all you want but this is just awful. And the comments...Jesus Christ. Who gives a damn if the girl wants to take sexy pictures of herself for her boyfriend or husband? It's none of your damned business.
 
Hmm. Do you blame the locks for not being tough enough, or the thieves for not respecting the boundary? At what point does it become appropriate to violate the guardianship of any recognizeable* means of protection, simply because it is so flimsy? Is there such a thing as a lock or other method of protection which, instead of advertising "keep out," instead acts all sultry and says, "you want what's behind me, you need to tear me away right now and see what I'm hiding."

This might sound like a thought experiment (and it is, somewhat), but it has real-world relevance, especially as regards things like WiFi WEP encryption or the DMCA, since apparently, in order to prove to a court that you were intentionally trying to protect a thing, you have to demonstrate that bypassing your protection method must be non-trivial (i.e., ROT13 or the like). Also, there is then the question of whether the thing needed (or even deserved) to be protected in the first place (DRM, etc).

--Patrick
*As in, "It is obvious to anyone that this thing is here in order to restrict access to something."
 
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