TheFappening Leaked iCloud Photos of Nude Celebs: What You Need to Know
In September 2014, some of the biggest celebrity names were rocked as their nude photos leaked, seemingly from a mass web-hack on Apple’s iCloud system. This became known as “TheFappening” due to the internet slang term “fap” which means to masturbate. As a result, hundreds of private, intimate pictures of models, actresses and singers – including Jennifer Lawrence and Rihanna – were made public online with no warning or control from their owners.
This security breach affected numerous stars and within hours – before Apple Inc could take action – many websites posted the explicit images. But how did it start? Believed by investigators to be a massive computer hack operation that exposed over 600 privately stored nude images (uploaded over years), this attack raised interesting questions about data security and trusting cloud media storage services offered by technology giants. It is suspected that some celebrities accounts were compromised using brute-force attackers– meaning they guessed passwords until they correctly matched – while others selected weak passwords making them easy targets for hackers.
Once the information was released onto the Internet there was a massive impact both legally and on celebrity image management. Some people defended the offensive incidents claiming them to be signs of freedom in cyberspace whereas others took legal steps demanding damages for uploading private material without permission. A number of situations presented themselves; comments ranged from outright criticism against those posting unauthorised pics as well as personal attacks on those whose photos were downloaded illegally. The likes challenging these unethical posts also had their share of criticisms questioning their language used amongst other scenarios causing uproar worldwide in multiple countries with their own laws governing Internet related punishments for hackers concerned.
These questions highlighted very real issues around access rights, privacy policies, sharing media online and breaches of security accessing personal Technology devices such as iPads, iPhones etc., issue central amidst larger concerns about image manipulation in an increasingly competitive world driven by picture perfect digital lives. Whilst opinions regarding The Fappening vary somewhat equivocally plus age regressive ones upheld by accused partook society agreed that cyber crime is unfortunately still high on any country’s list of concerns whether its criminal responsibility or Internet throttling restrictions set out by Governments post incident assessment .
No woman should feel ashamed or objectified after having her pictures unlawfully shared with anyone but at the same time lessons learnt from The Fappening should prove an important reminder for everyone who uses cloud storage services like Apple’s iCloud: choose your passwords with caution! After all, it’s better safe than sorry!