No, we don't have nudes of @ggreenwald. Stop asking.
— NSA Public Relations (@NSA_PR) September 1, 2014
Raging debate on twitter about the celebrity leaks. Obviously a violation of privacy and horrifying for those involved, especially since many of the victims allegedly deleted the photos a while back but for some reason they were still on the cloud. I still don’t know why anyone would run around with nude selfies of themselves on the phone or stored to the cloud, but the fact that people did try to delete them should mute the musings of fatheads like me.
At the same time, some of the comparisons of the nude selfies being hacked to rape kinda ruffles my feathers. It’s not the same, so stop making the comparison. It’s a horrible invasion of privacy, and I would be mortified if nude pics of me were on the internet (which is why I don’t take nude selfies to begin with), but at least I would have the satisfaction that anyone viewing the selfies would be equally horrified with a dash of disgusted thrown in. So there is that.
My godson’s mother is in labor with Baby #2, so send some positive vibes.
Baud
I’m sure a younger me would have searched out those photos, but current me won’t. Horrible invasion of privacy.
Baud
@Baud:
Besides, at my age, I’m into more hard core stuff.
gogol's wife
I have no idea what you’re talking about. I think I’ll keep it that way.
sharl
Some twitter exchanges I’ve seen suggest it’s a generational thing, with Youngs not seeing any problem with putting selfies on USB sticks, while Olds like you and Olders like me are left asking, “wh-wh-why would you do that?”
NotMax
75 years ago today, WW2 began.
Just felt that should be noted.
SiubhanDuinne
In labor on Labor Day. That was well-planned.
Xantar
@sharl:
As a certified member of the Youngs, let me assure you it’s not a generational divide so much as an intelligence divide.
Violet
Hey, John Cole–I was in the car today and heard a promo for what was going to be on Fresh Air later. Among other things they were doing something on Little Feat. Found it for you:
Link to audio.
J.
An open letter to all celebrities:
I do not believe you when you say you are shocked or appalled that nude photos of you were “leaked” online, or claim you had nothing to do with it. And if you really thought that that nude selfie you or your boyfriend took of you would never come out, you are dumber than I thought.
jayboat
I saw a few of the pix in the comments section of Deadspin because a pro baseball player was in some of them with a model. Sad in a way, but difficult to have a lot of sympathy- I’ve always felt that anything and everything you post online (including in a cloud) could be hacked. If hackers can get into secure retail cc databases, how damn hard can it be to get access to a cloud?
I’m with Cole- if you don’t want your pix stolen, don’t put them online.
eta: Thanks for the Little Feet link, Violet!
Anne Laurie
Yeah, and being stopped and asked to prove you have a right to walk down a public sidewalk isn’t the same as being thrown in jail for “resisting a duly authorized officer of the law“… or being shot dead for such “resistance”.
IT’S POINTS ON A CONTINUUM, ALL OF WHICH SUPPORT THE SAME GOAL OF SUPPRESSING AN ENTIRE OPPRESSED GROUP.
Chroist Jaysus, Cole, you’re supposed to be smarter than this. And on Labor Day, of all days! From someone in West By God Virginia!
On the way out the door (can’t miss the movie showtime), but if someone else doesn’t beat me to it, now you’ve made it impossible for me to not to write about this issue here. Thanks a whole effing bunch, Mr. White College-Educated MAN.
Turk
I think as a society, we need to accept that nude selfies are just something that people DO. Like cybering was 10 years ago, or phone sex before that, it’s another sexual activity that lets you share yourself with someone far away.
Stealing and leaking these images really is a serious invasion of their privacy. To say it’s equivalent to rape… well, that undersells the physical terror of rape. But I can see the comparison, insofar as these people have been robbed of their sexual agency. JLaw and Kate Upton and anybody else has just as much of a right to take sexy pictures of themselves as anybody else does — and as Jesse Taylor said on Twitter, “If I was a multimillionaire who spent hours a day getting into perfect shape, my phone would be 99% nude selfies.” I would absolutely be on board with this being designated as a sex offense.
Anne Laurie
One quick link:
The Celebrity Nude Photo Leak Is Just Another Form of Online Harassment of Women
NotMax
If miracle is now synonymous with idiot, then yes. Otherwise, not by a country mile.
In other news, things look as if they’re rushing to a head in the current ongoing political protests in Pakistan. The army has avoided openly tipping one way or the other – thus far.
JPL
@Anne Laurie: Why store nude selfies to begin with. Granted I’m old, but the invasion of privacy occurred because of a selfie.
JPL
Congrats to your friend.
Comrade Javamanphil
Not okay with victim blaming no matter the severity of the offense.
Roger Moore
@sharl:
I assume it’s for the same reason a lot of people pose in front of the mirror: it makes them feel sexy and desirable. And sending them as a sext is a hell of a come on. It only looks like a terrible idea when they leak to the general public.
rea
@jayboat: if you don’t want your pix stolen, don’t put them online
I’m no great expert on how this works, but accounts say they were taken with cell phone cameras, and in some instances had already been deleted, before they were somehow hacked. I can’t blame the victims for this–too much like, “if you don’t want to get raped, don’t go to bars.”
Baud
@JPL:
Apparently, iPhone automatically stores your photos to iCloud unless you turn it off. iCloud was hacked, so the pics were stolen.
rea
@Anne Laurie: The Celebrity Nude Photo Leak Is Just Another Form of Online Harassment of Women
Well, except for Justin Verlander.
EriktheRed
It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway:
Babies are wonderful people.
sharl
@Roger Moore: Yeah, this makes sense. I’m suspicious by nature, especially by “guarantees” that my stuff – information, data, pics – will be safe on the internet. And “The Cloud” is always something I regarded with particular suspicion, although that’s in no small measure due to my ignorance of the details* on how that stuff works (*by details I’m thinking security protocols in particular).
This is why I don’t have as much fun as so many others do – too risk-averse. :-(
John Cole +0
@Anne Laurie:
Right. And being stopped to show id for no reason is wrong, and BEING SHOT IS DEMONSTRABLY WORSE. They aren’t the same thing.
Both are bad, but one is much worse.
And don’t even start with this bullshit:
Feel free to write about the topic all you want, but if you start in with the mansplaining identity politics bullshit with me when all I did was point out the obvious (being raped is worse than having nude pics of you posted, and both are wrong and illegal and horrifying for the victim), you’re the one who is being an ass.
Roger Moore
@JPL:
They may take them to look at and not grok that their phone is automatically uploading them to the cloud without asking. Apparently some of the women whose pictures were stolen had tried to delete them from the cloud, but the pictures were still being stored there anyway.
In any case, I think this is a good example of where the rape comparisons are at least somewhat valid. Just as rape is 100% the fault of the rapist, so giving safety tips on how to avoid rape is not a productive response, hacking photos online is 100% the fault of the hacker, so complaining about how you shouldn’t store your nude selfies on iCloud is not productive. Hacking and distributing the pictures is wrong, and discussions about how foolish it is that they existed in the first place is beside the point.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@Anne Laurie:
Yes. Exactly.
It’s a deliberate violation and humiliation of the victim. No, it’s not identical to rape, but the similarities are not accdental: the use of sex as a weapon against women, followed by victim-blaming. The responses remind me an awful lot of the “what was she doing there in the first place?” that follows every rape report.
NotMax
Fact-checking, a quaint concept. Fifty lashes with a wet noodle to the headline writer.
From last February:
DougJ
If you outlaw nude selfies, only outlaws will take nude selfies.
I agree with whoever said this is another form of online harassment of women.
John Cole +0
@JPL:
Some of the victims have stated they had deleted the photos, so the question should be posed to Apple- why are these pics that people have deleted still on your cloud server?
John Cole +0
@DougJ: I don’t think anyone disagrees. Well, I don’t think anyone disagrees here.
Michael G
It’s still abusive and pretty shitty.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/09/leaked-photos-nude-celebrities-abuse/379434/
ruemara
ARGH! Stop thinking they meant to store them in the cloud. Think instead that auto backups mean that things go to their cloud server unless someone delves into the bowels of the phone or laptop and TURNS THAT SHIT OFF. It’s like knowing that digital cameras add location tags to the metafilter, not many understand that. And is it rape? Not exactly? Is it like the dehumanizing, abusive substance that drives rape? Yes. For some, the mere fact that people are embarrassed, shamed and have had their privacy violated is a large part of the appeal.
Roger Moore
@John Cole +0:
There are some other questions to ask Apple. The best guess right now is that the hack involved brute force guessing victims’ passwords. This normally doesn’t work because people realized decades ago that you shouldn’t give somebody infinite chances to get it right. You should either lock the account after a number of wrong tries or at least impose some kind of substantial delay. What genius decided to ignore that received wisdom and let people try thousands or millions of times without any alarm going off?
AlchemistAmoeba
@Anne Laurie: I’m with you all the way Anne. I don’t understand why when it comes to these “scandals” involving female sexuality it immediately becomes ok to start moralizing, even by some of the commentators here. These pictures were stolen, plain and simple. If your first thought about this story is, “Well don’t take the pictures,” you have some serious reflection to do. You don’t admonish the person who has been violated this way, just like you wouldn’t do so to a woman who was raped after a night of drinking. The comparison between the two is apt because they are both forms of sexual assault. The person at fault is the person WHO ACTUALLY COMMITTED THE CRIME.
I hope the person responsible gets it AT LEAST as bad as that guy who leaked the Scarlett Johansson photos because this is some seriously creepy, messed-up shit.
trollhattan
@NotMax:
Presumably, because it’s Fox Las Vegas, their sole point is poking fun at California for such a ridiculous hippie thing. Since Hawaii is a furrin’ country–double-furrin’ when the president is there–there’s no need to pay attention.
Also, too, I’d wait until Jerry signs before spiking that particular touchdown ball.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@Roger Moore: Yes.
A few months ago, there was a lot in the news about “revenge porn” sites being used for harassment and extortion. (Ironically, they started being taken seriously by law enforcement after it happened to Scarlet Johanssen.) And there was endless tsk-tsking in commentaries (including here) about how the victims should have known better, even though most of the pictures were acquired by hacking or phone theft. For that matter, some were taken up skirts without the woman’s knowledge, or even photoshopped. And yet, somehow, it’s always the victim who gets blamed for not doing enough to prevent it, even though someone else made the conscious choice to obtain the pictures against her will.
Violet
@John Cole +0:
Yeah no kidding. If it had already auto-uploaded the photo to the iCloud server when you took it, then it sure as hell ought to automatically delete it from the server when you delete it from your phone.
Also they should make uploading photos to the iCloud server something you have to turn ON, not a feature you have to turn OFF. People don’t know about it, forget about it, don’t understand it, etc. Most people probably have no idea it’s even there or if they do, don’t know how it works.
JPL
My son’s significant other is going to give me her old phone to use. Since I refuse to sign a contract, I’m using a Sony Ericsson. Who ever hacked into the cloud is at fault, as well as Apple who automatically stores pictures, without a way to delete them.
NotMax
@trollhattan
Yup. About all that facts and FOX have in common is the letter f.
trollhattan
@rea:
You just call-ded Justin Verlander a woman! He’ll be displeased. Probably.
Will put forth the quaint last-decade notion that cloud storage is not yet ready for how folks are using it–not ironclad reliable, not ironclad secure. And slow. I don’t know how easy it is to prevent auto-uploading of files, but that’s a gateway I want complete control over.
JPL
So do android phones work the same way?
John Cole +0
I’ve re-read my post three times now and I honestly don’t see what I have said that could anger someone. I’m not blaming the victims. I blamed the hackers and the Apple cloud. What have I said that was offensive?
Baud
@JPL:
I have an android phone and haven’t heard of this or seen it on my phone. For what that’s worth.
trollhattan
@JPL:
Mine prompts me with pleas from Google to pretty-please let them upload those photos it “just found” now. Do not have good enough Android-fu to know whether there’s a toggle somewhere that might eliminate the prompt and give blanket approval or denial. That would be nice.
FlyingToaster
@Violet: This.
I went and shut down most every automatic thing on my iPhone back when I got it; Siri, iCloud, iTunes Store, in-app Purchases (well, you can buy them, but you have to ask the password for each one, each time), Location Services, Cellular data for most apps, etc.
It took me a couple hours to get that thing to where I felt it would be safe to use. And then shut down the iCloud account and made sure it stays empty.
trollhattan
@John Cole +0:
Forget it, Jake…etc.
Baud
@John Cole +0:
This part
Roger Moore
@JPL:
IIRC, the default is not to upload your photos, though you are asked when you start using a device if you want your photos automatically synced. I don’t know if the delete is a true, 100% delete, or if Google keeps a copy somewhere so they can restore it for you if you change your mind.
Baud
@FlyingToaster:
I did all that, then smashed the phone with a hammer and threw the pieces into the river, just to be sure.
NotMax
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
Shudder merely remembering it existed, but there used to be a sick, twisted site giving free access to nude photos to military members if they uploaded pictures of dead, dying, mutilated or severely wounded Iraqis or Afghans.
Vehemently railed against them on my little blog as well as making every veteran I knew aware of it until there was enough of a righteous backlash resulting in the site being taken down.
John Cole +0
@FlyingToaster: I turned off a lot of stuff just to extend the battery life. There was a website that showed me a bunch of shit that was running in the background that I didn’t even know about.
Comrade Javamanphil
@John Cole +0: Not angry or offended but I’ve read far too many “be smarter celebs” tweets for my liking.
Comrade Dread
@John Cole +0: I’m guessing its this:
I agree with you, but there are folks who see this as part of an overarching pattern of coordinated oppression against women who probably viewed this as you being dismissive of their point of view.
Keith G
Storing nude pics of self or one’s intimates in anything but a locked box behind a locked door is just asking for a problem. If ones is a celebrity…well Jaysus… grow a frontal lobe.
Victims? More like coops whose chickens have come home.
Howard Beale IV
@John Cole +0: First mistake is believing that when you delete a file its really deleted.
Second mistake is trusting Apple to do security right.
Third mistake is not implementing two-factor authentication when using any third-party clod service.
NotMax
Having paged through Adolf and Eva’s personal photo albums (they’re in the U.S. National Archives), can state with authority there are no nude selfies within.
Thankfully.
Tommy
I took a selfie for the first time yesterday. After watching the show Selfie. I am pretty proud of my body. No chance I’d take a nude pic of myself and email it. Zero chance.
Violet
@Howard Beale IV:
Excellent typo.
James E. Powell
I get the impression (and correct if I’m wrong) that the people discussing this right here right now do not know how the whole cloud thing – the storage – the deleting – the hacking – works. Somebody obviously does. Can any of our tech commenters help explain?
A tech friend of mine once assured me that nothing is every really deleted, but that doesn’t explain how anyone could find a particular thing. Let’s say, for example, that instead of famous people naked I wanted to find all the texts & e-mails sent by the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign manager. Could I do that? Just for example.
And I don’t recall who, but I seem to remember this happening to somebody else a couple years ago. I’m kind of surprised that measures were not taken to prevent something like this happening again.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Keith G: Did they consent to have their images distributed to the world? No? Then they are victims. End of story.
Baud
@James E. Powell:
You do realize you’re on a blog, right?
Violet
@John Cole +0:
Comrade Dread is probably right that it’s this:
It’s not the same but it’s on a continuum of abuse, violence and attempted control of women. Your feathers being ruffled is perhaps a good thing. Gives you a chance to figure out why your feathers are ruffled. That’s always educational.
Askew
@J.: considering that one of women who had photos leaked was McKayla Maroney, an Olympic gymnast who isn’t really a celeb, I don’t think that is fair. Even more disgusting she was likely underage when the pics were taken it is even more disgusting.
Comrade Dread
@James E. Powell: I was reading that they suspect this was a case of brute force password guessing, which means some guy probably wrote or adapted a script or used a tool that automatically tries to log in to a site using various combinations of usernames/passwords. Most passwords aren’t that difficult to crack, so it would be just a matter of finding the right user name, which in the case of celebrities would probably be as simple as their firstname.lastname@gmail/hotmail/yahoo.com
Once you find a match, you have access to whatever files and data they have stored in their cloud account.
If this was the case, Apple really dropped the ball on this one. But they might have figured that because there wasn’t any financial data stored in a user’s account that they didn’t need to take such a threat as seriously.
Roger Moore
@James E. Powell:
The hackers haven’t shared how they got the data, and Apple isn’t talking. That said, there was a recent presentation showing that Apple had an extremely basic flaw in their security system: they let people try to enter their passwords as many times as they like without ever locking the account or setting off any alarms. That means somebody who knew your account name could set their computer up to try brute force guessing your password, e.g. by trying every word in the dictionary. So if they could get your account name and you had a guessable password, they could get full access to your account. Apple has supposedly fixed this problem by the standard approach of not giving people unlimited guesses.
rikyrah
some people put too much on their phones, nothing is private
James E. Powell
@Comrade Dread:
Once you find a match, you have access to whatever files and data they have stored in their cloud account.
What about files & data that were deleted? How does one find such things? I want to know in case Romney runs again (joking – leave me alone).
John Cole +0
@Askew: Her instagram has 750k followers. I think she qualifies as a celeb.
James E. Powell
@Baud:
Yes, I know I’m commenting on a blog. That doesn’t mean I know how it works.
Howard Beale IV
@Violet:
I was wondering how long it would take someone to recognize that. That’s one of the reasons why I run my own Home Server-the only time I expose its internet address is when I travel, and I encrypt all of my data where I have to manually enter the keys when the server reboots to apply fixes. Annoying as hell yes-but if anyone snatches the box away and didn’t install a keylogger, they get nothing.
@James E. Powell: Few, if any, computer Operating Systems were designed from the ground up with data security as a baseline requirement. To simplify things, when you delete a file you are just forgetting the physical location on disc where the file was stored. Unless that space gets wiped clean with a secure wiping algorithm at the time of the file deletion, the data is still there. And with some file systems, figuring out where that data is is a trivial exercise. Not only do you forget that the file exists, but the master catalog/index needs to forget that as well-and few file systems do a good enough job of cleaning up those entries as well. What many hacking utilities do is write their own raw data access routines, bypassing the native file systems and creating their own file system access routines, which recognize deleted files and recover the so-calle deleted data that way.
Baud
@James E. Powell:
Well, then you should know that people comment about stuff they know nothing about. ;-)
James E. Powell
@Baud:
Ah – now I getcha
duck-billed placelot
And yet it didn’t, even in your own post.
“I’m not saying it was their fault, obviously, I just don’t understand WHY they were in that neighborhood/short skirt in the first place.”
Also, I have to say that mostly what I’ve seen comparisons to are specifically ‘sexual assault’, which is itself a continuum that covers a wide variety of offences, from a stranger grabbing a butt on the subway on up to forcible rape.
the Conster
@rikyrah:
Yeah, this. I don’t know why people don’t consider that not taking pictures of themselves or loved ones they would never want shared as the Prime Directive of this age. It makes all the other bullshit and politics of privacy irrelevant, or at least theoretical.
FlyingToaster
@Baud: That would prevent me from taking pictures of WarriorGirl emulating a sandworm. So I can’t smash it with a brick. Yet.
I’m pretty sure they’d fine me if they found me throwing phone pieces in the Charles River. Nobody “loves that dirty water” that much.
The Pale Scot
For the same reason your emails remain on a server after you’ve deleted them. IT isn’t going to let millions of people have delete/erase privileges on their system.
rea
@trollhattan: You just call-ded Justin Verlander a woman! He’ll be displeased
Uh, no. “Except Justin Verlander”
Howard Beale IV
@rikyrah: That’s why you put a password/encrypt your phone.
As someone whose been in IT for way too many years, understand that your typical smartphone provides you with a way of securing your private data. If you fail to take advantage of it, whose problem is that?
@Roger Moore:
One of the reasons why Apple is such a joke when it comes to security-there IS none.
RichterScale
I don’t have much sympathy for these celebs. Everyone has been warned from day one that these cloud services are about as secure as a paper bag. But people insist on putting their most sensitive and personal info out into the ether for any enterprising asshole to steal. Actions have consequences.
These hackers have actually done the world a favor. In 24 hours they have focused the worlds attention to how dangerous these cloud services are. Maybe people will start thinking twice before storing nude selfies anywhere outside their own personal computers. Massive hard drives are dirt cheap ffs.
Keith G
@Comrade Javamanphil: Oooooh my heart bleeds. I feel for their embarrassment, but that needs to be the sum total of the victimhood calculation for these wonderfully privilegevd people who use their bodies as much as their intellect to put money in the bank. Often is the time when people do stupid and ill-advised things that they hope will remain private. Often, if they are important people (to someone), those incidents become public.
Elizabelle
Don’t be nude. Murphy’s could have a problem with that. Shirt and shoes, at a minimum.
John or another Front Pager: could you put up a thread re DC meetup so we get a sense of how many might attend? Thanks!
John Cole +0
@duck-billed placelot: I don’t understand why people keep them on their phone. This has happened so many times- hell, it just happened to Scarlett Johannsen a year or two ago. I also wouldn’t keep passwords, salacious text message conversations, sensitive information, etc. on a phone. They are inherently insecure.
That’s not blaming the victim or slut-shaming or anything. I simply don’t know why anyone would keep ANYTHING they want kept private on a cell phone. I download every photo off my iPhone every night and store it them in iPhoto, and the only pictures I have are of my dogs and cat. Right now, I think the only pics on my phone are some geese I saw today while driving through the country. I delete my text messages and voice mails every night.
Maybe I am just paranoid and an extreme outlier, which is super weird since I self disclose online more than 99% of the damned public and have NO filter about what I should or should not say online (at least according to my parents).
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@Violet: Not sure if my own response to Cole got stuck in moderation limbo for use of a nasty word (possibly “Richard Dawkins”) or just didn’t post, but you said it better and more succinctly.
FlyingToaster
@John Cole +0: Yeah, when I’m out of town and have to turn on Location Services, I can just about watch the battery draining. But it’s my navigation system for the rental, so the car usb adapter gets plugged in at the same time.
For those who are mystified, any app that spends all its time searching for wifi hotspots or talking to cell towers when you’re not actively using it is a battery drain. Turning off Location Services in town and limiting Cellular Data to apps you’ll actually use while out of range of a hotspot will save you a lot of power.
Back to WarriorGirl and her violin practice (sigh).
Patrick
But didn’t this episode show that just because it is deleted, it really isn’t? Or am I missing something?
Howard Beale IV
@RichterScale:
Why do you think the Impossible Project has succeeded as much as it has?
After all, Gentlemen Take Polaroids.
eldorado
perhaps our omniscient dude-bro tech gods could be bother with providing adequate security for all these new game-changing inventions they have going on.
Howard Beale IV
@FlyingToaster: Apple or Android?
Nokia’s HERE software’s coming to Samsung phones in the next few months-with its dog-simple offline map support it wont be the clusterfsck that’s Google Maps….
Howard Beale IV
@eldorado: As far as authentication, they have-problem is, it’s “inconvenient”.
eldorado
also, there is a lot of, hey this is my best practice in this thread, which is fine and all. but we can’t expect great swaths of the population to understand arcane details about protecting their privacy using technology. especially when even with great effort, it isn’t clear it is possible at all. people have things they share with their inner circle that shouldn’t be published outside of it. and if your (apple/google) multi-billion dollar corp can’t help but expose these things, then maybe there should be a little punishment.
rea
@John Cole +0: I simply don’t know why anyone would keep ANYTHING they want kept private on a cell phone. I download every photo off my iPhone every night and store it them in iPhoto, and the only pictures I have are of my dogs and cat.
Do you have the backup to the cloud disabled? Do you even know to do that? (Because I didn’t).
Of course, the nude pictures of your dog and cat that someone hacked off the cloud are on the internet–somewhere–but no one is motivated to look for them.
Howard Beale IV
@Patrick: That depends on whether the phone or the carrier – or both – is the one holding the message. For example, T-Mobile has their ‘Visual Voicemail’ – the app downloads the VM and stores it on the phone. That’s one of the reasons why it’s imperative that if you have such an app to decide whether or not you want to risk having the data in more than one place.
And ACT.
Howard Beale IV
@eldorado:
Yer funny.
Read any good Terms of Service lately?
Scamp Dog
I hope the new godson proves to be as photogenic as his predecessor. Who we haven’t seen pictures of for some time, come to think of it.
Comrade Luke
@John Cole +0:
You’re not paranoid, but you ARE an extreme outlier, in that you actually follow through on keeping your phone clean on a daily basis.
Most people either don’t know how, or don’t take the time to do it. None of that justifies their stuff being stolen. I’m not implying you’re saying that btw; I know you’re not.
I don’t see how this is any different from nude photos being stolen from a photo lab, or a physical mailbox, before phones were able to take photos. It’s a crime, and should be treated as such, without slut shaming.
Again, I know you’re not doing that. I’m just making a general statement.
duck-billed placelot
@John Cole +0:You are an extreme outlier. You delete your texts every night? Wait – are you spending all your days embroiled in salacious sexting convos, thus necessitating erasure every evening?
Look, if these people (women) were walking around with a big folder labeled ‘photos’ sticking out of the top of their purses – if someone stole that folder and then photocopied the (naked) pictures and hung them up all over the neighborhood and at their parents’ churches and mailed copies to all their bosses….there would be a v. significant portion of response that included ‘why did you have them with you,’ ‘why were they labeled photos’, ‘why did you take that kind of picture at all’, ‘clearly if you don’t understand basic folder security you deserve to have your private, intimate moments displayed on a billboard for anyone that wants them’.
Why did you take that kind of picture at all. Why did you tell other gamers you were a woman at all. Why did you go on reddit at all. Why did you have more than two drinks. Why don’t you just delete all the graphic gifs of violence and rape. Why did you start that website if you didn’t expect to get graphic rape and death threats. Why did you leave your house at night at all.
I use the period advisedly; these are never questions. Women are nearly always asked/expected to curtail how we live in order to avoid harassment, violence, and death. If someone stole your diary because you were not perfect in your diary security measures, you still wouldn’t ‘deserve’ to have your private thoughts used against you. Telling women they should just never participate in modern sexual culture in order to maintain privacy is contributing to that (ancient, horrible) chorus of voices that expects women to be and ask for less or face the consequences.
askew
@John Cole +0:
She’s an 18-year old kid who is famous for making a funny face after losing the Gold medal at the Olympics. She’s a D-list celeb at best and shouldn’t have to worry about her privacy in the same way as Jennifer Lawrence does.
Cermet
Hope the labor is short and the mother and baby are doing great = good timing for labor …
askew
Since this is an open thread, I am having one hell of a computer issue. My hard drive is failing. I can’t make an image or clone of it and I am trying to decide what to do at this point. Should I replace the hard drive and purchase Windows 8 to install on PC? My laptop is only 3 years old so it seems silly to just junk it and buy a new one. But, I just can’t figure out if this is a waste of money to keep trying to fix this computer. I already stupidly spent $100 to get HP to tell me that I have a hardware issue and not a software issue.
Suzanne
@John Cole +0: You don’t know what about what you said could be construed as offensive? Hint: the fact that the comments stating some variation on “I would NEVER store any pictures of myself naked on my phone” outnumber those suggesting “God, the world is fucked up when people want to look at nude photos taken of someone/distributed without their consent” by approximately 5 to 1.
Everyone realizes that this isn’t the same exact thing as rape. But the idea that this sort of behavior comes from the same shitty disregard for women is not exactly controversial.
Howard Beale IV
@askew: Get SpinRite and let it crank against it for days.
Or replace the hard drive and install whatever OS you need.
John Cole +0
@Suzanne:
Are you on twitter? Because I would disagree on that assertion.
I never said otherwise.
Having said that, putting aside the noxious assholes on reddit, I’d bet most of the young men downloading the pics aren’t thinking about it that way. My money would be it’s more a “ohh JLAW is so hot I’ve been dying to see her naked.” They’re not going to learn why they are wrong if people keep calling them rapists.
Finally, I’ve said this before. Rape is like rape, nothing else. I just hate it when people compare non-rape to rape. This is a pretty horrible invasion of privacy, so you don’t need to say it’s like rape.
John Cole +0
@rea: I don’t use cloud.
Howard Beale IV
@rea: You don’t think Verlander’s getting massive shit inside the Tiger’s dugout? Someone posted on Deadspin a Photoshopped picture of Verlander and Prince Fielder. As they used to say in the comic strip Arnold-AIEEEEEEE!
max
@Suzanne: But the idea that this sort of behavior comes from the same shitty disregard for women is not exactly controversial.
Seconded. (No, I haven’t seen the pics.) That said:
@rea: Of course, the nude pictures of your dog and cat that someone hacked off the cloud are on the internet–somewhere–but no one is motivated to look for them.
At some point someone is going to get a brain and market a smartphone that doesn’t have a camera for kids and paranoid people.
max
[‘Because they can hack your phone and use the camera.’]
askew
@Howard Beale IV:
Thanks for the advice. I am leaning towards the new hard drive and OS.
Comrade Luke
I think the attacks on Cole are a little much, especially since we’re 100 comments in, and he’s been active here in asking what anyone thinks he’s done wrong. Enough of the front pager shaming already.
Suzanne
@John Cole +0: One could also make the counter-argument that those young men are NOT going to learn why they’re wrong UNLESS what they do is compared to rape. They need to understand the severity of the offense.
Howard Beale IV
Here’s a PSA: Never take a nude selfie unless it’s from a Polaroid or a Fuji Instanx.
Howard Beale IV
@askew: It’s probably the cheapest way out as well.
Never forget-BACKUP.
Roger Moore
@Howard Beale IV:
Your comments about undelete are true if you have a physical device, but I doubt that’s how the hackers recovered it from cloud storage. My guess is that Apple is “helpfully” continuing to store your deleted items so you can recover them if you ever change your mind. IOW, it’s more like the trash/recycling bin on your computer desktop; when you put something in the trash, you aren’t even pretending to erase it, just putting it in a place where it’s ready to be deleted when you decide. They just haven’t provided an “I really mean delete this” button, or at least they haven’t told people where it is very effectively.
RedKitten
If a celeb had had private photos of her children hacked from her phone and spread all over Reddit, do you think everybody would be saying (in effect), “Dumb bitch should have known better than to take pictures with her phone! What kind of moron does that?” ?
No.
But because it’s nudes, everybody is only too happy to turn into a bunch of scolds.
John pointed me towards an article by Jessica Valenti which raises a good point. She said:
Why is it more thrilling to see a woman’s body when you KNOW she does not want you to do so? What the fuck does that say about our society?
Villago Delenda Est
You would THINK that the tale of Anthony Weiner, the Weener, would have been instructive, but NO.
NEVER upload anything to “the cloud” (that is, someone else’s computer, I hate marketdroids with a passion) that you want kept private. PERIOD. END OF DISCUSSION.
Ruckus
@askew:
Why should any celebrity, no matter what list they fall on, have their privacy violated? What makes them any less private than the rest of us are supposed to be?
I had for over a decade, a semi public job. Been interviewed on TV, been on live TV, was at times a spokesperson for my job. None of this happened regularly, but it did take place. Should that mean that I lose some level of privacy? Hell no.
Two things going on here. People’s privacy was violated. A company or companies did a crappy job of using cloud services, first downloading without people knowing, and then not deleting their data when that was desired.
Is the publishing of nude pictures the same as rape? Certainly not in degree but I can sure see the logic making the claim that it is the same concept. Why else would someone post these in the first place if it wasn’t to have power over the victims? There would certainly be many better ways if the reason was to expose the cloud as being non secure.
rea
@John Cole +0: I don’t use cloud. You are obviously more technically adept than me, because you run a blog, and my blogging claim to fame is having been given the keys to a major blog and been unable to figure out how to post anything. Nevertheless, saving your pictures on cloud is the default setting for an iphone. People whose pictures got hacked are saying they didn’t intentionally save them to cloud–they didn’t realize that they were being clouded. Are you sure you’re not using cloud?
schrodinger's cat
When I read the title of the post, for a moment I wondered how John managed to take a selfie while mopping?
rea
You don’t think Verlander’s getting massive shit inside the Tiger’s dugout? Possibly. But, “I’m getting naked with Kate Upton, and you’re not” is probably a sufficient answer.
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
The problem is the potential flipside: that they’ll see rape as less serious because it’s being compared to looking at photos of nude celebrities online. It’s fine and instructive to compare some aspects of this to rape, like the way people immediately jump to blaming the victim for being too easy to victimize, but that needs to be done with a realistic view of their relative severity for fear of trivializing the more serious offense.
Comrade Luke
@rea:
I also wonder if this has anything to do with his recent struggles. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had his phone stolen, and has been either working with authorities to try and find the culprit, stressing over having the photos released, or both.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@Suzanne: And men who do violating things to women – whether it’s this, or physically groping her, whatever – are always happy to tell you how they weren’t doing anything sexist/misogynist/harassing. Just like racists are always happy to explain why what they did wasn’t racist. For that matter, even rapists will tell you that what they did wasn’t really rape (researchers quickly learned that they get different answers if they ask about specific acts while avoiding the term “rape”), which is why some colleges now use bizarre terms like “non-consensual sex.”
The fact that publicizing the pictures was non-consensual is the point that needs to be made to the guys who think there’s nothing wrong with downloading the pictures. Not identical to rape, but the disregard for consent has an obvious similarity.
Comrade Luke
@RedKitten:
Totally agree. The timing of this release, after the week-plus discussion of slut shaming in the video game industry, seems a little coincidental, don’t you think?
askew
@Howard Beale IV:
Yeah, that is a lesson learned too late unfortunately.
Dumb ? – if I replace my hard drive, do I really need to get a conductive foam pad to work on or is a anti-static wrist strap enough?
Howard Beale IV
@Roger Moore: Which goes to a core argument: “Convenience has a cost.”
Are you willing to accept that cost?
In many ways cloud storage is no different than PC/Mac storage where ‘undelete’ functionality is implemented. The OS’s used to implement cloud storage aren’t that radically different than your plain Jane server. Thankfully, IBM mainframes never went down that undelete road.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Keith G: Please provide a list of privileged occupations that use their bodies so I know who has to give consent for their nude pictures to be leaked and who does not. Thanks.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
As many others have tried to point out, if these were photos that Jennifer Lawrence had taken for Playboy that were meant for public consumption, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But it IS a big deal that someone stole the photos from her.
If in your mind it’s not similar to sexual assault, then what is it similar enough to that would make young men understand that downloading these pictures is a shitty thing to do?
askew
@Ruckus:
I don’t think anyone should have their privacy violated, but there seems to be an expectation that celebs should expect to have their privacy invaded and I was arguing that a teenage gymnast really shouldn’t be expected to know that because she competed in the Olympics she has no expectations of privacy. Compared to someone like Jennifer Lawrence who is likely followed by paps all the time, I doubt Maroney has any real experience with invasions of privacy and how to handle it.
Howard Beale IV
@askew: Anti-static wrist-strap at this point in weather is OK. Odds are you won’t even need that, but better safe than sorry. About 20/30 years ago when NMOS/CMOS was ramping up it made a difference, but with all of the buffering in place, you’d have to be in Maine/Minnesota in February with a 5% humidity before you’d cause damage.
Comrade Dread
@RedKitten: I think that article over thinks it. I’m sure there are some men who get off on the fact that they weren’t supposed to see those images.
But I think in many cases, it’s simply a matter of “She’s hot and I want to see her boobs.” I’d hazard that many men don’t think at all about the person behind the naked pictures they see. They don’t really think past the image they see on their computer.
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
So posting nude photos of, say, female physicists or lawyers would be horrible and abhorrent, but posting nude photos of female celebrities is okay?
cokane
ppl going to jump on me for victim blaming and what not, but that aint my goal.
this episode is a lesson in that online storage is never going to be fully secure. people should just know this, in addition even devices connectable through a network are also not going to be secure. especially if someone is famous, that’s really the rub. if you’re a target for this stuff, then yeah, you should know it’s never going to be 100 percent secure because there’s always going to be a market for this stuff. I understand that some people don’t grasp this, and it’s going to be hard for folks whose main experience with technology is their smart phone.
George W Bush also had private photos hacked. So this isn’t necessarily a sexism issue, imho. It’s a fame issue. If there’s a market for details from your private life, someone’s out there trying to get it.
duck-billed placelot
@Comrade Dread: “I’d hazard that many men don’t think at all about the person behind the woman.”
FTFY. Second class status is hawt, let me tell you.
Comrade Dread
@Mnemosyne: Reminding them that there is a person behind the images with thoughts, emotions, and feelings, who is probably feeling pretty shitty would be a start.
If they have daughters of their own, remind them of how they’d feel if this were her. Would they upbraid her about taking naked images for her husband or boyfriend or would they put their arm around her, offer her support, and help her in any way they could.
tybee
@Howard Beale IV:
bingo.
the naivete of those who trust “computer security” is highly amusing.
askew
@Howard Beale IV:
Thanks. I am actually in Minnesota but it is not February, I won’t worry about it.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Dread:
I think that’s why women are trying to point out that it’s an issue of consent — I’m guessing that you’re right that most guys don’t stop and think about why and how the photos got released, they just think, Oooh, Jennifer Lawrence’s boobs!
I mean, yes, I’d be curious to find out if the legends about David Duchovny’s equipment are true, but I would be more than a little squicked out if someone illegally stole photos from Duchovny’s iCloud just so I could find out.
ETA: Also, too, I think there’s often an automatic assumption that the celebrity involved must have consented to have the photos released, or they wouldn’t have been released. There seems to be a weird naiveness about how easy it is to post illegal photos (or maybe it’s denial, I’m not sure).
Comrade Dread
@duck-billed placelot: Come on. Don’t distort what I’m saying. When guys look at porn, they’re not thinking, “I wonder how she feels about this. I wonder if this is what she wanted to do with her life. I wonder about her feelings, thoughts, and emotions.”
They’re thinking, “She’s hot.” All they have is an image. They don’t know the real person behind it.
So I don’t think it’s much of a stretch for many guys, who likewise only have a public image and persona for an actress, to view naked pictures of that actress as akin to pornography.
Talking to them about the difference being consent and that an actress should have the right to a private life and the right to control her public image and reminding them that there is a person behind those images would help more than calling it akin to rape and another act of oppression against women.
Comrade Dread
@Mnemosyne: And I agree with you. And I agree with John. I’m not sure why there is an argument. :)
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Dread:
I’m not disagreeing with you at all — more like amplifying what you said. :-)
Howard Beale IV
@max:
Back in the early days of Windows Mobile HTC used to sell the same phone both with and without a camera – mostly it was targeted for business/government users.
Since the smartphone market exploded those options disappeared. What’s even more twisted is that Samsung has an explicit ban on camera phones at many of their facilities-yet they’re the worst abusers of smartphones w/cameras everywhere.
Seems the cost of having a separate smartphone back shell without a camera hole just costs too damn much.
tybee
@John Cole +0:
ah, ANY computer system is inherently insecure. ANY.
you put something on a device connected to the internet and i assure you there is a non-zero chance of that something being found by someone else. the more your something is worth, the higher that probability gets.
the pale scot also nailed it.
Howard Beale IV
@tybee: It’s amazing how the Unix evangelists used to take cheap shots at Multics when it turned out that Multics was on the right path all along-and that Unix’s idea of ‘worse is better’ security model is the cause of a lot of today’s security breaches.
Hell, even IBM mainfames aren’t invunerbale-get the wrong sysprog to install the wrong SVC and it’s open season time (of course, making the mainframe Spec 1170 probably wasn’t a good idea either, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do….)
Mnemosyne
I’m going to say something about how this is being covered other places, so I want to say up front that PRESENT COMPANY IS EXCEPTED IN THE FOLLOWING COMMENT:
There seems to be a contingent out there at places like Reddit who were completely freaked out dudebros at the possibility of the NSA reading their emails, but someone stealing nude selfies from J-Law? Bring ’em on! And the hypocrisy doesn’t seem to occur to them.
Ruckus
@askew:
But that is exactly the point. Why should anyone, celebrity or miss nobody citizen or a sometimes public figure not have that privacy? Because we paid money to watch/listen to them? Because they make their living in a public manner? So what is the limit of publicity/privacy for a celebrity? My point is it should be absolutely no different for you, for me, for a movie star or a professional athlete. Either it’s wrong for everyone or it’s right for everyone. Public people are no better than me, nor are they worse than me, they deserve the same privacy protections. I’m not ready to give them up, nor should you be. And you sure shouldn’t be giving them up for someone else.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Comrade Dread: Cole says:At the same time, some of the comparisons of the nude selfies being hacked to rape kinda ruffles my feathers. It’s not the same, so stop making the comparison.
The bolded part of the quote sums up my objection. It’s part of a continuum, at which rape is an extreme and awful thing. Of course it’s not as horrible, but to just tell us to shut up and “stop making the comparison” because some of the comparisons of the nude selfies being hacked to rape kinda ruffles [Cole’s] feathers is fucking dismissive of a point of view. Which is held, often, by women.
And women are primarily the ones being subjected to the hacking, and street harassment and work harassment and online rape and death threats, often complete with doxxing. Not to mention the physical rape events,** which g*d forbid are committed by someone you know socially (as most of them are) because then clearly you’re just a slut or a liar or both. Clear injuries from an event that occurred in a dark alley at gun or knifepoint or you were totally not raped.
And never mind that so many men fail to understand that, from a woman, “no, thank you” is a complete sentence and a response that requires not further explanation. Rather they want to hector in hopes that they get a response they like better, and if they don’t, the woman is a stuck up bitch. Don’t forget that in business a man will be permitted – by the group – to talk over a superior who is female in a way that would never be countenanced is the superior were a man. And of course women are just being bitchy and difficult to call this to the attention of men, who never notice it. Because they’re not the ones getting talked over, etc. I could go on, but it would be nearly as tedious as forcing my naked selfies on you. (No of course there aren’t any; I’m sorta old. But you get the idea)
So excuse the fuck out of us if we get our hackles up when our viewpoint is treated dismissively, at the outset of a discussion. Many of us are tired of it, and we get cranky about it. Even some of the young women.
** The number of male rape victims is equally tragic, and not relevant to this particular point.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
The underlying problem is that we’re trying to teach empathy to people who lack it, and that’s a real uphill battle. If you want to reach them, you need to start with something that matters to them and that they will understand without having to stretch themselves. If, as I believe, they don’t really have a good grasp about rape, then making comparisons to it is a bad place to start. You probably ought to start with something that they actually care about, preferably something analogous to having pictures stolen, like having their personal information stolen and shared with everyone they care about and want to impress.
FWIW, I think that latter point is an important one to get across. Thinking about a whole bunch of strangers looking at compromising pictures of me is one thing. Imagining my parents, siblings, co-workers, lovers, and other people whose opinions I value knowing that those pictures are out there would be ever so much worse.
Howard Beale IV
@tybee: It isn’t so much ‘computer security’ or the lack of it but how one implements it.
Don’t forget that convenience usually wins over privacy/integrity. Now when that fails, whose problem is that?
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
I think you have a valid point. Men who don’t think rape is a serious crime and/or women are asking for it are most likely to think viewing stolen pictures of naked people is much less of one because why would they take the picture in the first place. Comparing one to the other won’t reach them as they most likely don’t see either as an issue. Relating stolen naked pictures to something they could understand is much more likely to make the point and could then be used to continue the discussion of the seriousness of rape. And I’m just as sure that for some men none of this will matter in the least.
Howard Beale IV
@Mnemosyne:
The real acid test will be if/when the folks who do get indicted for this hacking will be what processes/data are used in discovery that lead them to the perps. Will it be 100% FBI/state, or will it be one of these parallell-construction scenarios with the NSA ‘suggesting’ what needs to be done?
Regardless of the outcome, this incident serves as a teachable moment-the question will be, how many people and corporations will learn from this?
chopper
@AlchemistAmoeba:
I would hope that that isn’t the first thought of anyone here, including cole.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@John Cole +0: I don’t worship at the foot of the great turtleneck, so I don’t know the answer to this question. With an iphone, is uploading to the icloud the default that needs to be disabled, or does it need to be turned on? Because if upload to cloud is the default, lots of people will be unaware they are uploading.
Roger Moore
@Comrade Dread:
If they cared about that kind of thing, they’d probably look at a lot less porn.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
You really can’t teach empathy to people it doesn’t exist in, and I don’t think that empathy is the problem. I think the problem is entitlement — a lot of these young men think they deserve to see nude photos of celebrities, no matter how those photos are obtained. Which puts it right back onto that sexist continuum that starts with stealing photos of women and ends with rape.
Mnemosyne
@Howard Beale IV:
Why would that be the acid test? If these guys are A-OK with people stealing nude photos of celebrities, any process of discovery is going to piss them off, whether it’s FBI or private companies doing it. That’s why I called it hypocrisy — they don’t have a problem with other people having their private information stolen, they only get upset if they think their information could be stolen.
ETA: And, again, since I’m sure someone is going to overread what I just said, PRESENT COMPANY IS EXCEPTED. IF YOU’RE POSTING IN THIS THREAD, I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
That’s actually a much better way of making the point I was trying to make above. You need to find an example that will really hit them in the gut and, sadly, rape isn’t it. I think “you’re being just like the NSA you claim to hate” is a lot more likely to penetrate their skulls than rape analogies are.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
There is a difference in this being a continuum and how to reach someone with the idea that both ends are bad. They are two separate things. To most of us here it seems to me there is no debating the idea that it is a continuum. Now what do we do with this? For someone that either doesn’t see the continuum or doesn’t give a damn, comparing one to the other is pointless. But if you can get them to recognize with other methods that one end of the continuum is bad, I believe that you stand a better chance of getting them to see that both ends are bad. And that there is a continuum in the first place.
sharl
@tybee: Reminds me of Quinn Norton’s article on IT security with the cheerful title “Everything is Broken”. Last time checked in it had been translated into several other languages; it clearly made an impression. [FYI, not a short read.]
She basically says that, yep, IT security is a never-ending challenge that regularly presents unpleasant surprises – remember Heartbleed and its aftermath? (yeah, MSIE, I know…) – but it’s either live with it as best you can, or (outside of actual infosec types) find a job that doesn’t need networked computers. Good luck with that latter option, at least for a decent-paying job.
The grimly fascinating thing she alluded to is that it is possible that governments and private entities could be stockpiling software vulnerabilities, as one might store arms in a weapons locker (or torpedoes on racks, for the really bad stuff). Kinda creepy, but in hindsight I shouldn’t have been surprised at this possibility.
CaseyL
People have been using technology they don’t understand the inner workings of since… I dunno, locomotives, at least; maybe even further back.
People should be able to use their tech without having to worry about the inner workings, or some corporation’s file retention policies.
I don’t understand why a Delete command shouldn’t also remove the file from whatever Cloud it’s sitting on. I’m guessing coders could come up with a way to do this if the telecoms cared enough. Maybe this latest brouhaha will make them care enough.
(And I am continually reminded why I’m happy to still have my ancient-in-tech-years dumb phone. One of these days it will give up the ghost, though. That will be a very sad day.)
Don
@Roger Moore: I think “you’re being just like the NSA you claim to hate” is a lot more likely to penetrate their skulls than rape analogies are.
I’m under the “this is a horrible invasion of their privacy” banner here, but I don’t think this parallel works well. The NSA’s actions aren’t awful (just) because they are an invasion of privacy; they’re awful because they are the people who supposedly work for all of us and whose salaries we pay. When they – or the cops – behave badly it’s immediately worse than when private citizens do it because they are abusing the power we lent them.
Ruckus
@CaseyL:
Dumb phones still exist. I have an older crackberry but because it is a world service model I was able to change the simm card and my service provider. Now I pay for minutes, talk and text only, no internet, no gps, no maps, it’s a dumb phone even if it wasn’t intended to be. The worst part is that we are sold service here for smart phones. All in one not so low price. And if you purchase a new smart phone it is much harder to find service that doesn’t include all the extras you don’t want.
kc
@John Cole +0:
[snicker]
Ruckus
@Don:
How is that different than Apple(or other companies) abusing the cloud they provide that you didn’t want to use but didn’t know how or even that you had to make a decision not to use?
AxelFoley
@Keith G:
Might be the first time I ever agreed with Keith G. I can’t feel sorry for these celebs, or anyone, who takes nude selfies, knowing that nothing is truly secure. And it not like this is the first time some celebs’ accounts have been hacked.
@J.:
This.
Howard Beale IV
@sharl:
Back when Burroughs was still part of the computer scene they used to release patches for their OS’s- the ones that were infuriating were the security patches-they would always say: “This patch is related to system security, therefore we will not describe the bug/issue we are correcting.”
Lovely-you won’t describe what you’re fixing, so how do I know that your patch is actually fixing that issue?
Needless to say, Unisys is merely just a shadow of the former Burroughs and Sperry Univac foundation.
FlyingToaster
@Howard Beale IV: iPhone for the time being. GoogleMaps is such a vast improvement over Apple’s map.
For the places where I have to drive a rental (SW Floridah, KC, Chicagoland), GoogleMaps does just fine. It pissed my mom off because it said to avoid her route because of traffic.
A friend of mine used Ways(sp?) when we were driving back from Connecticut last month; it told us about the 6 (six??? WTF, CT?) wrecks on 91 and sent us over to 15 to avoid them. She used it two weeks ago in Iceland. So if I want a paying app, that’s the one I’ll use.
randy khan
@rea: Speaking as an iPhone owner, I’m pretty sure the assertion that iCloud is the default is incorrect.
While no company is perfect, Apple spends a lot more effort on security than most other companies. Touch ID is a genuine, significant improvement that’s made iPhones much more secure, in large part because people actually use it (most people did not use passcodes before Touch ID), and the Touch ID information is sequestered in an encrypted chip on the phone. Apple never has collected location data in a personally identifiable way. Also, Apple has a policy of pretty much asking you for permission to do anything, and imposes the same rule on app developers. For instance, I get asked every time an app wants to use location services or to access any data.
The real question in my mind is whether the hack was, as some have suggested, a brute force password attack or if the hacker got deeper into iCloud, which is much more worrisome.
catclub
@ruemara: I would have thought that anything that is being automatically saved to the cloud for me would be encrypted with my private key ( not RSA) but simply my key. Or that I could at least request encryption. Silly me. (But not so silly as to have anything like that stored by accident.)
James E. Powell
@Howard Beale IV:
Well, I asked to hear from some of the blog’s tech commenters. But I forgot that when you guys talk about this stuff, I have no idea what you are saying.
Anne Laurie
@John Cole +0:
Read your bit that I blockquoted.
I’m old. I spent my twenties & thirties explaining, too many damned times to too many damned idiots, that “real” rape was never the fault of the victim. Now it looks like I’m gonna spend my sixties explaining that “well, she should’ve known better than to take those pics in the first place, and besides it’s only embarrassing if they don’t take pride in their bodies, and besides they might’ve secretly released the pics just for publicity, and besides what do *you* care what some stuck-up celebrity bitch is whinging about anyways?” is not an excuse for theft & public abuse. Every godsdamned new medium/technology, it’s the same threadbare excuses. I’m tired!
It’s one thing to remind people that nothing on “the internet” is secure, and that no technology is hack-proof. It’s a different thing, and a step down the wrong path, to start just-asking “well, if she didn’t want every stranger with wifi to look at her private files… “
AxelFoley
@Villago Delenda Est:
Needs to be repeated.
James E. Powell
There is something in our culture that takes a peculiar and frankly evil delight in tearing down any young woman who becomes famous. Whenever any young woman finds success/fame/money, an “I hate her” industry pops up. For example. Why were so many people happy to see Lindsey Lohan crash & burn? You all had to notice the hysterical hatred for Miley Cyrus, right? What is that all about? I don’t see people doing this for young males. But maybe I’m missing it because I am not a huge entertainment news person.
Violet
@James E. Powell:
Oh, it’s there but probably not in the same way as with young women. Justin Bieber is someone people love to hate now. Shia LaBeoef is another one.
I don’t know if people were “happy” to see Lindsey Lohan crash and burn but it was quite an industry watching her mess up her life. For awhile it was hard not to hear about her if you caught even a minute or two of an entertainment “news” show or saw a tabloid cover in the supermarket.
There are people the actual “I hate her” category. Anne Hathaway is one. People just don’t like her for some reason.
Violet
@James E. Powell:
I think that was because Miley Cyrus did what she wanted and told people to suck it if they didn’t like it. People took that as “acting out” as she transitioned from her Hannah Montana image to an adult singer. But it seemed to me that the real anger was that she lived out loud rather than following some per-determined script that she didn’t agree to and acted like a modest young lady with an adequate singing career. Fuck that shit. She did what she wanted and if you didn’t like it you didn’t have to buy it. Rock on, Miley.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Violet:
No. It stays on the server because you can’t possibly keep everything on your phone, but might want it later.
This is all very unfortunate. I hope people fucking learn not to take stupid, embarrassing, or incriminating pictures with smart phones…but I’m not hopeful.
Howard Beale IV
@James E. Powell: Sometimes it is easy to explain some tech stuff; other times you have to really get into the weeds; and sometimes you have to go back a generation (or several) in technology in order to explain certain concepts.
The real problem is that 99.999% of the time the problem really isn’t technological-it’s a result of a business decision to either do (or not do) something.
randy khan
@AxelFoley: Mr. Weiner’s problem was not that he uploaded the photos to the cloud, but that he sent them to someone. That’s a whole different issue (and, of course, it’s reasonable to say it was his own fault).
kc
@AxelFoley:
Weiner SENT HIS PHOTOS TO THIRD PARTIES.
Assholes.
Howard Beale IV
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
Given that we have 128 GB microSD cards the lack of storage argument (unless you were foolish enough to buy a phone with no microSD card support) don’t hold water.
And I don’t buy Gartner’s analysis that the average clod storage use per household will be 400+ gig per household by 2016, either.
katie5
@John Cole +0: For me “at least I would have the satisfaction that anyone viewing the selfies would be equally horrified with a dash of disgusted thrown in” is the worst part of the post. It’s demeaning to the situation and tone-deaf to throw in a joke. Of course, your selfie and a young woman’s selfie are not going to be viewed/reacted to the same way. That’s the point.
Suzanne
@Violet: I think the fact that Miley Cyrus was pretty blatantly racist, especially in her performance on the VMAs, was pretty detestable. That’s why I can’t deal with her.
Violet
@Suzanne: The hatred of her had started well before her VMA performance though. What did she do that was racist before that? I’m not aware of those accusations prior to her VMA performance.
Suzanne
@Violet: I know she had made quite a few comments about how she wanted her album to “sound black” and how much she liked “hood music”, or something like that.
Violet
@Suzanne: I guess I missed all that. I see that as somewhat different from what I was talking about upthread. I saw lots of hand-wringing discussion by moms of former Hannah Montana fans talking about the “poor role model” she was and how they had to talk to their mostly-grown daughters about it. Those were white moms and daughters and the racism issues weren’t discussed.
YellowJournalism
@Mnemosyne: Your point about some men feeling they “deserve” to see these pics is valid. After one of the victims posted about how the experience violated her privacy and her intimate moments with her husband, she was slut-shamed, harassed further, and told that men had a right to see these pics because she probably wouldn’t give an average “nice guy” a chance to make them with her.
Yes, this crime isn’t rape but the language used by the people who excuse it or perpetrate it further is the same. For a lot of women, this is pathologically damaging in ways that are similar to rape, creating trust issues, making them uncomfortable with their bodies, and opening them up to serious sexual harassment and other threats. Not to mention, this shit doesn’t go away. It might not affect Jennifer Lawrence professionally but women who’ve had the same thing happen to them whether by a hacker or a vengeful ex find that it haunts their lives.
I would like to add that I don’t think Cole is being dismissive, either, and appreciate him listening. Digital privacy and other tech crimes need to be scrutinized and our lawmakers need to wake the fuck up.
am
@John Cole +0:
Nothing. Anyone comparing this to rape is full of shit and it is demeaning to rape victims.
It’s still a gross invasion of privacy and stealing. I hope whoever’s responsible gets jail time and a c-ck-punch.
Nobody should view, write, or store anything they cannot deal with becoming public knowledge on the internet, period.
am
@Howard Beale IV:
Based on that and your other posts, I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. You have a pretty badass strategy for securing your home server. I have heard of more paranoid ones, but not many. I mean that as a complement.
Matt McIrvin
When my daughter was about 4 or 5, she discovered my wife’s phone’s ability to take photos and started taking lots of self-portraits. It was during a period when she was not terribly scrupulous about wearing clothes, especially in the house. The pictures weren’t being auto-uploaded, but I had to explain to her that she had to cut it out because she was a disturbingly short chain of technical mishaps away from getting her parents thrown in prison.
chopper
@Anne Laurie:
outside of thei first bit, i’d be amazed if cole ever said any of those things, ever.
chopper
and even then, it isn’t ‘they shouldn’t have taken those pics in the first place’, it’s more ‘keeping them on your phone’.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@JPL: Based on what is coming over to my Motorola from my Gmail account – without me enabling it – I suspect Android may be much, much worse.
Tractarian
“Horrified” and “disgusted” are not really the words I would use to describe my reaction to seeing Jennifer Lawrence nude.
Matt McIrvin
In the days of film, the equivalent was the negative getting leaked (or, in potentially criminal cases, reported to the authorities) by the people who developed it at the shop.
I remember thinking that digital photos (like, I suppose, Polaroids before them) were actually a step forward for privacy because they eliminated most people’s need to have their photos developed by a third party. But, of course, they are also much easier to casually copy and distribute, possibly without realizing it.
RedKitten
@YellowJournalism:
And that’s why the comparison to rape is being made. Because that IS the kind of entitled attitude that leads to rape. “That bitch OWES me, because of x, y, or z.” And the fact that there are so many men out there who feel that women owe them their time, their smiles, or their bodies, is extremely alarming to every single woman out there. Because if we deny what they feel they’re owed, many of them will feel totally justified in taking it by force.
mzrad
“(which is why I don’t take nude selfies to begin with)” —John Cole
!!!