Editor’s note: In the wake of the scandal surrounding the hacking of nude celebrity photos, the CDEP will feature a series of essays analyzing the actions of the various actors involved. Last week, Noah Berlatsky considered the ethical responsibility of those who search for and view the hacked photographs. This week Nikki Williams argues that leak victims misjudged the expectation of privacy that exists in the cloud.
Bastiaan Vanacker
The recent bounty of naked pictures hacked from the accounts of high profile public figures has celebrities and the general public outraged. In a scandal tagged as one of the largest ever of it’s kind, the latest celebrity hacking fiasco has seen the likes of Kate Upton, Jennifer Lawrence, Ariana Grande, and Kirsten Dunst plastered across social media in little or no clothing. Just days after the photos were publicly circulated, Apple CEO Tim Cook responded by revealing that Apple will beef up its iCloud security measures by adding optional two-factor authentication for iCloud accounts. Users who choose this option will have a passcode sent by SMS to their devices after they enter their username and password. This passcode will be required before access to their iCloud account will be granted. In addition, a new organization backed by Google and Dropbox, Simply Secure, also promised to work hard to develop technology that will tighten up security measures across platforms and devices, but that hasn’t done much to lessen the ire of the celebrities involved. Recently, a spokesperson for Jennifer Lawrence stated; “This is a flagrant violation of privacy. The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence.”
As Ms. Lawrence’s spokesperson has surmised, although the site the compromising pictures first appeared on, 4chan, crafted an update to its copyrighted materials policies in response to the event, anyone who lifted those pictures from the site during the time they were live still has copies and could still post them far and wide. Forever. Additionally, 4chan’s “fix” is relatively ineffective. Since 4chan’s material is only live on the site for a few hours to a few days, by the time someone notices the content and starts the process of having copyrighted content removed, the original post may be deleted.
So what’s a celebrity victim to do? Calling someone a “victim” implies that they’ve been hurt—mentally, physically, economically or otherwise—by a destructive or injurious action. But It just doesn’t seem reasonable to assign blame elsewhere when that injurious action was caused by the subject’s own negligence.
I don’t think anyone would disagree that we should be able to rely on some type of privacy protection for our personal online accounts. However, one has to wonder at the wisdom of placing at risk types of files and photographs that could cause such far-reaching damage. After all, “the cloud” is nothing more than a very large, shared space. In fact, the internet as a whole represents an area that presumably can be accessed by any number of persons that have the intelligence or perseverance to break through protection composed of code. What people fail to consider is that the internet is terra nova when it comes to having privacy laws on the books. Other bastions of privacy such as banks, brokerages, even the trusty safe found in many homes have been around for ages. The establishments that run or design them have had experience with decades of scurrilous thievery that has helped them perfect anti-theft measures—and even these are not completely reliable.
Farhad Manjoo, a writer for the New York Times, seems to have given a great deal of thought to the question of online security. He writes, “What should smartphone makers do about nude selfies? Should they encourage us all to point our phones away from our unclothed bodies — or should they instead decide that naked selfies are inevitable, and add features to their products that reduce the chance that these photos could get hacked?” Lest you think he’s just grasping at thin air for ideas, Manjoo suggests your phone should give you a warning message when you take an indelicate photo. As an example, he suggests, “It looks like you’ve taken a sensitive photo. Would you like to encrypt it and require an extra password to view it?”
I am not sure I like the idea of Apple, or any other large technology provider, monitoring my behavior and I hope Mr. Manjoo doesn’t think that we need technology companies to step in and protect us from ourselves. Let’s face it, people who take nude photos of themselves are usually not intending to keep them completely private. While I am sure that Ms. Lawrence and Ms. Dunst would have preferred to choose the distribution list for these uncensored pixels, I think that anyone who potentially would be upset by the hacking of such pictures would do well to store them somewhere other than what is, essentially, a shared area.
If you sext, take naked selfies, or leave your credit card lying on a counter at the airport, there is a pretty decent chance that consequences will occur. Yet, one Forbes writer feels that thinking ahead to probable outcomes is impractical and equates asking adults to preserve their privacy by not taking nude selfies to the right wing Christian practice of counseling abstinence. She claims that abstaining from taking and storing risqué photos is not a practical way to keep people from potential harm and that prophylaxis is the appropriate cure.
I agree to some extent. I don’t have a personal problem with people taking nude selfies or having unprotected sex — it isn’t my business. And prevention really is helpful; installing software that encrypts your photos or bolsters your firewall is akin to using condoms to prevent an STD or using birth control to prevent pregnancy. However, just as the best we have to offer in condoms and birth control is not 100% effective, computer security measures shouldn’t be considered completely trustworthy. So if you really, truly, care about having your naked self plastered all over social media, you simply won’t take those pictures at all. If you are okay with the gamble, then you should be willing to accept the consequences, unfortunate as they may be.
Does that mean I think Kate Upton deserves having her intimate pictures made public? Nope. I think it’s a shame and I hope that Mr. Meneses and others that helped retrieve or spread the photos are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I also hope that Apple and other large technology entities will use this opportunity to develop more secure interfaces to protect our personal information in this new, more invasive age. However, I also think that we need to consider what we store online. Since I am at the age where I am more at risk for a lawsuit for retinal burn should a nude selfie of me surface online, I don’t indulge. But I do protect my online presence as best I can and I am sensible enough to understand that there is no such thing as being fully hack-proof. For this same reason, I don’t bank online, although I do use my credit cards with impunity. Even so, I am mindful that any and all of the sites that have encrypted my credit card information may be hacked at any time, so I keep a close watch on my card balances and understand fully the consequences of the gamble I am taking.
Apparently, considering consequences is a debatable notion. Throughout this scandal the celebrities involved have seen an outpouring of support from their peers and fan base. They’ve also seen a fair number of individuals express astonishment at the imprudent practice of storing nude selfies in the cloud. Although this latter opinion is a common theme in the public comments threads of articles surrounding the issue, columnists like Nick Bilton of the New York Times and celebrities such as Ricky Gervais were much maligned for giving voice to this point of view. One article classified people who want to see nude selfie takers claim responsibility as “victim-shamers”. The author suggests that implying the celebrities involved should have been more careful is equivalent to suggesting a woman wearing a revealing outfit is inviting danger. What’s more, she claims that while the leaking of the photos was horrible, asserting that the people involved acted irresponsibly is worse. She notes, “The response to these pictures is terrifying. It is a perfect, encapsulated reminder that your body can be used as a weapon against you. That slut-shaming is so prevalent and accepted in this culture that you could lose your job, or your boyfriend, or your credibility if a photo you once took was stolen from you — and then you will be the one blamed for it.”
While the topic of personal responsibility versus relying on cloud security is being hotly debated online, the fact remains that every security system has a weak point. Clever hackers often spend a lifetime figuring out a way through the “latest and greatest” defenses. So it doesn’t matter whether or not you feel that it’s “fair” for you to have to put an effort into protecting your own privacy; if someone wants what you have badly enough, they’ll find a way to get it. That leaves you with only one surefire defense: not having anything up for grabs.
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