Slashdot Mirror
The Correct Response To Photo Hack Victim-Blamers
In a new Vanity Fair interview, Jennifer Lawrence calls the theft of her nude photos a "sex crime". Predictably, a good portion of the 300+ comments posted on TheVerge's article contained an element of victim-blaming -- "maybe people in her position should think twice about taking nude photos? I’m sure it could help" ; "She posted them online. Unless she is a complete rube, she should have known of the security risks" ; "Victims can be blamed for putting themselves into potentially exploitable situations. Something similar might be going to a rave without a friend." ; and more variations on things that had already been said many times ever since the original photo leak on August 31st.
These comments are mostly being met with angry backlash from other commenters, which is good. But the rebuttals themselves tend to violate the rules of logic and consistency, which is bad. And when victim-blamers can spot the flaws so easily in their opponents' logic, their own minds are unlikely to be changed.
A typical example of a weak "rebuttal" is this cartoon you may have seen shared on Facebook, in which an arrogant man lectures women, "Don't want your nude selfies to leak, ladies? Simple: don't take any! Bothered by street harassment? Don't be so eager to walk down streets." Sorry, but if the second piece of advice was meant to highlight the absurdity of the first, the analogy doesn't work -- because you kinda have to walk down streets, but nobody has to take a nude selfie.
This is a recurring theme in the "rebuttal" comments that I've seen, including those on TheVerge's article -- telling the victim-blamers that they might just as well blame themselves for the risks of walking down the street, or buying something from Home Depot ( burn! ), or having a credit card at all, or owning a valuable object that could be a target of theft. Sample comments: "by that standard... you shouldn’t have had something of value to begin with, or else you were just asking for it to be stolen" ; "Just like when you walk down the street you should be fully aware of the potential to be mugged" ; "So, we will hold you to the very same 'complete rube' test when you fall victim to identity theft or unauthorized charges to your credit cards" ; etc.
All of these "rebuttals" are committing the same logical error: they're drawing an analogy to things that you either have to do (walk down the street) or pretty-much-have to do (own a credit card, own at least one valuable object). This means the victim-blamers have such an easy response -- "Those are all things you have to do; but taking a nude selfie is different, because nobody has to do that!" So the victim-blamers are unlikely to have their minds changed by such an analogy, since their own central premise is so obvious to them: the victims chose to take the nude selfies, and the leak never would have happened if they hadn't.
So, let's respond to the victim-blamers on their own terms, by acknowledging first of all: Of course, they're right. Of course taking the selfies was an optional choice, and of course the only way to stop nude selfies from leaking, is not to take them. But this is ignoring (a) the benefits of taking nude selfies; and (b) the low risk of them getting leaked. (The fact that the pictures did get leaked, does not mean that the selfie-takers misjudged the risk of it happening; rather, it was very unlikely, but the victims got unlucky and it happened to them.)
To begin with the benefits: Jennifer Lawrence explained bluntly in her Vanity Fair interview why she took the photos: "I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he's going to look at you." (Considering how easily she could have gotten away with some platitudes about how "deeply hurt" she was, and how she "thanks all her fans for her support in this difficult period" -- doesn't a quote like that make you think she's decently cool?) OK, so that's the benefit. To her boyfriend at the time, a pretty big benefit.
As for the risks, whenever someone takes a risk of a bad outcome and the bad outcome does happen, it's tempting to think that they misjudged the risks. (I'll bet that a psychological experiment could demonstrate this easily -- have test subjects read stories of people who took a risk that was known to be small, but who got unlucky and fell victim to the bad outcome anyway, and see if the test subjects incorrectly judge the risk-takers to be foolish.) But out of the millions of nude photos that are probably sent between cell phone users every month, a vanishly small proportion of them get stolen in security breaches of cloud storage. (Usually the far greater risk is that the recipient will forward the image to other people until it gets out of control.) There's no reason to think that Jennifer Lawrence and other victims of the hacking scandal underestimated the risk of the photos being stolen from the cloud. If anything, most users are probably over-estimating the risk today, while the news of the breach is fresh in their minds.
In cases where the benefits of an action clearly don't outweigh the risks, that's when "victim-blaming" might be appropriate, even if we don't call it that. If someone leaves their car unlocked and leaves a valuable item in plain view in the front seat, we might feel less sorry for them if they return to their car to find it stolen. But it's a logical error to blame the victim just because they took a risk; the real reason to blame them is that there's no counterbalancing benefit to leaving the car door unlocked, or failing to move the valuable item into the trunk.
By contrast, when victim-blamers say that a woman is "bringing the risk upon herself" (of harassment, or even assault) by going out in a halter top, the logically correct response is not to say that victim-blamer is "clearly" wrong. Because, again, to the victim-blamer, their own premise is obviously true: wearing a sexy outfit in public does increase your risk of harassment, and probably even of being groped or worse. The fallacy is that the victim-blamer is ignoring the benefits of that choice. A woman never knows when she might meet a guy out in public that she's attracted to, and if they hit it off, it helps to have an outfit that says, "I'm a real woman, not a moron who thinks that if I engage in pre-marital kissing then Jesus will set me on fire with a blowtorch." Wearing a halter top has its benefits, which is why some women do it.
So that's it. The correct response to the victim-blamers is not to draw false analogies to "having a credit card" or "walking down the street". The correct response is that taking nude selfies is a perfectly rational choice when the probable benefits outweigh the probable risks. That is, in fact, the only rational defense of any action, ever. But it's not getting any play, because it doesn't fit in a tweet.
105 characters. Yes, it does fit in a tweet.
As commenters continue to blame Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities for allowing their nude photos to be stolen
No one is blaming them for "allowing their photos to be stolen" I didn't bother reading the rest if that's how you started.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I live in a fairly good town but still don't leave my doors unlocked, EVER. I still don't expect to get blamed should I forget one day and my car gets stolen.
Just like someone who has their digital media stolen from the cloud is not to blame and the law should back them up. However there are certain things you just do not do even if the law supports the activity. For example parking a Ferrari in a bad part of town with the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition. The law needs to track down that car if it is stolen but the person doing this is still an idiot.
If it were April I would say that huge mount of boring text has a point hidden somewhere inside it. Let's hope there's a piece of chocolate attached to it as well.
Stop telling children not to take candy from strangers, tell strangers not to give candy to children.
Don't tell children to be careful when crossing the street. Tell drivers not to run over children.
It's the same thing with these leaked images.
Sure the hacker is in the wrong and whatever, but it's still your responsibility to keep your data secure.
Saying "but there was a pedestrian crossing and I had the right of way" doesn't help you when you're lying in the hospital with broken bones.
I had a cousin who used to wear a lot of gold jewelry. He also lived in a shitty neighborhood. Everyone used to call him crazy for it, but he ignored this, because he was fucking stupid. Of course, he got mugged, and lost all his jewelry one day (he's lucky that's all he lost).
He was the victim of a crime.
He was also fucking stupid.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
On the one hand, we know why this guy took three weeks to weigh in: he wrote a f***ing essay no one will ever read.
On the other hand, it's being published three weeks after the last person cared, so length is irrelevant, I guess.
that for the celebrities taking their nude selfies, the probable benefits of their actions outweighed the probable negatives
What the hell is wrong with the author, basing his proposition on a premise that was already proven to be wrong by reality? Wasn't the leak a probable negative? Didn't it outweigh the probable positives?
I don't think it counts as victim blaming to say, "use a stronger password next time (non-dictionary)."
I don't think it counts as victim blaming to say, "don't stick your finger in that light socket next time."
I don't think it counts as victim blaming to say, "don't put anything on the internet that you don't want to get spread around."
There's a difference between teaching someone to protect themselves, and blaming someone. If you can't tell the difference, please don't reply to my post.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I already knew what he was going to say anyhow. Anyhow most of the criticism and victim blaming I see isn't "don't take the pics" it's mostly "don't store them on the damn Internet you fool!"
TLDR if there ever was one
Don't even get me started on the celebrity worship bullshit in your country.
What country doesn't have some form of 'celebrity worship?'
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
This is dumb on the level of 'blame the victim' dumb. Should everything online be a cost-benefit analysis now?
You know who should be in trouble? The person/people who stole the photos in the first place
If I have naked selfies printed out in my house[*] and someone comes in and steals them, I won't get "well you shouldn't have naked photos of yourself in the house". I get "hey, they stole items from you!". You don't blame the person that made the lock. You don't blame the person if they left the house unlocked. Breaking and entering is a crime. Full stop. There may be other issues if the criminal acquired a master key or picked the lock, or the lock was faulty to begin with, but the blame lies on the person that walked in without authorization and stole property.
What I do with my personal equipment and how I store it and how it can be accessed isn't your business nor do I have to justify myself to you about it.
[*] I do not. You are welcome.
Lawrence should have used a service that allows her to pay e.g. $10/mo extra to insure against leakage. In aggregate, such funding can be used to improve security, and when the security eventually fails, provide restitution to the person who deserves damages under the terms of the policy.
Does such a service exist yet? If not, it probably needs to be started in a jurisdiction where States don't stack insurance regulations up the wazoo.
All this business about fault, implied contracts, what party A or B should have done or not done, upon whom society should unleash vengeance, etc. is just thumb-twiddling when we have existing social mechanisms to deal with these sorts of problems.
Money doesn't solve everything, but where it does, it's most often a better solution than the others available, and such solutions net improved goods on the far side (in this case improved security for everybody due to the targeted funding and pressures of reinsurance). "Party A should do X and do it for free" is almost always a losing argument.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
A little more about the man before he is completely eviscerated online...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
You can sympathise and do all the wishful thinking you want.
Doesn't alter the fact that this was incredibly stupid and/or naïve.
I used to work in radio, and one thing I discovered very quickly is this: You don't let *anything* you wouldn't want to see in the papers out of your control. There is *always* someone ready to take advantage of an opportunity to embarrass a celebrity, just a local one.
Folks on the Hollywood TV/film circuit? By the time they've reached that level, they should just fucking know better.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
If you take a nude picture of yourself and put it on a cell phone, send it in an email or do xyz with it, the possibility exists that it could be intercepted.
Total privacy in every aspect of online communication is an unrealistic expectation, that applies to nude selfies or anything else that would be devastating if it were made public.
The notion that people can just casually share their most intimate things over a public network is a creation of the facebook generation, it's for morons.
You have a rather strange definition of 'no one'. I've seen *dozens* of posts online, across multiple sites, *literally* blaming the victims for their photos being stolen. I'm not talking about the 'they should have made better choices' concern trolls, either.
There is no reason to use a cellphone camera.
Buy a POLAROID and use that.
Let there be nudity, but don't put it on a computer or the internet. Of course, I don't have a Facebook account because they are way too expensive (in terms of what they take from you for what they get).
Similarly, I don't walk through Harlem dressed like Bruce Willis in Die Hard with a Vengeance.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
It's stupid and counterproductive to blame the victims of a crime. That said, it's very useful to turn this into a fable to teach people how to prevent future occurrences. And the simplest way to explain it is to say something like, "They should have secured their data"
To dismiss that statement outright with the phrase "victim blaming" is to throw away the ability to learn from their experiences. If what you hear is "no crime occurred" you're reading into it something that was not said.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
I have zero data to back this up, but...
I believe that a much larger portion of the pictures shared through/stored on the types of services that were breached are stolen. The thing is, most of them are innocuous and/or of non-famous people so they are discarded and/or not reported by the news outlets. I suppose if an underage kid took some nude selfies that got shared AND someone who recognized the kid saw them, then they MIGHT report it, IF they weren't too embarrassed about where they found 'em!
...don't blame the victim (which is generally a good policy) because their benefit/risk estimation wasn't erroneous? I don't want to blame Jennifer Lawrence (as she seems to want to blame all those cursed with natural interests) but that she would've normally seen a benefit to her actions doesn't seem to directly address blame in any sense. Perhaps this ethical argument requires a simpler "ipso facto" tacked on the end for us stupid folks which are missing the connection between benefit and blame.
They were all sluts, and Jeniffer is a nice girl, she is.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
What is your bank password, grandpa. You expect anything you sent on the internet to be publicly available, right?
Sexting is common in long distance relationships, whether you like it or not. These images were texted to a partner. The image app gladly backed-up the new images to apple cloud. They were not or they did intend to put it on the internet. Your argument is completely invalid
2014. Almost 2015.. and sex is still the thing. So odd.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
You can be a victim and still be an idiot.
"If someone leaves their car unlocked and leaves a valuable item in plain view in the front seat, we might feel less sorry for them if they return to their car to find it stolen. But it's a logical error to blame the victim just because they took a risk; the real reason to blame them is that there's no counterbalancing benefit to leaving the car door unlocked, or failing to move the valuable item into the trunk. "
The benifit of not puttin the thing in the trunk and not locking the car is it was less effort to do and will be less effort to open the car and get to the thing aftewards.
Much like the hacked accounts and the benefit of not using a more secure password.
I'm worried that "victim blaming" has been redefined. It seems it might once have been "the perpitrator is excused becuase of the victim", which is not what has been said.
I'm sure there are costs associated with banks building vaults, locking doors, hiring guards, having survellence: avoiding those costs would be a clear benefit. But if they fail at those (or if Home Depot fails to spend enough money wisely enough on securing their POS systems) we correctly fault the bank (or Home Depot) for their lack of care while still rightly villifying the person who broke in and stole the money.
These people took risks. Those risks included taking nude photos, uploading those photos to internet-attached servers, and failing to use good security. Those risks did not apy off. This does not excuse those who hacked the accounts. It is not "victim blaming" in the classic sense either. it is rightly pointing out a lack of due care.
"victim blaming" is a straw-man term designed to make those so accused look foolish. Everyone understands that there are many links in the causal chain of an undesirable event. No one who points at a few ("X took nude selfie") excludes the existence of the other ("Y stole it") necessary links.
it's a long forgotten attribute called taking responsibility for your own actions. If someone wants to take nude photos of themselves then go for it. But don't go whining when the photos get leaked.
How stupid can these people be?
They take a nude photo and store it on a cellphone that can easily be compromised or stolen - mistake #1
Then then store the photo on some "cloud service", or email it, or otherwise create copies of the photo that they can no longer control - mistake #2
Choose weak passwords that can easily be guessed - mistake #3
These days it seems that everyone wants to be a victim. Why? Because it provides a built in excuse for fucking up. Cast the blame on someone else rather than own up to your own mistakes.
Your argument is completely invalid
Oooh, that ends the conversation right there, because he thinks your argument is invalid.
I'm with you, and figured I would add a bit to your points.
These comments are mostly being met with angry backlash from other commenters, which is good.
Ahh, nothing like open bias in an article. Down with anyone claiming personal responsibility is a factor! If you leave a 100dollar bill on your porch and a thief steals it, you were never in any way responsible for leaving the 100 dollar bill on your porch. Anyone claiming you were partially at fault should be chastised by the masses, obviously they are worthless slugs (hopefully the sarcasm is obvious).
A typical example of a weak "rebuttal" is this cartoon you may have seen shared on Facebook, in which an arrogant man lectures women, "Don't want your nude selfies to leak, ladies? Simple: don't take any! Bothered by street harassment? Don't be so eager to walk down streets."
Not only is walking down the street the same thing as taking nude photographs of yourself, but taking a nude photo of yourself and storing them in a public server is the same thing as a physical media you keep at home where you have some control.
And of course the author claims anyone that disagrees is using a "week" argument.
To begin with the benefits: Jennifer Lawrence explained bluntly in her Vanity Fair interview why she took the photos: "I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he's going to look at you." (Considering how easily she could have gotten away with some platitudes about how "deeply hurt" she was, and how she "thanks all her fans for her support in this difficult period" -- doesn't a quote like that make you think she's decently cool?) OK, so that's the benefit. To her boyfriend at the time, a pretty big benefit.
An excuse for taking and nude photographs is just an excuse. Good lord, I have had long distance relationships too and I did not send or expect to receive naked pictures as part of the relationship. Even though mailing photographs (it's been some time since I have had one of those) I should have had legal expectation of privacy which is at least as stringent than an EULA on someone's "Cloud" server. Tampering with US Postal mail _is_ a felony.
So that's it. The correct response to the victim-blamers is not to draw false analogies to "having a credit card" or "walking down the street".
The author should first find the pot and kettle analogy and study it for at least a minute before making accusations. Then they should try to explain how walking down the street and taking nude photos of yourself and sending them anywhere equates to the same fucking thing (because they don't)!
If this was one of them pervert snapping pictures under girls skirts, the article would have some merit.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Why is this so hard to grasp?
So you're saying there could be issues with uploading nude pics of yourself (that you don't want public) to a world encompassing network whose primary purpose is the free interchange of data? Amazing!
But out of the millions of nude photos that are probably sent between cell phone users every month, a vanishly small proportion of them get stolen in security breaches of cloud storage.
But J-Law is not an anonymous nobody that only a very small number of people want to see naked.
There's no reason to think that Jennifer Lawrence and other victims of the hacking scandal underestimated the risk of the photos being stolen from the cloud. If anything, most users are probably over-estimating the risk today
She is not most users, she's a special case. Her risk is not the same, she's much more visible, much more desired.
It's not just a sample of random numbers, there's value attached to these images, and the value of most user's images is much lower than the value of those who are professionally attractive. Something of greater value is obviously at a greater risk of unauthorized access than something of average value.
You can't take the sky from me...
This shouldn't be on /., and actually is too late to be posted anywhere. As an opinion piece presenting itself as a final answer, I expect to see this on some ignorant Facebook newsfeed, not /.
First - Bennett should have said the "probability of them being leaked," not the "risk." Risk has a specific meaning: it's the probability of something happening TIMES the damage that occurs if it does happen.
Celebrities taking nude photos is a HIGH risk. They have a moderate (not low) probability of leaking and a HIGH damage should they leak.
If you write your pin number on your ATM card are you not at least partially to blame when a thief finds the card and cleans out your account? Of course the thief is wrong, but wow you were stupid!
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Don't take naked pictures of yourself with an Internet-connected device. Don't transmit naked pictures of yourself through others' networks and store them on others' servers.
The victims did something stupid. Had they not done something stupid, they wouldn't be victims.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/13/...
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
We don't call them stupid for getting their photos stolen. We call them stupid for
1) Taking them and
2) Putting them onto a medium that is accessible via internet.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
> What is your bank password, grandpa.
What kind of moron keeps a banking password in their dropbox?
That's the only thing that's comparable to this photo hack.
Banks (unlike Apple) are MUCH more diligent about your banking password. This is not something that is published in the clear ANYWHERE.
That information is not "in the cloud" really in any way that's comparable to Jennifer's nude photos.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Perhaps there is a deeper problem to look into here. Not the victim, nor the leaker. Look at the motivation for all parties involved.
Then look at the massive outcry, and the rapidity of dissemination, and the media circus.
Here's the odd thing: It's just nudity. Everyone is naked beneath their clothes, and it isn't at all difficult to find some naked pictures for the curious. I could find a few thousand of them with one google search. Yet somehow, the sight of a person undressed is something so sacred that people will feel violated just for being seen, while others will go to great lengths to catch a glimpse of the right individual.
This should not be a big deal. Everyone should be able to just shrug it off, including the victim - who hasn't actually been directly harmed in any way. What harm they experience doesn't come from people seeing the images, but their own reaction.
So, given the fact that humans will be humans (seems to be the common excuse for taking nude photos in the first place), I'm curious...how many of these celebrities have publicly come out in favor of hardened security devices or other protocols to take to ensure ANY data isn't leaked next time?
Yeah, I'll believe they're serious about protecting themselves when they take appropriate action.
And for you crypto companies who might have a few bones to throw around, NOW is the perfect time for that celebrity endorsement...
Jennifer Lawrence explained bluntly in her Vanity Fair interview why she took the photos: "I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he's going to look at you."
Somehow that doesn't sound like a loving healthy relationship. It sounds like a relationship based on sex and mutual attraction.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Oh please. I say this is a massive publicity stunt. How many celebs leaked "sex tapes" back in the day, expressing outrage right up until the months of careful planning and PR were revealed.
Secondly, "sex crime"? Good lord. Women today want everything to be classified as a sex crime. Give me a break.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
They were kind enough to put that "Read below to see what Bennett has to say" phrase before the fold, so at least I knew what I was getting into when I clicked the link in my RSS feed. I'm glad they're finally putting a warning label on his posts, since I'm tired of being ambushed by the "Bennett bait-and-switch", when we discover that there's an article where there's supposed to be a summary.
The appeal of Slashdot is its comments. Let Slashdot do what it does best: provide a quick summary, leave room for people to express their own thoughts, and provide a link to the article for people interested in reading more. Hosting the entirety of Bennett's post here subverts the comments by sucking all of the air out of the room and ensuring that whatever issue he's discussing will be ignored in favor of complaining about his post being here, as should be evident from every long-form Bennett post in the last few months.
If his goal is to communicate to us, then he really needs to consider his audience and rethink the methods he's employing. Maybe try speaking to us in the format we come here for?
The probability of getting your data leaked or inappropriately accessed sometime in the future on any cloud service is 100%. The potential benefits of taking nude selfies is absolutely nothing. Sorry, but your reasoning falls apart.
If you don't want something potentially blasted out to every other human on the planet, DO NOT PUT IT UP ON THE INTERNET!
PERIOD!
If you want to call this "victim blaming", fine.
I don't use various web services to take/store private pictures of myself.
Therefore, I do not have naked photos of myself strewn across the web after the inevitable account compromise.
Anyone trusting an Internet service to keep things "private" for them is a fucking moron.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Actually the pre internet equivalent is - the photo developer prints two copies.
A woman never knows when she might meet a guy out in public that she's attracted to, and if they hit it off, it helps to have an outfit that says, "I'm a real woman, not a moron who thinks that if I engage in pre-marital kissing then Jesus will set me on fire with a blowtorch."
My wife chooses to dress modestly in public, as do lots of women in my circles, both religious and non-religious. To me, none of their outfits communicate that they are "morons".
Feminism -- You're Doing it Wrong.
First, I don't see how the hair splitting over what you have to do vs what you choose to do matters. You have the right to make choices, the right to not have your property and effects violated by others. The people doing it are wrong.
Secondly, I think the fact that we equate looking upon a nude photo with sex is a good amount of the problem here. Its really our own overprotective prudishness and nudity taboos that even give rise to this in the first place.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
the rebuttals themselves tend to violate the rules of logic and consistency
How dare Vanity Fair steal Slashdot's business model!
Bark less. Wag more.
Do you do online banking and shipping? Same tubes.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If you write your pin number on your ATM card are you not at least partially to blame when a thief finds the card and cleans out your account? Of course the thief is wrong, but wow you were stupid!
Yes, that's called "negligence."
It's why, in that situation, the bank would refuse to reverse the charges, and probably get away with it.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
...but rather talking about taking foolish risks and then bitching about the outcome. If I leave my car running in a bad neighborhood and come back an hour later to find it gone, is it my fault? In a way, it is, because I should have known with nearly 100% certainty that my car was going to be gone. Same with the nude photos. The internet is not a great place to store sensitive documents. It's not a 100% certainty that the photos were going to be found and distributed, but since the point of the internet is to distribute information, you could have seen it as a likely outcome.
I feel bad for these people that their photos were stolen, but when Jennifer Lawrence calls it a 'sex crime', I think she sounds stupid.
I only came here for the "what a massive douche this guy is" comments....
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
You could blame them if they choose to store their photos on dropbox or icloud. They did not choose to, it was the defaults in the photo app. All they did was take a photo, and text it to a partner. Also it is not just the celebrities we are talking about here, it is also the partners who used iPhones (and by default had icloud backups enabled)
as Wendy Williams pointed out, J-Law's thought this out all wrong. Your boyfriend is going to look at nude photos of you AND he's going to look at porn. You're not so special, sweetie.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
.45 ACP! Apply directly to the forehead!
.45 ACP! Apply directly to the forehead!
.45 ACP! Apply directly to the forehead!
After all, the people who blame victims are just begging for a bullet to the head.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
It's not about victim blaming, but instead learning from their experience to keep it from happening to you. The discussion isn't about what kinds of pictures should I or should I not have the right to take of myself.
Coeds living in college dorms have the right to enjoy the fresh air by opening a window. But, if that same coed is on the ground floor, that probably isn't a wise thing to do. How do we know this -- because in the past, it has led to very negative consequences. Are they to blame, no. In an ideal world, nothing bad would happen if one lived on the ground floor and left the window open or saved nude pictures of yourself on an online service.
But we don't live in an ideal world. That's why we don't let children play in the playground without supervision. That's why our houses and cars have locks. It's why we use passwords and encryption on files. We are not in an ideal world and there are less than noble people who will take what they want and hurt others in the process.
As such, this isn't about blaming the victims whose pictures were hacked. It is a wake up call that the security needed to keep private things private isn't at a level to guarantee safety. As such, like the coed on the ground floor, it is better to voluntarily give up a small right to protect ones self from having somebody else harm you. For those who have already been harmed by this, maybe their story will keep somebody else from being harmed. It's not about blame -- it's about learning to protect yourself.
You all just don't get it... thanks to iCloud, everything you think you deleted is still there!
For example, this has happened to my girlfriend and her friend. They both bought the new Iphone 6, well my GF got the 6 plus and her friend got the regular 6, and as their backups were downloading from icloud, guess what downloaded as well?
All the nudy pics they have been sending and receiving since they the iCloud service came about. They both delete the text messages and photos, and they never save anything. It even displayed the text messages from way back, too. The iCloud still has them and they may show up next time you get a new iPhone and download from the iCloud.
The downloading of old photos you thought you deleted is a glitch, but the fact that they are still there is not a glitch. iCloud, OneDrive, etc. all keep that stuff even if you "delete" it.
So, who's to say that the photos they found weren't photos the celebs keep, because why keep a nude photo of yourself? It's because they keep it even if you want it deleted!
Previewing comments are for sissies!
I mean I can understand feeling violated about having sexual pictures of you shared with the world. Many people are very private and shy in their sexuality. That's fine, nothing wrong with that.
However that rather runs counter to having a very sultry picture on the cover of a popular magazine with international distribution. You can't really claim that you feel violated by people looking at sexy pictured of you if you then choose to distribute the same voluntarily.
I've alway said. If you don't want something leaked on the internet. Don't store it on the internet. Be it nude selfies or anything else.
"Most of the other rebuttals being offered, are logically incoherent, and, as such, are not likely to change the minds of the victim-blamers," is perhaps the funniest bit of empathy-challenged nonsense I've read in a while. Because the people who are irrationally blaming the victims are clearly going to be persuaded only by the most mathematically sound argument?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
> and of course the only way to stop nude selfies from leaking, is not to take them.
Um, no. That's one way, but not the only way.
As to the benefit vs risk argument, I guess it depends how much it means to you to have your selfies made public. If you're a kardashian, it's a *feature*. If you're Jennifer Lawrence, perhaps it's an embarrassment, (until she does her first full frontal in a film, and then those frames will be all over the internet) but if she really feels that strongly about it (a "sex crime"? Seriously?) then she should think about (a) take your nudies, but NOT WITH A PHONE, you dope! It's not like you've NEVER HEARD of a celeb's phone getting hacked. Look we know you're smart enough to read a script. You should be able to figure out that phones are not secure. (b) The security of "the cloud" is inversely proportional to the value of the data. That your nudies (which were fairly tame, by the way. And a little grainy. Consider moving out to the patio.) would be a prime target for hackers pretty much goes without saying.
What it comes down to, is this: You don't secure the crown jewels with a $3 novelty lock. Depending on cell phone security to keep nekkid photos of Jennifer Lawrence private is exactly the electronic equivalent of a $3 novelty lock securing the pr0n equivalent of the crown jewels. You don't blame the victim for the crime, but you can point out that the victim did not use security appropriate for the value of the object.
Compared to most of us, Lawrence is loaded. She could afford to have a pr0n assistant (I can already see people lining up for that job) who's sole purpose is to distribute her nudies to whomever she's dating, with appropriate NDAs signed, in a secure fashion.
To wit: Take the photos with a real digital camera, not a phone. Put the physical media in a patched-up, antivirus-protected PC, encrypt the photo, send it via a secure, non-well-known email provider, then destroy the original. Educate the recipient on the value of security and the pain he will experience if he lets it get out.
If that's too much to do, then either don't take nude selfies, or lower your privacy expectations. Don't run around with your pants down and complain that everyone is screwing you.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
it's a long forgotten attribute called taking responsibility for your own actions. If someone wants to take nude photos of themselves then go for it. But don't go whining when the photos get leaked.
How stupid can these people be?
They take a nude photo and store it on a cellphone that can easily be compromised or stolen - mistake #1
Then then store the photo on some "cloud service", or email it, or otherwise create copies of the photo that they can no longer control - mistake #2
Choose weak passwords that can easily be guessed - mistake #3
These days it seems that everyone wants to be a victim. Why? Because it provides a built in excuse for fucking up. Cast the blame on someone else rather than own up to your own mistakes.
Actually, this is nothing new. In the days before digital cameras, the "thefts" occurred at the drug store or wherever the film was being processed. It was more difficult to disseminate the stolen pictures to millions of people, but they were stolen just the same.
As for being a victim, well, technically they are. In hind sight, was it foolish to store said photos on-line. Yes, it was, but that doesn't mean they weren't a victim. If your local bank gets robbed and you can't get accessed to your funds for a week, aren't you still a victim? Or are you proposing that people don't put money in banks?
Like a bank, these online storage services have a fiduciary responsibility to their customers. That responsibility was breached and the customers who had their photos stolen (nude or otherwise) were harmed by that failure. How are they not a victim?
Given the frequency of celebrity relationship break ups, I even question the wisdom of sending nude photographs to a future ex-boyfriend.
Firstly, There needs to be better education about what happens when you take a picture with your phone and where it ends up. I've had conversations where the person doesn't get that once the picture is on facebook if they delete it from their phone it's still on facebook. We don't have to go into the gory details, but there needs to be better understanding about the causality of posting a picture, even as a text.
Secondly, the person should clearly understand that if they post a nude picture to something like apples cloud what the permanent ramifications of that are.
Thirdly, (I know this is already happening) device manufacturers need to start implementing two factor authentication and key management systems.
Thus if [insert random person] wants to send a nude photograph to someone... a) the file is encrypted on the server use the persons private key and the recipient is using a separate revocable key to look at it. Thus in the future if things don't work out, the first person take that recipient off their allowed list and presto the pictures aren't viewable.
This doesn't prevent the recipient at the time from making copies or forwarding the pictures, but it would mitigate some of the danger of the persons phone getting hacked.
Nothing is perfect other than not taking pictures, but in the social age we're in, that behavior isn't going to suddenly change so technology should keep up to protect people as best as possible.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
...sending them into the cloud is stupid. At some point, we have to take responsibility for protecting our own privacy and I'm sorry, but handing my private shit off to someone else, who offers only a vague promise of privacy (made via a totally opaque ToS agreement) qualifies as "stupid enough that you don't get to bitch about it" when the inevitable happens. Does that excuse the perpetrators of the crime? Not in the least, but jeezuz, let's at least give a nod towards common sense here. Why would you do with your digital images what you'd never have thought of doing with the same images printed on paper? Hmm?
Someone without authorization, copied photo they didn't have permissions to access, or distribute.
The fact that they are nude photos it irrelevant.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
False equivalence. They didn't leave their password out. Their accounts were cracked.
The image app gladly backed-up the new images to apple cloud. They were not or they did intend to put it on the internet. Your argument is completely invalid
Bullshit. Ignorance is not an excuse. True they didn't intend to "put it on the Internet" but that is unequivocally precisely what they did, trusting that whatever security measures the custodian of those images was adequate. It should be clear by now that placing sensitive data, of any kind, onto networks that you don't control is a bad idea.
a HIGH damage should they leak.
Are you sure about that?
I mean, other than the victims, who really cares all that much? Not to downplay the crime, they certainly have grounds for being pissed and these sort of wild accusations of sex crimes is understandable.
But what's the actual damage? Is she not going to get signed up for the next Hunger Games? That would be even more outrageous and would have half the country leaping down the producer's throats.
is from Penn Juilette's, Pennsundayschool. EP 134:
http://pennsundayschool.com/ep...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
She claims she had to take the pics because her boyfriend would look at porn if she didn't
So she is claiming her boyfriend put some sort of pressure on her to take these pics whether he did or not.
She is claiming to be the victim over and over in this narrative, first by her boyfriend, then by society, then by thieves.
When does the self-victimization end and how does pointing out the issues with one's choices constitute victim-blaming? Haven't we ever heard of constructive criticism?
Too bad you posted as an AC, or I would have modded you up. The real questions is why do these apparently successful young women feel the need to take these photos? It's okay for your boyfriend to beat off to your photo, but not somebody else's? That smacks of low self-esteem. The real question Vanity Fair and CNN and the like should be asking is why young women, particularly those that are apparently successful and wealthy, are succumbing to the pressure to take nude photos of themselves? Are they that insecure and starved for attention? If so, what does the culture do to contribute to that?
"If you write your pin number on your ATM card are you not at least partially to blame when a thief finds the card and cleans out your account?"
no. not in any what, shape, or how.
" but wow you were stupid!"
irrelevant. and wrong.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There is a difference between blaming victims and admitting they did not take a reasonable person could have take to prevent themselves from becoming a victim. A little discussion of the choices a victim made leading up to the crime is not victim blaming. I am do tired of this PC BS. Do we want to be politically correct or do we want to actually empower people to protect themselves.
No matter how you slice it the people who obtained those photos without permission are the criminals. The probably by brute forcing weak passwords or using malware to log password fraudulently represented themselves to a service provider 'Apple' using stolen credentials, and they almost certainly violated the photographer's copyrights, and various other crimes. No matter what else we say that remains true, they not the victim did something wrong, but that does not mean victims could not have done more right. Yet as soon as you add that last clause 1000's of PC morons will pile one. I see the same mentality being applied to the 'campus sexual conduct' debate and it makes me sad because it means there will be more victims.
We live in a free society. We can't round up bad actors until they do something, criminal. How much effort put into finding them, and obtaining justice is another discussion, but they are out there and always will be so long as society is open. So if you want to actually protect people from being victims we really ought to look at J-Law and ask what else might she have done.
Now, there are limits obviously everyone has RIGHT and reasonable NEED to walk down the street in broad daylight and expect to do so and be reasonably assured they can without being harassed etc. There is no analogue there though to sending a private document over a network you know nothing about to a third party for storage and distribution who you know little about that will replicate it to a bunch of other devices some encrypted some likely not and just assuming everything will be all cool.
It would be better for people with a little knowledge to be able to use this as a teachable moment for others. The phyiscal world analog for what these nude-selfie takers are doing is essentially: Taking a nude Polaroid of yourself; and storing it the sheet metal desk draw at the office, with the cheapo four tumbler lock, high probability the maintenance guy has another key, and leaving it there why you go on month long holiday. -- Now if that seems reasonable to you than you are good to put your nudes on iCloud and similar services. If not well you should not do it.
No its not right for someone to break into your account and copy your stuff, but being aware will let others at the very least make a go / no go choice, maybe you can start to find better options or improve your situation like replacing the cheap lock in my analogy with good quality padlock via using a STRONG password. Advising prudence and offering education ISNT "victim blaming." Its how you avoid having a nation of victims.
Same thing with "campus sex crisis". Telling young people its not smart get near blackout drunk around lots people you don't know; especially in what may be a new and unfamiliar location to you; isn't victim blaming. Its COMMON FREAKING SENSE, for men and women alike. If I were a pick pocket you bet I'd go after the drunk stumbling down the street before the together looking other guy. Women might be more at risk for a certain class of crime than other groups. Recognizing that fact and communicating it isnt victim blaming. Its empowering members of the group to make choices, about the risks they take. That is better than ignoring reality because it violates or sense of fairness.
I am not blaming the victim when I say if you are target and you know you are a target well its dumb to put nudes of your self in the cloud! Dumb you hear the the rest of your celebs? Delete them now, no I won't blame you when yours leak but you should understand it was preventable. You could have stopped it; that does not make it right but remains true.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Sure - they have a right to take nude selfies - and I suppose I don't even blame them for expecting them to be private on a network-connected device; in a world where they're not paying attention to the tech-press, where any idiot really *SHOULD* know that it's not a bright idea.
(Even if all you're paying attention to is Snowden; you should know that the three-letter agencies see EVERYTHING, and they DO have employees who break the rules and violate your privacy for the lulz. - you don't even need to be well-versed in all the latest goings on of illegal 4chan hackery. This is something we pay taxes to have happen. So we can feel safe about "terrorism").
Who I blame: is the tech industry pundits, hucksters, and con men, who are trying to sell us the idea that network-connected devices, and privacy can work together.
(and I'd even say that maybe, they can: but just not in any current user-friendly way).
It's NOT blaming the victim to point this out. The point of this is: the "cloud" is a SCAM. They're trying to rent your own data to you, and trying to con you into believing it's safe. This is the point that really needs to be made. I really don't think that a bunch of self-absorbed overpaid entertainers' private lives actually matters here, compared to the massive fraud that is "cloud services".
Should there be an expectation of privacy? YES.
But in reality - nobody should expect privacy if you put your nudes on a network-connected device. Hackers gonna hack, and VERY BAD PEOPLE are going to con you into spending a crapton of money on supposedly "safe" devices and technologies, which are clearly NOT SAFE AT ALL.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
BH;DR
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Absolutely!
When I go "shipping" online though, there are fairly rigorous security measures in place to assure both me and, say, Amazon that everything is on the up-and-up. If something goes south, Visa will step in and kick someone's hindquarters. Regardless, I as the end-user don't end up assuming liability for, say, someone getting my CC# and making purchases on my behalf. In this case, the security was plainly not sufficient to the task and JL has no intermediary to run interference for her. You're right, same tubes, but the implementation is what makes the difference.
I've always said. If you don't want something leaked on the internet. Don't store it on the internet. Be it nude selfies or anything else.
Though it would be nice to live in a world where people (or, in this case, asshats) didn't take things that didn't belong to them and/or access things they weren't given access to - yada, yada, yada - that's why we can't have nice things. In the end, honesty and integrity is all we really have. Ya, that's all naive sentiments, but they're something we all should strive for.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
As I've maintained since this scandal broke, if one doesn't fully understand all of the technologies and their implications when creating the content in the first place, one simply cannot control that content.
Devices nowadays are designed to share. Let that sink in a minute. Devices nowadays are designed to share. Smartphones are cloud-connected, and every smartphone OS make at least offers some degree of automatic cloud storage, and there are lots of third-party applications that also offer automatic cloud storage. Smartphones also designed to easily interface with PCs to share content to where it can be used on a bigger display. PCs are designed to look for open shares on trusted networks to make use of the content on those shares. PCs can also share/save to the cloud.
Just about all of this software is closed-source. Even as computer professionals we don't know all that it's capble of doing, and we cannot review it for unadvertized capabilities either. We have to trust that it works as advertised and only as advertised, that there are no undocumented features that make it work otherwise, and that there are no expoitable bugs that were unintentionally introduced.
And all of this is just the end-user-device side. This doesn't even begin to address the cloud-side, the protocols, or other things.
End-users that aren't computer professionals have no chance. Even computer professionals really don't have a good shot either.
The only winning move is not to play.
Ms. Lawrence is on record saying that she supplied photos to a significant-other so he'd look at her instead of looking at other women. Good intentions perhaps, but the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. She did not understand the technology, and now she's paying the consequences of that ignorance.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I wouldnt call defaults ignorance. You can blame the one that set the default (or atleast they get the majority of the blame). Expecting an average person to understand why defaults are not the best options is an exercise in futile. This is where we geeks get it wrong.
Also it is not just your phone, you will have to secure the phones of your partners too.
Maybe they didn't uploaded anything? It haven't cross your mind the way the software works on the iPhone is in conjuction with massive PRIVATE data storage in the cloud and handled by the Apple guys, and you don't have anything to do to have everything uploaded; which is a nice service when not broken because if you lose your iPhone you do not lose your data. That is in fact a great idea with a poor implementation. Who should be liable for the poor implementation? The user or the provider?
Achille Talon
Hop!
a HIGH damage should they leak.
That's an interesting way to define millions of dollars in free publicity.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Right. On FB, where I personally know most of the people I see commenting, it's pretty obvious that the victim blamers are invariably those of a conservative persuasion. As people of that ilk are often not persuadable by things like the science of evolution and AGW, it's hardly surprising they are illogical on this issue too.
Certainly. But what if you didn't, and simply have an ATM card some malefactor manages to use to get money without your PIN due to bank's bad security? Because it seems like having your account cracked is closer to that.
Of course, a more important question is: does it matter? If I run a red light and drive over you, should I get off lighter because you didn't look both ways before crossing? Yes, you were dumb as hell, but does that mean that you deserved to die and if so, on what basis?
This is a question that we should put some serious thought into, since it has ripple effects on a lot of different areas of society.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I would suspect it's cultural too though.
When my cohort is 50 (I'm currently 33) a large percentage of us will have done sexting (75% in my circle, but probably less in other areas).
The cohort of current 20 year olds I'm sure have a higher percentage, because everyone is doing it, there's less fear of getting caught.
I'm willing to bet the people currently 50-60 are much more approving of nudie magazines than the people that were 50-60 25 years ago.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Perhaps the Lawrence-blamers skew conservative, but I'd not be so quick to color them with one brush. There's a certain brand of person I like to call "arrogant techie dude", in no short supply on slashdot, who bucks the trend. He unswervingly believes in evolution and AGW, is pro-choice, holds theists in disdain if not outright contempt, will support almost any effort at manned space exploration (cost be damned). But he has no patience for anyone who is suffering due to his or her own mistakes (such as, for instance, storing nude pics in the cloud). He's very much of the view that if someone's situation is shitty that it must be his own fault and he should just pull himself up by the bootstraps. (Oddly, a frame of mind most often ascribed to conservatives.)
You mean libertarians.
Perhaps leaning that way, but the stereotypical person I'm thinking of isn't consistently libertarian. He likely supports increased funding for NASA. He's not a big fan of open borders. ("The H1B visa guys are going to take my job!") Etc.
Thanks for letting us know how we should think.
Taking erotic photos means the creation of controlled, owned data. Totally valid behavior, social norms aside.
Distributing it to a person or entity (sometimes more than one at once, ie recipient AND apple) means immediate forfeit of control, unless the distribution is conditional (ie NDA).
This isn't victim-blaming. In fact, I'd say the source point is even absolved of what the data does in the wild. She has no say (morally and mechanically) in what happens down the line, so I can hardly blame her. The source point can even vanish (ie die) and it makes no difference once it's In The Wild.
Isn't this exactly the fallacy described by TFA? There are both risks and benefits to storing data online, while you're remark suggests there are risks only.
.: Semper Absurda
Actually, it's more like it's okay for her boyfriend to beat off to her photo, but not anyone else, and I find that to be a completely reasonable argument. I'm sorry that you weren't raised to have respect for other people and their belongings. It really is that simple. You are a respectful, respectable person, or you aren't.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
-- Arthur C. Clarke
Or, his settings were wrong, and inadvertently put the files that she sent him on the cloud somewhere, or his device was vulnerable and was broken into...
This shows that there were at least three points of failure. There was her point, his point, and the communications medium between them. That doesn't even factor into account possible cloud storage for her or him, or automatic sharing of files between one's own network connected devices, which now could bring us easily up to seven points of failure.
This is why those of us that are being chewed-out for blaming the victim are kind of pissed off. It's well known that this is all a big tangled mess, and in the same fashion that one wouldn't go walking through an area known for muggings during the time of day or night when muggings are most common because one can't control the behavior of the muggers, one shouldn't use insecure communications devices or mediums for things that present one with a hell of a lot to lose because one cannot control the actions of others. It's unfortunate that we live in a world where people will do this, but pragmatically, just because it's morally wrong doesn't mean that it won't happen anyway. One's own choices dictate how much of a victim one has the potential of becoming, and these circumstances show that it will be a problem, regardless of how wrong it may be.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Jennifer Lawrence said that she sent her nude photos to her boyfriend because she wanted him looking at her, not at porn. How many photos did he actually need to see, and why didn't she send ones of her naked body (and closeups of certain parts) without her face in the picture? She must really be one ignorant young lady!
Interesting but nothing to do with what happened. The victim's accounts were cracked. It's like they bought a padlock, a really expensive padlock from a reputable company that claimed it was secure. Turns out there was a huge flaw in its design (no limit on password attempts) and criminals got in to their private photo albums.
Nothing to do with the devices being "designed to share". They were designed to be secure. Every account needs a password, encryption is used for communication, Apple make a big deal about how secure it is. Padlock icons everywhere.
As for not fully understanding the technology, that's the norm. Like most people I don't fully understand the inner workings of my car, but I drive it anyway. I know enough to safely operate it, and apparently so did the victims here. The flaw was in allowing infinite password attempts against their accounts. If the attempts had been limited to 3 it would have been game over for the crackers.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
it's a strange society we live in, we generally have no objections to looking at nudity but then we are embarassed to be photographed nude ourselves. we seem to have this world wide morality police saying its a terrible thing to be seen naked. The naked selfie makers seem to be comfortable with being seen naked at least by a limited audience but lose their confidence when the audience is not as restricted as intended.
From googling i see one of the people who's images got published to the world is the blue woman in X-men. Judging by the publicity shots from x-men i have a reasonable imagination as to how she would look naked. To be fair we can probably take a fair guess at what anyone looks like naked we don't need nude photographs.
Society evolves slowly in victorian times barely any nudity was acceptable, yet for many years women have been sunbathing topless on beaches in the south of france. The USA i guess has its morality police set at somewhere inbetween. I guess it'll take a few more years before society is relaxed enough to be accepting of most nudity.
As for the blue one she looks great now ,in 30 years she will not be looking so great and after 60 well we all age don't we. I can sympathise with these people as most people do not have nude images of themselves publically available would it help if we all had naked selfies on the net, after all it might break down a few more hangups both our own and other peoples.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Pretty sure, yeah. Producers of G-Rated shows prefer that the kids not find porn when they search google for their favorite actress. There's often a morality clause in the contract, and your nude photos' presence on the Internet tends to run afoul of it.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Just so. And this is, in fact, one of the circumstances in which your bank *will not* restore the funds to your account.
If your account is hacked despite reasonable and prudent measures to maintain its security, the bank is on the hook. If your account is hacked because you were an irresponsible idiot, you are.
It escapes me how in the digital age anyone could believe that storing nude pictures of themselves online was anything other than the height of irresponsibility. If you don't want it known, it can never leave your control. Yes the thief is wrong, but like the guy in UHF said: "You so stupid!"
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Why were the photos anywhere besides on the user's personal, hand-held device?
That's what I mean by being designed to share. From the user's perspective, the photos were automagically copied on to a cloud-based service. The photos were not stored solely on the picture-taking device, ie the smartphone, and ended up in a place that has lots and lots of users connecting to it on a regular basis. The sheer number of connections alone helps obscure inappropriate use, and coupled with the particularly lax security policies, it was much easier for access to be gained.
It's possible that the users knew that their private content was being stored on someone else's server, and that they'd intentionally set-up their phone or computer to back-up their private content on someone else's server, so it again comes back to not knowing how the software (in this case on that someone else's server) is configured, and it having a bug or other vulnerability making it easy for people to gain access to their content.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Anyone who relies on the security of a cloud server to protect information that other people want is a fool. Period.
I don't care if it's nude pictures, your stock reports, or your financial data.
The internet is not secure. Sooner or later, a flaw will be found and your data is out in the wild.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
There is absolute zero outrage when someone of the working class has their unauthorized nudes posted, and revenge porn sites exist with impunity. This is not going to change this. I don't give a fuck about celebrities. Zero fucks given.
The real question is, why is this only brought up when its a bunch of celebrities. Why do "feminist" groups seem to use their resources to defend celebrities and leave working class gals in the dark. Take this, along with your pink fracking drill bits and shove it up your ass. Feminism has turned into a privledge for an elite of women who are able to afford it.
I just read this and I don't know who the author is or what the fuck the point of that whole diatribe was. Was this supposed to be an Explain Like I'm 5 for Reddit or was this mean to accomplish something?
I'm bored enough to play...
Let's accept the arguments and move past them. What is she seeking when she asks us to accept that she is the victim of a sex crime?
She is seeking for us to take responsibility for locating and punishing the people who distributed these photos at our expense.
Each of us asks ourselves: Will going along with her position protect me? Will it protect people I care about? Will it encourage society to change in ways that I prefer? Will it put me at risk by criminalizing behavior that I enjoy engaging in? Will it put me at risk by criminalizing behavior I might engage in unknowingly, and burden me with the need for increased vigilance? How much will it cost? What will we be sacrificing to pay that cost? Is it all worthwhile?
She wants to make this our responsibility. The "victim blamers" do not want to assume this responsibility. She is selling something and some of us aren't buying it.
And, in typical fashion, those who fancy themselves the Champions of Women are attempting to paint those who are unsympathetic as hateful and shame them into submission, making them angry and defensive.
Which is smart, because when you rationally consider the reward on investment involved in treating this as a serious crime, it's open and shut. Only an emotional thinker could think this is a rational response.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Security experts have told us for years that if you don't want it spread all over the Internet then don't put it on anything that connects to the internet. I don't know why teenagers and celebrities think they don't have to comply.
Seriously? If you don't pics of yourself floating around, don't take them. Statistically, that's the best preventative measure. Taking them, and then UPLOADING them to a PUBLIC network is just asking for it. This concept should be common knowledge to anyone under the age of 45, regardless of their technical expertise. There's a reason people don't walk dark streets in shitty neighborhoods even though it is illegal to mug people. Use a little common sense and take a little preemptive (in)action.
The term 'Victim blaming' is just an emotional appeal designed to drive the narrative.. It's bullshit.
One question I always ask myself when I read of the publication of any private matter from a public person. What if that happened to me or any other private person I know? What would I want others to do?
Clearly I would want responsibility and respectfulness, perhaps a kind admonishment for not taking enough care (if that is due) with a note that they also have done dumb things in their life. I would also expect recognition that the perpetrator could have struck them and support in making sure this does not happen again.
In this case though that is rarely what happened, everyone seemed to become polarized either in support of these public people against the haters or were themselves haters. What seems never to be mentioned is that the hack involved was probably not a targeted one and that the perpetrator is probably sitting on Giga Bytes of private data from a wide swath of individuals, both public and private. If it were not though for their ego in publishing the salacious images of those people already in the public eye we would never have known and would have gone on blindly with our weekass passwords.
So think on this, next time to upload anything potentially useful to an adversary. Next time it could be YOU!
So pick your passwords with care, employ strong second factor authentication and if you just have to send a naked selfy to your significant other learn how to use end-to-end encryption. Because believe me, we really don't what to have to look at your naked self above the fold over breakfast tomorrow.
So funny. Despite all of the calls to "get this crap off of Slashdot", I'll bet I'm not the only one who secretly hopes we keep seeing a BH article every now and then, because the ensuing comments are just too darn entertaining. And, in truth, he has sometimes made some interesting points (despite usually using way too many words to do so) that have led to though-provoking discussion threads. But really, reading the comments is like watching a sitcom where every time a certain character enters the room, his/her entrance is always followed by snarky wisecracks from the other characters.
What kind of moron has an internet connected bank account?.
You're right, not strict Libertarians.
Narcissists come to mind.
passetspike!
To "victim-blame", there has to be a victim. Notice how these celebrities are so embarrassed about the "leaks" that they make sure we keep talking about them. Notice how their attorneys are looking for the biggest, most wealthy entities to sue (such as Google) and not doing anything to find the alleged culprits. Notice how we haven't heard a word out of the so-called "hacker" since a few news stories said that person went into hiding.
What happened here is that somebody got the idea that celebrity photos could be "leaked" to rake in lawsuit bucks. I don't believe that there is a hacker. The people with the most to gain from this are the so-called "victims". They didn't expect us to actually be appalled at their privacy being violated. They didn't expect comments to be posted all over the Internet by people who have seen the leaked content that it's underwhelming and not worth looking up. They expected the Internet to go wild over this like tabloid gossipers, as if we all have a paparatu mentality.
Celebs, we actually like you for your talents and not your bodies. And we respect you as people. Sorry about that.
Just because someone is a victim, doesn't mean they cannot be blamed. Not does it mean they must be blamed.
In fact, there is no relation at all between being a victim and being blamable by a reasonable person - neither positive nor negative. Stop connecting the two.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
n/t
Great questions!
My answer is: belligerent invasions of privacy hurt me and people I care about just as shoplifting hurts me and people I care about. And both are common enough forms of petty disorder to merit attention by the police.
Sex crime? That's over the top. But bad guys here should be pursued at least as diligently as shoplifters are.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
How much obligation do you believe a free Internet site has to maintain the security of the data you store with them? Even banks don't promise that hackers won't breach your account... only that if they do breach your account despite reasonable and prudent security measures, the bank will replace your money.
Why did you run the red light? Were you drunk? Rushing to beat a yellow? Distracted by a conversation with your passenger? Burnt out traffic light? Brakes failed? Criminal law determines culpability with two measures: actus rea (you ran the red light) and mens rea (why you ran the red light). Both have to be proven for there to be a crime. So depending on why you ran the red light, there could be anything from murder to manslaughter to just a tragic accident.
Was I outside the crosswalk? Jaywalking? Maybe I dashed into the street as the light changed offering drivers no chance to react. That may well mitigate your culpability, dropping the matter from murder to manslaughter or even from manslaughter to civil wrongful death. No matter how badly behaved you were, if my behavior foreclosed reasonable opportunities for you to avoid the tragedy then I share culpability.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Shoplifting is a great example. If a shopkeeper catches the perp in the act, they get charged with a minor crime. But, zero public resources are spent on investigation, because it just isn't worth the trouble.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Lessons learned:
1) Things that don't exist cant leak or get stolen
2) Computer security matters for everyone!
I now that #1 was the main point of the victim blamers. But it's simple and true. It's the victimblamers conclusion that is wrong that you shouldn't have (or create) anything.
bickerdyke
The clouds must be crazy. I thing thats exactly the problem
Sure taking pics and sending them on the internet isn't that good of an idea. However it shouldn't need to represent the overall character of the person.
Actually, the issue at hand is quite the opposite of that.
The brouhaha is around Lawrence's image of a nice, clean, maybe a little bit clumsy, but generally wholesome talented young girl who just recently won an Oscar and was nominated for another one.
And who is made into an idol to hundreds of thousand of girls and women through the recent movie adaptations of Hunger Games books.
That was, and IS, society's understanding of her overall character.
In comparison, Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears... were all labeled and treated by the society as bimbos and sex kittens.
I.e. Sluts and whores.
Some of them laughing it off or even profiting from the incidents further cemented their image of a whore.
Which, from time to time, is considered a positive thing.
Pamela Anderson went on Oprah and they talked about their favorite sex positions and how big (or small - Oprah) their husbands' dicks were.
Literally. It was fine. Girls will be girls. Girl power and all that. Te-he.
Sex and the City made an image of a woman as a materialistic nymphomaniac who profits (one way or another) from her sexcapades a positive thing for years.
The 50 shades craze?
A poor, sexually repressed girl hooks up with a perverted billionaire and they engage into S&M for several books (and apparently movies) - AND THAT'S A LOVE STORY.
BUT...
Society, being part fans part judgmental mob, remembers them all as WHORES.
And you don't marry your whore or bring her back to meet the parents. Except in fairy tales like Pretty Woman.
Nor do you make a fuss of it when someone brings out the photos or videos of that whore's ass - again.
"We've seen it. Move on. She made good money out if it. She probably staged it all. After all, she's an actress. Theaters weren't traditionally right next to whorehouses for no reason. She wouldn't take that photo/video if she didn't intend to share it - like a whore would."
Nor do you bring her home to babysit for your kids and be a role model for your daughter.
Oh... But what if your daughter chooses the newly revealed whore as a role model anyway?
And we know she's a whore cause she walks like a whore, quacks like a whore, dresses like a whore, takes naked selfies like all whores do and shakes her ass and boobs for everyone to see on TV...
Too late to sign her out from that archery class, and that guy with big arm muscles there says that she's "raw talent" and that maybe she could get into next Olympics if she trains hard.
And other stuff.
Well, then you rise up in righteous indignation against those people who treat her, and by extension your daughter, girlfriend, sister, cousin, high school crush, friend... as a common whore.
I.e. Those who share her whore-photos around as if she's just another whore.
Remember when way back in the day a former beloved first lady was called a sinner and a whore who should be excommunicated from the Church cause through no fault of her own she was photographed naked, in a private surrounding, through a telephoto lens?
Press invented a cute nickname for her too.
But despite one being a widow of an assassinated president, and the other an overrated 24-year-old actress, J-Law is a saint while Jackie O was a hoe.
MY DAUGHTER DOES NOT ASSOCIATE WITH WHORES!!! GOT THAT!
Unless say you want to expose to your boss and the general society things like your Google Searches, or your DNS logs, magazines, or surveillance camera of you taking a second glance at the one other person.
Except nobody exposed that here, right?
Nobody cares what J-Law reads and what she searches for.
But everybody cares if she shows her ass or allows her ass to be shown - like a whore.
Cause, a
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
We know she felt she needed to do this. We do not know if he solicited for this or not.
Do not assume that just because she's famous or talented that she's necessarily reasonable. She's subject to the same fallacies, errors in judgment, and emotional self-delusion as everyone else is.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The error here is assuming that a woman should be with a boyfriend who looks at porn to begin with. Admittedly, that might make for an extremely small pool of datable men, but on the plus side, it weeds out all the guys likely to become abusive because they've fallen into watching BDSM videos.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
No, it is not well known that this is a big tangled insecure mess. We know what's going on, but there's no reason non-technical people should need to know our field in such detail. I have never, when doing something, seen a warning that the Internet is not particularly secure, and that I should take precautions. It is reasonable for a non-techie to assume that such messages are reasonably secure, absent a specific warning. (If you disagree, consider all the people who act as if that were true. They're not all stupid or overly trusting. The worst that can be said of them is that they were badly taught.)
The internet is, fundamentally, very hard to understand. We have various metaphors (like email, which is often thought of as computer-to-computer mail), and they tend to break down fairly easily, meaning that user expectations are frequently misguided. The only way to understand how it works is to study it in some detail, which is natural for us computer geeks but not anybody else.
One's own choices are made by figuring likely outcomes and their probabilities and impact. If one doesn't understand what's going on, one will make potentially bad (because uninformed) choices.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
For a worthwhile comment to a news story on the Internet and that includes this comment
Real porn or fake porn? Because if they look for it, I'm prety sure they're going to find something. Welcome to the future.
Ah, contracts. Now there you might have something. But would you say that it was "immoral" that a celebrities private data was compromised? What if a paperazi somehow managed to be a peeping tom? And this is a successful hollywood actress, so it actually DOES matter what she and her lawyers can argue in court if the studio tries to have her fired. But then again, JUST LIKE I SAID LAST TIME, that would have half the country calling foul. And that would lose them money.
Right, until the moment that it goes from being a single shoplifter to a shoplifting ring or a high value shoplifter. At that point, public resources do get spent on the investigation, because it becomes worthwhile. Here, you've got a case involving someone breaching the security on not just one, but dozens of accounts. This, then, falls into that later category.
--AC
Thanks for posting that. I had the same thought. After writing at length about the dangers of making logical errors in argumentation, Haselton ends with this bizarre, irrational outburst. So, if a woman dresses modestly, she 1) is not a "real woman", 2) is "a moron", and 3) subscribes to some fringe, ultra right wing version of Christianity. Methinks he is violating "the rules of consistency and logic". Perhaps he thought this was a joke, but if so, it falls pretty flat given the tone of the rest of his essay.
Then, there's this nugget. Haselton claims that an objective cost/benefit analysis "is, in fact, the only rational defense of any action, ever." No. Doing something because it's the ethical or moral course of action can be perfectly rational, even if it would fail a straightforward cost/benefit analysis. I'd be suspicious of anyone who believes that the only way to make every decision is by approaching it strictly as an economics problem.
An objective cost/benefit analysis says that killing off the poor, the incurably ill, and disabled is not only justifiable but in fact failing to do so is not justifiable: the costs to society of keeping them around outweighs any (objective) benefits.
I certainly hope I don't have to explain how this is wrong from an ethical or moral perspective; I have no idea quite where to start with all that is wrong there.
Admittedly, I am taking Haselton's proposition there to its logical extreme, but as it is being proposed as the sole means for justifying actions, it is reasonable to require it remain acceptable even then. Let us err on the side of caution and humanity's rather depressing track record, when it comes to these kinds of things.
But, if you want something more realistic?
Let's say that the cost to a woman of dressing modestly is relatively low: she may have to spend a little more time and effort shopping to find the clothes she wants, but that's about it. The benefit? Well, for one, there's something many Muslim women have pointed out: Men respond differently. You have a vastly easier time getting men to take you seriously, and they're not thinking about how tight your orifices may or may not be & how easily they might get to find out.
More importantly, if a guy is put off by a woman opting to dress modestly because he thinks she might not want to even kiss him until this is a committed relationship, he certainly should not be expected to respect any of the other choices she makes & limits she sets.
So, cost? Possibly a bit more time and effort in obtaining clothes. Benefits? It does help her significantly in getting taken seriously as a human being, and quite possibly has the additional benefit of reducing the number of men flirting with her who have trouble with the apparently difficult concept that no means, surprisingly enough, no.
This one does manage to pass the 'fails to be objectionable' test, but notice that it ends somewhere vastly different from where he does...
Can we demand honesty?
Casteism
It was putting them online and/or trusting apple not to.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
The victim is not to blame for the actions of the thief. Repeat it 1000 times, or until it sinks into that thick skull of yours.
Appeal to Assertion is not proof, it's a logical fallacy. The addition of an ad hominem simply proves that you have no rational debate.
except nobody stored them on a "public" server. They stored them in their own account on various online services' shared servers
Servers that are in Public view, in Public space, with Public addressing. Not only are you illogical and irrational, you are a liar. It is no surprise that you hide behind anonymity out of shame.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Incorrect.
Democracy means that the people get to decide what laws are passed. It does not mean they get to pick and choose when the law is enforced.
As for Snapchat, you will never be able to articulate any intelligent reason as to why it should be considered "malignant", and you have already admitted that by not even making an attempt to.
The best example of why 'if you don't want the public to see it, don't take it' it a truth and not victim blaming. Sadly even the cyberbullying and gang rape problems are far more serious than this. Gang rape in India has to do with open disrespect of the young females who don't want to be forced into the traditional Indian mode of dress and culture. They want to embrace our culture's dress and that's the wholly inappropriate, criminal response. Cyberbullying is an consequence of our racism and culture's hate on each other. These things that used to be a shove into the locker or a drive driven off the road. Still assault but now worse with anonymity attached.
However, there is no real anonymity on the Internet, so they can always be found out. (even tor isn't truly impenetrable).
The most important thing to remember is the Fappening is Celebrity shenanigans.