Hacking Up An Internet Sickness

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

            A computer genius/loser at life recently spent several months slaving away, night and day, to hack into the iCloud service and swipe nude photos of numerous celebrities.

            This goes to show you, some guys will do anything to see women nude. You know it was a guy. And apparently a guy who wasn’t satisfied seeing most of these people nude—or close enough to nude—o n movies or cable TV.

            I’ve never cared for this “cloud” idea, in which you send all your important computer stuff somewhere else so it doesn’t get lost if your computer crashes. So, where’s somewhere else? What is the cloud, really?

More computers. Someone else’s computers.

While putting your stuff on numerous different computers in theory makes it less likely to be lost, my problem has always been that it makes it easier for your stuff to be found.

            The hack involves such celebrities as Abby Elliott, Candice Swanepoel, Keke Palmer, and even Emily Ratjakowski. No, I have no idea who any of those people are. However, I’m assured they’re celebrities, and apparently my lack of knowledge means I don’t spend enough time on squeaky-clean websites like 4chan. If you don’t already know what 4chan is, do not go there.

Actually, I pulled those names out specifically because I don’t know those particular people. There were plenty of names I was familiar with, from the kick-a%@ Scarlet Johansson to the already-hacked-nude Vanessa Hudgens, to the I-don’t-ever-want-to-see-her-nude Kim Kardashian.

Some are denying the photos are actually of them, and in the age of Photoshop that’s a possibility. Some are basically admitting it the way Jennifer Lawrence’s lawyer did, by threatening anyone who reposts them. Mary E. Winstead (seriously, no idea) Tweeted that her hacked photos were deleted a long time ago. This proves two things: First, that the hackers went to extremely great lengths to get the proverbial goods. Second, that once you put something up on the internet, it’s there. Forever.

For anyone who tracks down my early efforts at fanfiction: Go easy on me.

            The whole thing came into the open over Labor Day weekend. I would have reported on this incident earlier, but I was busy surfing the internet. For, um, cute photos of … bunnies.

            There are two schools of thought about this incident. One is that the hacker is a serious scumbag who needs to be tarred and feathered, after which the tar and feathers should be set on fire. The other is that these are celebrities, and they should have known better than to allow whatever parts they haven’t already revealed onto the internet.

            Both sides are right.

            But the first side is righter … um, more right.

            Yeah, I get it; with many of these celebrities we’ve already seen all but an inch of two of everything. Anybody who watched Kirsten Dunst in that rainstorm scene during Spider-Man has pretty much seen the goods. (Seriously, white and braless in a driving rain? Were we meant to think that was an accidental choice?) Although I lose man points by admitting it, I haven’t paid much attention to the skin status on most of these other celebrities, who are almost entirely female.

            However …

            When Dunst chose to be in that movie, she got paid Big Bucks for it. That was her choice. Jennifer Lawrence, who I’ve only seen dressed head to toe depending on how you count the blue X-Men makeup, didn’t make that choice. It doesn’t matter if taking cell phone picks in the buff was a good idea or not (it’s not)—they didn’t volunteer to let the general public see them. Now they’re out there, and that’s one nude genie that can’t get stuffed back into its flesh colored bottle.

            Asking people not to look at them won’t work. There’s something pathological about men looking at photos of nude celebrities. There are certain things guys can’t look away from, like explosions and car wrecks, and for some reason the idea of seeing someone nude who they’ve heard of but don’t know personally is one of them. Sure, you could put a shock collar on them, but that never seems to help.

            But how about this: How about tracking down the hacker, and putting a shock collar on him? Here’s how it would work: Any time someone clicks on a nude photo that he leaked, the hacker gets shocked. Any time one of the victims thinks about it and gets mad, they push a button and the hacker gets shocked. Any time someone types “they should have known better” or any variant, both the hacker and the typer get shocked.

 
            It would be hacker hell. And that’s where he belongs.