Skilled hackers like Christopher Chaney, who in 2012 broke into the emails (Daily News) and leaked nude photos of Scarlett Johansson, Christina Aguilera, and Mila Kunis, have used the very low-tech recovery method of changing passwords to infiltrate private accounts. Once an email sign-in name is gleaned or figured out, a hacker can use public information to answer the recovery questions, which on sites like Yahoo require answers for questions like: What’s your father’s middle name? Which street did you grow up on? What’s your dog’s name?
Chaney was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his handiwork. From a dark bedroom in their mothers’ house to a six-by-eight-foot solitary confinement cell, hackers will never find the urge to be alone as fulfilling or rewarding if sentenced to prison for leaking private photos.
A person who loves his starlets so much that he wishes to share pictures of their nude bodies with millions of people undoubtedly adds to the accolades and support these celebrities get. Take this Vox article, which features the AV Club’s Sonia Saraiya and an impassioned reminder of the talents and successes of actresses like Jennifer Lawrence fully clothed.
The queen of celebrity gossip and trash-talking, Perez Hilton has been a powerful central engine in the circulation of some demoralizing words said about her fellow men and women, and has enabled links to leaked nude photos in the past. However, after some folks called him a “rapist” and a “sex offender” on his blog, Hilton issued an apology on his website to Jennifer Lawrence, vowing to never help perpetuate leaked photo-viewing again.
Kim Kardashian was just the rich daughter of a famous Los Angeles defense attorney before her sex tape with Ray-J was leaked. Like her best friend Paris Hilton, she hit the big time with a well-timed leak of the video, as well a multi-million deal struck with the company that owned the rights to the tape.
In the summer of 2014, Arizona passed the “Revenge Porn Bill” HB 2515, which said any person responsible for the online publication of nude photos or sexual videos without the consent of the subject could get up to a year in prison, and a $150,000 fine. See how powerful these people are? They get laws passed.
What must it be like to sit in your grandmother’s basement at a laptop control center, watching bloggers and pontificaters tear each other apart, knowing you’re at the center of a debate over posting nude photos? It must be like conducting an orchestra of millions of instruments out of harmony with each other. You can check out some of the arguments in the debate including Hijacked‘s Emma Noble or Robin Abcarian in the Los Angeles Times article.
This act of leaking stimulates debate. Whether it was the 4Chan “collector’s” intention, the commodification of women and their bodies is interweaved into all of these incidents; their privacy is less valuable than their nakedness shared with millions, and this is why light is shed on the ongoing issue.
This fascinating article on The Verge highlights the hypocrisy of people who tweet against the U.S. government for spying on its citizens, but validate leaked photos by clicking and sharing nude photos Jennifer Lawrence sent to her boyfriend.
Jennifer Lawrence did not send you those photos because you are not her boyfriend. After all that hard work, you’re still single.
