Cloud storage and computing, bruited as the electronic world's big advance that enabled storage of your videos, music, photos, and other heavy data in remote servers, has come under a cloud.
Turns out the of secure remote servers, including iCloud pioneered by Apple Inc., may be a pie in the sky after all; a hacker has broken into the iCloud system and siphoned off private photos of actresses that are now being slobbered over on social media by lascivious celebrity stalkers.
The anonymous hacker posted nude photos of 100s of Hollywood celebrities that were claimed to have come from their iCloud accounts using an iCloud security vulnerability. Victims of the hacking include actress Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
Apple, did not respond immediately to the outbreak, but some of the actressed stars were outraged. Representatives of one star (Jennifer Lawrence) told CBS the leakage was a flagrant violation of privacy, while another actress (Victoria Justice) denied the nudes were hers, and a third had a sulfurous response to the lecherous creeps feasting on her photos.
Victims of the hacking include actress Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Getty Image photo)
''Knowing those photos were deleted long ago, I can only imagine the creepy effort that went into this. Feeling for everyone who got hacked. To those of you looking at photos I took with my husband years ago in the privacy of our home, hope you feel great about yourselves,'' Mary Winstead tweeted sarcastically.
But to add insult to injury, Winstead was taunted on social media for her snarky response. ''Stop posing nude on camera, dummy,'' one tweeter wrote. ''Your husband not know what you look like nude? #LessonLearned''
Winstead's counter: ''Great day for the block button! Going on an internet break.'' She then added: ''Feel free to (read) my @'s for a glimpse of what it's like to be a woman who speaks up about anything on twitter.''
The episode gave fresh ammo to privacy advocates who have warned that nothing can be secure online no matter how much precaution one takes. Cloud computing should be named Cloudy computing, because it's precipitous, vague, messy, hazy and unpredictable, one critic had scoffed when the concept of remote storage (to obviate the need to keep large storage devices at home) first caught on earlier this decade.
It's not just individuals who have to worry about cloud computing security. Many corporations and businesses have moved into remote storage, a $ 20 billion industry that is growing at more than 50 per cent annually.
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