The Celebgate or The Fappening is 2014 celebrity photo leaks
Beginning August 31, 2014, a collection of almost 500 private
pictures of various celebrities—mostly consisting of women, and with
many containing nudity, were posted on the imageboard 4chan, and later disseminated by other users on websites and social networks such as Imgur, Reddit and Tumblr. The images were believed to have been obtained via a breach of Apple's cloud services suite iCloud.
Apple later confirmed that the hackers responsible for the leak had
obtained the images using a "very targeted attack" on account
information, such as passwords, rather than any specific security
vulnerability in the iCloud service itself.
The event, which media outlets and Internet users referred to under names such as "Celebgate" and "The Fappening",
was met with a varied reaction from the media and fellow celebrities.
Critics felt that the distribution of the images was a major invasion of
privacy for their subjects, while some of the allegedly depicted
subjects questioned their authenticity. The leak also prompted increased
concern from analysts surrounding the privacy and security of cloud computing services such as iCloud—with a particular emphasis on their use to store sensitive, private information.
Celebrity photo leaks Procurement and distribution
The photos were being passed around privately for at least a couple
of weeks before their public release on August 31, although the details
are unclear. There are claims that many more unreleased photos and
videos exist.The Daily Mail cited anonymous posters from 4chan and Deadspin who stated that a ring of hackers, traders, and sellers had been operating for months leading up to the mass release. The images were obtained via the online storage offered by Apple's iCloud platform for automatically backing up photos from iOS devices, such as iPhone smartphones.
Apple later reported that the victims' iCloud account information was
obtained using "a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and
security questions", such as phishing and brute-force guessing, rather than any specific vulnerability in the iCloud service itself. It was initially believed that the images were obtained using an exploit in the Find My iPhone service.[8]
The hacker responsible for the leak, who described themselves as being a "collector", distributed the leaked images on the image boards 4chan and Anon-IB in exchange for Bitcoin.[12][13] Ultimately, the images were widely circulated online via other channels, including Imgur and Tumblr. Celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton
also re-posted some of the photos on his blog, but soon took them down
and issued an apology, saying "he had acted in bad taste".
A major center of activity was the link-sharing website Reddit,where a subreddit was created for sharing the photos;
in a single day, it amassed over 100,000 followers. Reddit
administrators were criticized for allowing this to take place in an
alleged violation of their anti-doxing rules.[18][19] As McKayla Maroney
claimed to be under 18 at the time the photos of her were taken, Reddit
staff took photos of her down and warned that anyone re-posting them,
or underage photos of Liz Lee
which had been circulating prior to this incident, would be permanently
banned from the site and could be prosecuted for distributing child pornography. On September 7, citing copyright issues, Reddit banned its "TheFappening" subreddit, also saying the workload of dealing with them had become too much. Reddit banned another subreddit named "Fappening" on the same day.
Celebrity photo leaksContent and victims
The original release contained photos and videos of more than 100 individuals that were allegedly obtained from file storage on hacked iCloud accounts,[23] including some the leakers claimed were A-list celebrities.
Shortly after the photos were leaked, several affected celebrities
issued statements to either confirm or deny the photos' authenticity.[26][27] Celebrities that have confirmed the photos' authenticity include Jennifer Lawrence (confirmed by her publicist),[28] Kate Upton and her boyfriend Justin Verlander (confirmed by Upton's lawyer),[29][30][31] Mary Elizabeth Winstead (confirmed on Twitter),[32][33] Jessica Brown Findlay (confirmed by spokesman),[34] Kaley Cuoco (confirmed via Instagram),[35][36] and Kirsten Dunst,[37] who also criticized the iCloud service.[38] Jill Scott confirmed on Twitter that one of the leaked photos was of her while stating that another was fake.
Celebrities who have denied the photos' authenticity include Ariana Grande[40][41] and Yvonne Strahovski.[42] Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney initially denied the images' authenticity on Twitter,[43][44] then later confirmed that the photos were legitimate while also stating she was underage at the time they were taken.[20] Victoria Justice denied that the photos were authentic but later stated on Twitter
that she was pursuing legal actions and found the leak to be a massive
invasion of not just her privacy, but of the privacy of all the
celebrities affected by the leak.[40][45] Reports in October indicated that Nick Hogan was the first male star to be directly targeted by hackers, however Hogan denied the pictures' authenticity.[46]
According to security expert Nik Cubrilovic, in addition to the
photographs, other personal information such as text messages,
calendars, address books, phone call logs and any other data stored on
their phones and backed up to the service were also likely stolen.[47][48]
Celebrity photo leaks Reaction
Writer Van Badham condemned the photo leak and the people who shared the photos.[49] Actress Lena Dunham
pleaded on Twitter for people not to view the pictures, saying doing so
"violat[es] these women over and over again. It's not okay."[50] Actress Emma Watson
condemned not only the release of the photos, but also "the
accompanying comments [on social media] that show such a lack of
empathy."[51] Actors Seth Rogen and Lucas Neff also spoke out against the hackers and people who posted the pictures.[52] Verlander, a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, told the media prior to a game against the Cleveland Indians that he keeps his private life private and would rather focus on the Tigers' race with the Kansas City Royals for the AL Central title than be a distraction to his teammates. Security analysts have stated that the breach could have been prevented through the use of two-factor authentication,[54] while a Forbes writer recommended turning off the iCloud "Photo Stream" feature (which uploads photos taken with an iOS device to iCloud servers automatically) entirely.
The incident has been given many names, including "The Fappening" (a portmanteau of "The Happening" and "fap", an internet slang term for masturbation);[56] and "Celebgate" (a reference to the Watergate scandal). The term "The Fappening" has received criticism from journalists like Radhika Sanghani of The Daily Telegraph and Toyin Owoseje of The International Business Times,
who said that the term not only trivialized the leak, but also,
according to Sanghani, "[made] light of a very severe situation"; both
articles used the term extensively to describe the event, including in
the headlines.
The FBI
said that it was "aware of the allegations concerning computer
intrusions and the unlawful release of material involving high profile
individuals, and is addressing the matter."[59]
Jennifer Lawrence contacted authorities and her publicist has stated
that the authorities will prosecute anyone who posts leaked images of
her.[60] Forbes columnist Joseph Steinberg
questioned whether the reactions by law enforcement and technology
providers indicated that celebrities were being treated different from
ordinary Americans, which, in the case of law enforcement, may be
illegal.[61]
Similarly, Apple stated that it had been investigating whether a
security breach of the iCloud service was responsible for the leaked
photographs, as per the company's commitment to user privacy.[54][62]
On September 2, 2014, Apple reported that the leaked images were the
result of compromised accounts, using "a very targeted attack on user
names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all
too common on the Internet."[9][10]
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Apple CEO Tim Cook
stated that in response to the leaks, the company planned to take
additional steps to protect the privacy and security of iCloud users in
the future. Notifications will be provided whenever data is restored to a
device via iCloud and after logging into iCloud via a web browser[63]
in addition to existing notifications when a user's iCloud password is
changed. Additionally, Apple will broaden and encourage the use of two-factor authentication in future versions of its software and operating systems, such as the then-upcoming iOS 8.
In conclusion, he emphasized that "we want to do everything we can do
to protect our customers, because we are as outraged if not more so than
they are."
On October 1, 2014, Google
was threatened with a lawsuit by lawyer Martin Singer for $100 million
on behalf of unnamed victims of the leaks, alleging that Google had
refused to respond to requests for the images to be removed from its
platforms (including Blogger and YouTube),
"[failing] to act expeditiously, and responsibly to remove the images",
and "knowingly accommodating, facilitating, and perpetuating the
unlawful conduct".
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Jennifer Lawrence
called the leak a "sex crime" and a "sexual violation". She added,
"Anybody who looked at those pictures, you’re perpetuating a sexual
offense. You should cower with shame."
Celebrity photo leaks Later releases
On September 20, 2014, a second batch of similar private photos of additional celebrities was leaked by hackers.Less than a week later, on September 26, even more private photos of various celebrities were leaked by hackers, which was dubbed as the "Fappening 3".On October 5, 2014, the fourth round hit Nick Hogan, the son of ex-wrestler Hulk Hogan.[70]
