For an increasing number of celebrities who have seen their nude photos being leaked online, The Fappening will always be a never-ending nightmare, which will come back to haunt them for a long time to come. Once it's online, it stays there, ready for the world to see. Meanwhile, for others it will serve as a source of frequent enjoyment, in no small part thanks to Apple. Its iCloud service appears to be the source of the leaks for most files, and this includes the latest batch, called The Fappening part 3, which just surfaced.
Reddit and 4chan have served as the gateways to the new leaked photos, with download links showing up this past weekend. It's a recurring theme, as the two community forums have been involved in propagating hundreds of such images since The Fappening hit in early-September. Threads on the topic have been banned and new policies have been implemented, but, despite these efforts, it is all for naught apparently.
The Fappening part 3 includes hundreds of private photos of Brooke Burns, Alexandra Chando, Cara Delevingne, Briana Evigan, Kelli Garner, Anna Kendrick, Misty May-Treanor, and Lauren O'Neil. Not all of them are nudes though, as there are some celebrities who do use common sense, albeit not enough, when it comes to the types of photos they take with their mobile devices.
In early September, The Fappening hit with hundreds of nude photos of Kaley Cuoco, Jessica Brown Findlay, Jennifer Lawrence, Hayden Panettiere, Kate Upton and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, among others, while, just last week, Amber Heard, Vanessa Hudgens, Kim Kardashian, Mary-Kate Olsen, Aubrey Plaza, Leelee Sobieski and Hope Solo were added to the list.
As my colleague Brian Fagioli says in one of his recent articles, "In the cloud, nothing is safe", really, no matter if Apple has beefed up iCloud's security. New security holes are discovered frequently, and some of them may be exploited well before Apple is aware of their existence. And, others will be ignored for months, until disaster happens.
Files that get uploaded on a server somewhere can still be accessed by hackers, especially if users do not understand the technology they use daily, and take steps to secure their personal accounts. Strong passwords, two-factor authentication, and other proven practices can decrease the chances of data theft. But, then again, who is really doing that, apart from power users?
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