Nudity in the Cloud

The FBI is now trying to figure out who hacked those nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities. But nude celebrity photos themselves are certainly nothing new.

What’s new is that this time, the photos were not deliberately uploaded or even emailed.

They were simply stored exactly as the late Steve Jobs intended, “We’re going to move the digital hub, the center of your digital life into the cloud.”

Which as any computer security expert, like Kevin Mahaffey, will tell you has its downside. “Before the cloud, if somebody guessed your password they’d have to go steal your laptop or your phone in order to get access to your data. Now, they can be anywhere in the world and use that password and take your data.”

If you’re a typical iPhone user, your data is being uploaded automatically, even though you’re not emailing it, Instagramming it, tweeting it or Facebooking it.

Making everything you presume to be private potentially hackable by Peeping Toms anywhere in the world.

Be grateful they didn’t hack into the phone itself and turn on the camera remotely – which we also know is technically feasible.

Whether the hackers managed to find celebrities with really obvious user names and passwords, or came up with a slick formula for guessing them – either way, more photos are bound to turn up .

Fortunately, it’s easy to protect yourself.

When arranging a nude selfie session, use old-school Polaroid, easily available at many thrift shops, often with a 20-year-old film pack still in it.

Another way is to put duct tape over your phone’s camera, and when taking the selfie, leave it there.

Of course, the best way is not to become famous, because then nobody cares what you look like nude.