We all have a favourite Hollywood star.  Whether it’s Al Pacino thinking he’s out but being pulled back in during The Godfather Trilogy.  Or maybe it’s Meryl Streep doing some Thatching in The Iron Lady.  Perhaps you prefer Sissy Spacek covered in pig’s blood in Carrie.  If so, you’re a little odd.

Whatever your taste in actors, we can’t get enough of them.  We’re quite happy to attend our multiplexes, get a bucket of popcorn and a cup of Cola that’s large enough to bathe in and re-mortgage our homes in order to afford the tickets to watch them in Transformers vs Aliens Part XII – The Final Part for Real This Time, Honest.  But how far would you take this adoration?  Would you want to see private photos of your favourite Hollywood actor naked?

Names, names, names...

All across the news in recent times, star after star has discovered that nudie pics have leaked across the internet.  The most recent victims have been stars with such names as “Kim Kardashian”, “Vanessa Hudgens”, “Mary-Kate Olsen”, “Leelee Sobieski”, “Kaley Cuoco”, “Hayden Panettiere”, “Jennifer Lawrence” and “Selena Gomez”.  (No, we don’t know who they are either…)

It doesn’t stop with Hollywood either.  Woman foot soccer ball kicker, Hope Solo and chart-troubling songstresses Rhianna and Avril Lavigne (yes, we’ve heard of them) have had naughty pics released too.  But how did such photo thievery take place?  And what can be done to avoid it?

Well, initially the photos turned up on websites such as 4chan and Reddit but were soon taken down quite quickly.  Something called a “celebrity blogger” that goes under the name of “Perez Hilton” (yes, we thought that was a South American hotel too) then had to apologise for re-posting them.

Rotten Apple?

It’s believed that the majority of the photos came from Apple’s iCloud storage system although the computer giant has denied their security had been compromised.  Apple is blaming the victims for using passwords that were too easy to guess.  They also suspect users have been duped into handing over passwords to cyber criminals pretending to be Apple.

Whatever the reasons, the photos keep on coming and the whole thing is being investigated by the FBI.  The simplest way to avoid such private photos becoming public is to not take them in the first place.  Or at least, if you’re going to get saucy in front of the lens, don’t have your face in shot.

Security

The next step to avoid your private pics becoming public is to regularly change passwords and don’t make them easy to guess.  Then of course, never ever give away your passwords to anyone.  “This is all fairly basic and obvious stuff”, we hear you cry.  Well keep your voice down.  Think of the neighbours.  Yes, it is all fairly basic and obvious but they’re easy things to forget and keeping on top of it keeps your private stuff private.  Not just your pics but your financial dealings too.

Of course, this is a very modern phenomenon.  It’s never been easier to take photos.  It’s never been easier to find things so quickly.  In the golden age of Hollywood there was no internet and there were no digital cameras or smartphones.  So you never heard of naked photos of Ginger Rogers, Doris Day and Laurel & Hardy doing the rounds.

Then again, perhaps we should all be thankful for that.

For the original news story, please visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/29300374

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