To quote this summer’s flop of a movie Sex Tape, “Nobody understands the Cloud!”. The Apple iCloud is a service that allows users to store information from their computer on a remote server. By doing this, users can access all of their apps, mail, calendar events, etc.. on multiple devices and reduce the risk of losing data when a device crashes. Sounds pretty perfect, right? Not quite. Apple has been criticized for its lack of attention to detail when it comes to user privacy and safety, and the iCloud has received the brunt of the complaints.
In August of this year, several female celebrities who were connected to the iCloud had their nude photos stolen from their phones by a hacker and leaked onto the Internet. Some of the celebrities affected include Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, and Victoria Justice. Apple was somewhat slow to comment on the blatant invasion of privacy, but CEO Tim Cook confirmed, “certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions.” However, Apple insisted that the iCloud is safe and new security measures will be taken to prevent this happening again in the future.
On the opposite side of things, there was also a recent controversy where Apple used the iCloud to download the band U2’s new album onto Apple users’ iTunes. Instead being excited to receive free music, many people are outraged at the breach in privacy and not having the choice to download. This kind of media sharing could become common in the future, which could be a great way to share or create more problems that leave people feeling unsafe.
So while the iCloud and similar cloud storage models are great for saving your History paper if your aging computer crashes, it begs a lot of questions about security and the future of multimedia sharing.
In August of this year, several female celebrities who were connected to the iCloud had their nude photos stolen from their phones by a hacker and leaked onto the Internet. Some of the celebrities affected include Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, and Victoria Justice. Apple was somewhat slow to comment on the blatant invasion of privacy, but CEO Tim Cook confirmed, “certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions.” However, Apple insisted that the iCloud is safe and new security measures will be taken to prevent this happening again in the future.
On the opposite side of things, there was also a recent controversy where Apple used the iCloud to download the band U2’s new album onto Apple users’ iTunes. Instead being excited to receive free music, many people are outraged at the breach in privacy and not having the choice to download. This kind of media sharing could become common in the future, which could be a great way to share or create more problems that leave people feeling unsafe.
So while the iCloud and similar cloud storage models are great for saving your History paper if your aging computer crashes, it begs a lot of questions about security and the future of multimedia sharing.