Security Concerns

Last September one or many unidentified hackers claimed to have seized a number of iCould photos of famous celebrities including but not limited to Kate Upton, Anna Kendrick, and Jennifer Lawrence. Many nude photos of almost a hundred celebrities were made available to the public and noticed rather quickly throughout a very short period of time. This event was coined by ‘the internet’ as, “The Fappening,” named after revered M Knight Shyamalan’s critically acclaimed thriller, “The Happening.” The anonymous hacker left the door open for potential donations for posting said images, which would be paid in Bitcoins. Within the following morning, the account received over $120 in bitcoins.

Video Introduction

It’s nearly impossible to pinpoint who or how many could have been involved in doing this malicious act let alone figuring out where and how the money was divined in the end. Obviously all the leaked pics were most likely not from the same hacker and probably acquired at different times from a variety of different methods and were shelved until they could release it all at once in effort to make the leak more viral. Merely calling this process successful is an understatement. Even with this system inadvertently violating rights of privacy and promoting other crimes, the bitcoin system makes it hard to track even the most conspicuous acts of transaction in order to protect those who use it. “At any given time, between twenty and thirty thousand computers are online making up the network. Every time a transaction is made. If someone tries to spend a Bitcoin twice, the one that occurred first in time is valid, and the second is not.” (Turpin)