AS the news hit the media, on the amount of celebrities whose personal lives were no longer private, due to a hacking breakdown on Apple iCloud services, people everywhere are worrying about their personal iCloud platforms. iCloud is a service that is provided to Apple customers who want to upload their photos, contacts and videos to the cloud for ease of access and backup purposes. The platform is a great add-on for any iPhone or iPad device, as so many people are finding that everything they need is on their phone and if it ever breaks down or gets lost, they find themselves in limbo. But with iCloud, the user just pops into shop, gets replacement devices and logs onto their iCloud with all their personal collections downloaded directly to the device.

Phones are convenient snapshots of life

With the growth of Smartphone capabilities, including the magnificent resolution the built-in cameras offer, people are becoming amature photographers. Some professional photographers would say that the capabilities of a smartphone may outweigh the spec of a professional camera that is 2 years old. Since the photos are of good quality, more people are sharing their precious moments captured on social media and other online services. People are now living more in a Kodak moment than they are experiencing real life. Go to a concert, go to a bar, go to a park, go to a restaurant, go sight of interest, actually go anywhere and tell me what is common in all situations! Selfies are the common theme. From teenagers taking photos of being out and about with their mates to adults out in the town and visiting people, all situations consist of a camera and a snap. Everyone wants to capture the moment they were having fun with certain people. Sometimes, capturing this moment takes away from actually living the moment.

Sexting has become a ‘Norm’

Its fun to share photos of people having a good time, but when people are asked to sent intimate photos, they feel under pressure and often do reply with a photo of little to no clothing on their person. A recent McAfee survey in America found that 80% of 21 year olds send/receive a sext and 46% are naked selfies. Last year, I talked about the implications of children Sexting and how they could damage their character and how Geraldo Rivera made a blunder of himself taking a selfie while under influence, changed his professional character. Now the development of naked celebrities having naked selfies being sold online for BitCoins is a little bit far out of the realm of possibilities in the past 5 years. But now, with all photos on third-party cloud Apps such as Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud and many other free services, it comes to no surprise that these can be hacked also. The reason we know now, is that celebrities are involved. Surely, there are more photos on these hosting servers that just celebrities. But difference in us having a selfie being hacked is, we do not have the star status to gain money from ownership of the photos.

Whose fault is it that my naked selfie is online?

The question for anyone that has been compromised in their security is who do they blame? Is it Apple? Is it Nokia? Is it the hackers? Is it the inventor of the internet? Maybe all of them are to blame. But we ourselves must take responsibility for our actions. If we did not take certain photos on our devices and let them be backed up to an online server, would there be pictures online now? Same rule of thumb applies to people who are cyber-bullied by their photos they send. Look at Amanda Todd whose live was devastated by sending a nude image online to someone she did not know. Think before you send was the message behind the campaign to prevent bullying. Think before you snap, should be the campaign now.

Forget about online servers

If there was no internet or cloud servers, would there be an issue. Think about local downfalls. If you have photos or texts on your phone, do you have

1)      A pin or password on the phone

2)      A lock on certain Apps

3)      A security software program blocking incoming hacks

4)      Hidden folders or Text

These are just some ideas to keep your photos/texts on your phone, but no.1 rule is

DON’T TAKE A PHOTO YOU WILL LATER REGRET!!

How to get in contact with me

If you are interested in finding out if how you can work better with your children and schools to enhance the learning of your children with online devices please contact me Help@CyberSafetyAdvice.comor Ring 086-2377033 for more information