How To Protect YOUR Nude Photos On Apple ICloud And Other Sites After Hackers Exposed Celebrities' Nude Pictures
(CBS SF) -- The simplest way to avoid having your nude photos posted all over social media like those of Jennifer Lawrence, Kim Kardashian, Rihana, Selena Gomez, Kate Upton and dozens more were on Sunday, is a) not to take nude photos with any device connected to the Internet (or maybe don't take them at all) and b) don't upload them to the Internet for storage "in the cloud," however some celebrities may not even realize their photos were stored on iCloud.
Assuming you can't resist the urge to take a nude photo, or assuming you just don't want people seeing any of your photos, there are a few steps you can take. Make sure your photos are not automatically uploaded to iCloud, or Shutterfly, or Google Drive.
For these links, be aware most companies want you to turn features ON, not turn them off, so these instructions may help you set up the service. You'll need to get into these settings and reverse the process, but this will get you started if you use any of these.
ANDROID/GOOGLE: Turn Off Auto-Upload
APPLE PHOTO SHARING: How To Turn It On, Or Off
APPLE iCLOUD PHOTO STREAM: How To Delete Photos
APPLE PHOTO STREAM: How To Turn It On, Or Off
Now, once you've figured out if your photos are automatically being sent to the Internet, the next step is making certain you have a VERY secure password for Google Drive, or iCloud, or other online-based services that put your private photos and files at risk.
The trick is to use symbols and numbers, but don't do it randomly. Use words you can remember, but replace the letters with numbers.
Oakland could become 0@k1and. Replace the "O" with a zero, the "a" with an "@," etc. This way, you still remember a pretty simple word, but it's much harder to hack with the type of brute force attack suspected in the August 31st, 2014 iCloud breach.
Some people refer to this replacement alphabet as "Leetspeak" -- a system of replacing letters with very similar ASCII numbers and symbols. Imagine the symbols and numbers as shapes, not anything more, and it becomes easy.
PRIMER ON LEET: How to \/\/R1t3 easily in code
If your password was your maiden name of SMITH, use $m!t[-].
Try a few more and it gets easier, and your passwords will be more secure.