# Why all the hollywood hacking? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 24, 2017, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930 "2017-03-24T17:25:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dante\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@Dante\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante_G)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/1 "2017-03-24T17:25:01Z")
So in the world of social media and the internet that we live in now, it’s very common for the latest technology to be used and abused to expose information to the masses. I’m mainly referring to upcoming movie spoilers that can be revealed by hackers who find ways to get info about movies that are not even done being made yet. They then post all this info on the internet and now we know details and crucial plot points about movies that aren’t even out in theaters yet. My question to this whole thing is why? Why do the hackers feel the need to do this? Are they being paid? Are they doing it to just be trolls and expose the masses to info before it’s public. Yes, I know that I can avoid it by not going to websites to view it, which I already do. I actively try to stay away from spoiler sites, but I still wonder why it’s a popular thing. What do the hackers get out of it? The same could be asked for the ones who hack media personalities and celebrities personal media devices and put their personal videos and photos on the internet. Why is this popular? The money must be good I guess. Mods, feel free to move this to a different section if necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/2 "2017-03-24T17:38:34Z")
“4 the lulz” Pretty much. They do it because it’s a challenge and then they can all internet high-five one another when someone pulls it off. Why people try to hack private videos and photos pretty much speaks for itself. Bring someone else down and embarrass them, look at boobs, typical misogyny. Justify it by saying that they traded away the right to have their phone unhacked when they were foolish enough to become a Hollywood actress. ---
**Author:** ![Dante\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@Dante\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante_G)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/3 "2017-03-24T17:40:23Z")
So, basically, like I suspected … because they can. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/4 "2017-03-24T17:52:15Z")
Because they can, and because it’s both more interesting to hack celeb’s data than Joe Random’s - and you can find long lists of probable password elements by reading up on a celebrity. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/5 "2017-03-24T17:54:24Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > “4 the lulz” Yep. Rosebud is a sled. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/6 "2017-03-24T17:59:14Z")
Yeah, I’ll go with the Sir Edmond Hillary response, too. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/7 "2017-03-24T19:39:30Z")
I would personally suspect that half the time it’s studios and celebrities letting the information out surreptitiously to garner interest. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/8 "2017-03-27T06:33:13Z")
It’s not just because they can. It’s because people want to know that stuff, and there’s very little pushback. Anyone who doesn’t want to know won’t look. And, yes, I do suspect it’s often intentional. I know leaks are often intentional, so dressing up a leak with a fake hacking story, or even intentionally leaving something for hackers to easily find, would make sense. They definitely don’t care to secure stuff all that well. It’s not that hard to keep this stuff secure if they wanted to. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/9 "2017-03-27T08:46:42Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > It’s not just because they can. It’s because people want to know that stuff, and there’s very little pushback. Anyone who doesn’t want to know won’t look. Indeed. It would be trivially easy to hack me and release the math test I’m giving tomorrow, if you really wanted to and had the tools, but it wouldn’t give you the audience that releasing movie/celebrity tidbits would. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/10 "2017-03-27T10:57:37Z")
> [@naita](#): > > Indeed. It would be trivially easy to hack me and release the math test I’m giving tomorrow, if you really wanted to and had the tools, but it wouldn’t give you the audience that releasing movie/celebrity tidbits would. That’s a really silly answer. The reason you aren’t getting hacked is because 99.9999 percent of the world’s population do not know that you exist. _Of course_ nobody is going to be interested in clicking on a post “math test that some teacher somewhere is goingt to give tomorrow” instead of “Emma Watson nude bathtub selfie.” ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/11 "2017-03-27T12:51:07Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > That’s a really silly answer. The reason you aren’t getting hacked is because 99.9999 percent of the world’s population do not know that you exist. _Of course_ nobody is going to be interested in clicking on a post “math test that some teacher somewhere is goingt to give tomorrow” instead of “Emma Watson nude bathtub selfie.” Isn’t that exactly what I wrote? You seem to be implying something can’t be silly and correct, or maybe you missed that I was posting in support of the statement about the main reason for hacking this stuff being that people are interested in the output. Now we can add to that the additional factor that the only reason Dante G has heard of these hacks is that people were interested in the output. Even if math teachers were hacked with many times the frequence of Hollywood, it would probably not have reached Dante G’s ears. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/12 "2017-03-27T13:03:52Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > It’s not just because they can. It’s because people want to know that stuff, and there’s very little pushback. Anyone who doesn’t want to know won’t look. The two are interconnected though. You hack something and release it and bask in the knowledge that it became big news. But you don’t receive any credit for it, outside of your immediate community where you get to be Hero For A Day. There’s no material payoff, it’s just the joy of watching something you’ve done become a big deal – 4 the lulz. There’s no lulz if no one cares 😛 Granted, Hacker McHackintgon may be personally interested in who dies next in Game of Thrones but that’s not why he’s spreading it around. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/13 "2017-03-27T13:06:33Z")
Imagine the shock and agitation of a lovely young actress during the Fappening, finding out she wasn’t up there and non-stop ringing her agent to send him some hastily made photographs so he can rectify the omission. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/14 "2017-03-27T13:18:46Z")
> [@naita](#): > > Isn’t that exactly what I wrote? You seem to be implying something can’t be silly and correct, or maybe you missed that I was posting in support of the statement about the main reason for hacking this stuff being that people are interested in the output. Yes, but saying that “people are more interested in people that they have heard of than people that they have not heard of” is kind of obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/15 "2017-03-27T14:12:06Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > Imagine the shock and agitation of a lovely young actress during the Fappening, finding out she wasn’t up there and non-stop ringing her agent to send him some hastily made photographs so he can rectify the omission. If some young lady felt that publicly shared pictures of her boobs with a heap of faux-embarrassment were necessary to rocket her to fame, she’d probably just go with the “Twitter Oops”. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/16 "2017-03-27T14:47:28Z")
P’raps, but the mortification to a young lady of all her friends and friendly rivals being invited to the ball and her left outside in the rain would be such I would not hang around to hear. I always get Scarlett Johanson and Charlize Theron mixed up, yet both have released excellent semi-nudes of themselves in a normal way to get attention. And not just when they were starting out. Presumably they enjoy sharing ( millions of actresses _don’t_ go this harmless route ). To be ignored indicates one is no longer valued. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/17 "2017-03-27T15:46:15Z")
I sincerely doubt that anyone was legitimately mourning the fact that their iCloud accounts weren’t hacked and their photos disseminated without their permission. That’s not “invited to the ball”, that’s more like “Damn, all my friends got mugged and beaten in an alleyway but why not me?” Certainly, anyone who WOULD deeply wish that they too were beaten and mugged has far deeper issues than just being a “young lady”, even one in the attention-seeking circuit of Hollywood. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/18 "2017-03-27T16:13:56Z")
Having nude photographs one willingly took being published is the same as being _beaten up_ ? Perhaps I fear physical pain more than you. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-all-the-hollywood-hacking/782930/19 "2017-03-27T16:21:06Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > Having nude photographs one willingly took being published is the same as being _beaten up_ ? You mean “Having nude photos stolen and published without your consent is the same as being _invited to a dance_?” Certainly my example is more apt since both events are negative, harmful and illegal. To quibble the degrees of which while sitting on a ludicrous comparison to getting invited to a dance is just plain silly.