Yesterday one of the Great Big Sea’s
favourite family members Scott Grimes Twitter account was hacked. For
those of you who do not know Scott Grimes he is a friend of Alan
Doyle’s and Russell Crowe who collaborated on the Indoor Garden
Parties and a couple of movies including Robin Hood, Winter’s Tale
and the television series Republic of Doyle with Allan Hawco.
Several months ago Alan Doyle and Sean McCann had their Twitter
accounts hacked. They are one of hundreds of celebrities from around
the world who have had their phones, computers or accounts like
Twitter hacked. Just before Christmas one of my favourite actors
Viggo Mortensen had had his phone hacked and pictures leak all over
the Internet. I began to read about the hacking of celebrities by
individual fans such the American Chaney to hacking groups called
Hollywood Leaks.
In December an American man Chaney was
convicted to ten years jail in a Federal prison for hacking into
approximately 50 celebrities’ phones and email accounts. He was
also ordered to pay approximately $66 000 in restitution. He hacked
into a range of email, phones and computers where he found a range of
information including photographs and personal details and then
posted the information on the Internet where anyone could see them.
Some of the details he gave to Internet sites. The victims included
Scarlett Johansson, Mila Kunis and Christina Aguillera. Chaney told
journalists he “was addicted to intrusion and didn’t know when
to stop”. He said “the hacking started as curiosity and it
just turned into just being, you become addicted to behind-the-scenes
to what’s going on with these people you see on the big screen
everyday” (as sited in Duke 2012). But this man was acting
alone and is not the only hacker targeting celebrities. There are
hacking groups called ‘Hollywood Leaks’ who are continually
trying to get into celebrities private information. This group is
distinct from the media organisations who continually hack
celebrity’s accounts. There have many theories that celebrities
also deliberately leak information to various media outlets for extra
publicity.
On the 24 December 2012 another actor
Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn in Lord of the Rings) had his phone/computer
hacked and photos distributed across the Internet. The much
anticipate sequel to Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit is due to be
released on the 26 December. The pictures were published by an
American magazine MediaMass who justified their actions by stating
they were in the public interest to publish them. The photos were
taken probably taken by the actor on a visit to the Lourve Museum in
Paris earlier this month. They include photos of paintings by the
French painter Ingres, German painter, Gregor Erhart, a statue by
Gaul, and Egyptian nude porcelain doll and a picture of his dog
playing with a tennis ball after recovering from surgery. The FBI is
investigating the alleged hacking incident and other instances of
celebrity phone and email hacking.
But it is not only images the hackers
are after. In March 2011 two men used a computer to hack into Sony
Music and steal hundreds of recordings of Micheal Jackson, Beyonce
and others. They were accused of taking several thousand songs that
were copyright and sell them on and distribute them on the Internet.
“James Marks and James McCormick pleaded guilty to hacking into
US serves owned by Sony Music Entertainment and downloading almost
8,000 files. They received six-month sentences, suspended for one
year, and were each ordered to compete 100 hours of community
service. Marks, 27 is from Daventry, Northamptonshire, and McCormick,
26 is from Blackpool. The two men used their home computers to
exploit a weakness in Sony’s servers, hunting – they claimed for
evidence that some Jackson’s posthumous releases were sung by an
impersonator” (Michaels 2013).
This is an interesting article from The
Observer Saturday 11 September 2011 by Paul Harrison about hacktivism
in Hollywood. (No copyright infringement intended)
Behind the feelgood story lines and
happy endings of even the most bland Hollywood movies lurks a
formidable PR machine that exerts a grip on every aspect of a film's
life. From keeping scripts secret, to vetting press interviews with
stars, setting embargoes and filming on closed sets, big Hollywood
studios jealously guard their projects. After all, hundreds of
millions of dollars are often at stake. One slip-up can kill a movie
– and a dead movie usually takes a few careers with it.
So it is with growing horror that
the movie business and its galaxy of celebrities have witnessed the
emergence of a group of computer "hacktivists" dedicated to
cracking open Hollywood's most valuable secrets and releasing them
for all the world to see. Calling themselves Hollywood Leaks, the
anonymous hackers have stolen scripts for coming movies, revealed
nude photos of celebrities and placed their personal phone numbers
and email contacts on the internet for all the world to see.
Its victims have included action
star Gerard Butler, whose email address was put online, and Miley
Cyrus, the singer and actress, whose personal details were also
hacked. The script from the upcoming Tom Cruise movie Rock of Ages,
also starring Malin Akerman and Julianne Hough, was leaked. As have
scripts for the forthcoming Footloose remake and eagerly awaited
crime drama Gangster Squad, whose roster of big names includes Sean
Penn and Ryan Gosling.
Hollywood Leaks has sprung from the
underground world of computer hacking that has already produced
groups like Anonymous and LulzSec, whose targets have ranged from the
CIA and the US Senate to companies such as PayPal and Bank of
America. Those attacks often have a freedom of information agenda
with a political slant, but Hollywood Leaks appears different. It
just wants to destroy the carefully constructed Hollywood information
system that has grown up since the movie business first exploded into
popular culture in the 1920s. Using gaping holes in the major
studios' computer networks, Hollywood Leaks is on a mission to upset
an entire industry's way of doing business. "Once they get into
someone's network they can do a lot of damage," said Mark
Russinovich, a cyber security expert and technical fellow at software
giant Microsoft. The implications are potentially huge. Just imagine
if the plot twists for The Sixth Sense, The Crying Game or The Usual
Suspects had been leaked months before release, possibly destroying
their box-office potential. "Studios invest $100m or $200m in a
movie and losing that could screw up a major corporation," said
Richard Laermer, a celebrity expert and PR consultant.
Hollywood studios often force
journalists and reviewers to sign ferocious non-disclosure agreements
when they get sneak previews of upcoming movies. They ban certain
questions and declare personal lives off-limits. They take elaborate
security precautions to ensure no pertinent details leak out ahead of
time. And when they do want to hint at a movie's content – such as
with a big special effects feature like James Cameron's Avatar – it
is by tightly controlled releases of photographs or clips that they
themselves control.
Gayl Murphy, a Los Angeles-based
celebrity interviewer, knows all about the system first-hand. She
recalled being sent DVDs that would only play on a certain DVD
player, which she was also sent. Viewing them on any other device, or
making copies, was rendered impossible. "These guys are very
serious about what they do," Murphy said.
They have been from the very
beginning. As the studio system emerged in the 1920s, a new breed of
film executives discovered huge monetary potential in their films,
stars and even composers and costume designers. By the heyday of the
1930s and 1940s, studios bound their big-name actors and directors
with tight contracts that virtually made them a property of the
company. It was almost total control. Stars promoted products because
they were told to, appeared in magazines next to copy written by
studio PRs and even dated other stars as instructed.
"Studios controlled everything
and everyone, as best as any corporation could control individuals.
Contracts ruled everything and if you were under contract to a studio
you were, in essence, owned by them and you did what you were told to
do," said Professor Marsha Orgeron, a film history expert at
North Carolina State University.
Though the power of the studios
waned as the contract system broke down, the basic philosophy of
strict message control has remained. Big-budget movies became huge
money-making machines, often with secretive commercial tie-ins, and
with a strictly controlled PR message. After all, a movie is not like
any other product. You buy a fridge or a car or a TV because it will
work. You buy a movie ticket to be told a story, and knowing the
ending ahead of time, or having seen its stars' personal details
splashed all over the internet, shatters the carefully constructed
aura of the experience. "The difference between Hollywood and
other industries has to do with the monetary stakes, which are
extraordinary, and the nature of the product," said Orgeron.
Hollywood Leaks now threatens the mystique and mythology at the very
heart of the movie business and thus also puts at risk its huge
profits.
Of course, the dirty secret of
Hollywood studios and the most powerful PR agencies is that they
often love a good leak. While stars may rail against the paparazzi,
the fact remains that many PRs – and some of their more desperate
clients – will happily tip off a photographer. There is a reason
why celebrities return to the same restaurants and clubs night after
night, and it is not out of a desire for secrecy. Indeed little has
changed since the old days. Nothing creates more publicity –
especially with a romantic comedy – than the rumour that the
leading stars may have had an on-set romance. Such leaks, often
sanctioned by the studio and frequently not true, are good for
business. "There is no activity that Hollywood marketing
executives will not do," said Laermer. So leaks themselves are
not always bad. But what is terrifying for movie executives, PR
agents, celebrities and studio heads is the lack of control that
Hollywood Leaks is suddenly bringing into the process. Injecting an
anarchic hacker philosophy into one of the most carefully managed
industries in the world is a nightmare come true. "That is going
to drive the studios insane," said Murphy.
Which, for Hollywood Leaks, is the
point. The unknown hackers behind the group have sprung from a
hacktivist culture that celebrates the concept of "lulz",
which is tech slang for amoral mischief and creating havoc outside
normal societal boundaries. They would defend their actions as an
anarchic statement. Critics would see it as simple cruelty or
criminality driven by a culture dominated by antisocial geeks. On the
group's Twitter feed, updates urge followers to call the celebrity
phone numbers released. "People can't take a damn joke. We do it
for the lulz," reads one tweet. The motto of the group is: "We
do not forget. We do not forgive. Expect us."
In online exchanges with tech
journalists investigating the group, some of Hollywood Leaks' members
have done little to cast light on its simple chaos-sowing agenda.
"We're doin' it cause we can, cause it's fun, cause why not?
Fuck Hollywood – fuck that vapid greedy bullshit," one
hacktivist, going by the name Dapper, told Fruzsina Eordogh, a writer
for the Daily Dot online news website.
Eordogh said her contact with three
members of the group had persuaded her that they had little agenda
beyond having fun and causing trouble. "They view this hacking
of Hollywood as somewhat benign. Not very harmful. They don't feel
they are going to get in trouble with anyone," Eordogh told the
Observer. That might be naive. Hollywood studios employ some of the
wealthiest and most ruthless lawyers in the world. But what appears
certain is that the internet, which has already undermined the news
business, publishing and the music industry, is now knocking on the
door of Hollywood too. Maybe even kicking it down. In its own way it
is a classic Hollywood plot twist, though one that some experts think
the business should have seen coming.
"They thought that it could
never happen to them," said Murphy.
References
Crabtree P. Viggo Mortensen ‘Nude
Photos Leaded Online’ viewed 23 December 2012
Gregg M. ‘How Are Celebrity
Cellphones Hacked’ at Huffintonpost.com viewed 23 December
2012.
Harris, P 2011 ‘Hollywood Leaks
strikes fear into film industry bosses’ – The Guardian at
www.guardian.co.uk
11 September 2011 viewed 23 March 2013
Michaels, Sean, 2013, ‘Hackers who
stole Michael Jackson’s songs avoid jail’ The Guardian
January 13 2013 viewed on January 20 2013.
