Recently, I wrote an article about how important it is to be careful with your personal information and what you post online. Well, now it’s also important to be careful what you upload to the cloud. 101 celebrity’s iCloud accounts, including the accounts of Kate Upton and Jennifer Lawrence, have been claimed to be hacked and some of their nude pictures leaked to the Internet.

  This is not the first time this has happened, and it certainly won’t be the last. If you are famous, people will want to see you naked, it’s almost a law of nature.

  I’m not blaming the celebrities for taking pictures of themselves, it’s been happening since photography became easy and accessible and even before. I’m also not saying it’s okay that they were hacked, it’s an invasion of privacy. I’m saying this could have been prevented. My concern with this is that people keep uploading their private pictures to an off-site storage center, sometimes without knowing they are.

  By default, most smartphones auto-upload photos to the cloud. The cloud is a good idea on paper, you save a file to the Internet and you can access it anywhere on any device you own. It’s like having an invisible flash drive that needs an Internet connection. But the cloud isn’t a magic place in the sky where you can send your recipes and vacation photos. It’s a server in an office no different from any other server. If you save a picture on your computer, it’s on your hard drive, only you can access it unless you decide to share it. If you upload it to the cloud, it’s on someone else’s hard drive that you have to trust is being protected. If you can access it anywhere, so can anyone with the time and patience to hack their way into it.

  Most accounts are hacked by guessing passwords and security questions. Don’t make your password something easy like a phone number or address. Don’t make your security questions something on public record. There are websites that can find your full name, relatives, address, email account, date of birth, phone number and where you’ve lived. Someone dedicated enough can find your school teacher’s names or look through your Facebook to find your favorite color or movie.

  A private citizen probably doesn’t have to worry about it, but celebrities are not private. They live on screen and their job is to be seen. The number of people who want to see them naked is much higher than the average person. Unless you have a personal stalker, there’s not much of a chance someone will target you for your nudie pictures. But why risk it? Look through your phone and make sure you know what the settings are. Do you want your private pictures copied and sent to a server you don’t own? Do you want Apple or Google to know your physical location at all times?

  Don’t take this technology at face value and accept it as part of life. Make sure you are in control of your privacy.