This week during our Ethics in Media class, we were assigned to watch an episode of the TV show, Black Mirror, called “ Shut Up and Dance”. The episode was about a teenage boy, as well as several other victims, who had their webcams/electronic devices hacked, and the attackers used blackmail in order to make them complete several immoral actions for the hackers’ own amusement. While the episode was entertaining, it brought us to a much broader, unsettling question- Could this type of situation occur in real life? To our dismay, we learned that this hacking strategy is a very real, very scary occurrence. In this week’s blog post, you can learn all about the Ins and Outs of webcam hacking, as well as how to best avoid the situation.
Many hackers use things like downloads to access other peoples computers, in the case of the black mirror episode “Shut Up and dance” the main character Kenny got a virus on his computer from a free online movie site that his sister was using. He download a free clean my pc software where a hacker got a hold of his webcam cam blackmailed him to the point where it ruined. What can this episode teach you? For starters nothing is free and be careful of the things you download online because hackers can access your technology.
In 2014, Emma Watson became a target for a hacker after tweeting her thoughts about a recent hacking scandal. She said, “Even worse than seeing women’s privacy violated on social media is reading the accompanying comments that show such a lack of empathy.” In March 2017, Watson was hacked once again. Although she wasn’t nude in the photos, the pictures are of her trying on outfits during a fitting.
Online speculation that US actor Jack Black had died was the work of a hacker who posted messages on his rock band’s official Twitter account.This was later confirmed by Tenacious D themselves, who called the hacking a “sick ‘prank'”.
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