(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)
Celebrities and technology aren’t always a good mix and the latest proof of that is the Twitter phishing attack earlier this week.
The Twitter attack resulted in 33 high-profile users of the site including United States president-elect Barack Obama, pop princess Britney Spears and television reporters having some startling messages left on their sites, including a rather unkind comment about the state of poor Britney’s girly bits and the teeth contained within.
Ick.
In the past, celebutard* Paris Hilton has had her Sidekick (a kind of whizz-bang cellphone) hacked and had personal photos and contact details of some of her real celeb buddies posted online, then there was the matter of that wee sex tape she starred in, but it seems every second Hollywood-type is getting their gears off and doing the nasty on film these days so I suppose that doesn’t really count.
King of the Speedos David Hasselhoff got himself filmed having a booze-fuelled late-night munchies attack with a hamburger. The video hit YouTube and has since become the stuff of legend.
Then there’s recently out-of-the-closet actress Lindsay Lohan’s father Michael, who has been conducting a very public and very tacky hate campaign against his daughter’s girlfriend, DJ Samantha Ronson; and Courtney Love has the world’s most rambling, disjointed but strangely compelling blog where she appears to be rather fond of celeb-blogger Perez Hilton but not so fond of the Kardashian siblings Kim and Rob (who, as far as I can tell, are famous for having a reality show on Sky and being somewhat vacant).
Oh, and let’s not forget the numerous caught-on-film antics of Amy Winehouse doing strange drug-addled stuff, Bob Geldof’s daugher Peaches smoking something illegal (give a kid a name like that and what do you expect, a nuclear physicist?) and the aforementioned Lohan-Ronson couple having a row on New Year’s Eve.
It’s worrying that after all the warnings, people are still falling for phishing attacks. Especially celebrities, who have even more reason to want to protect their privacy than the rest of us plebs.
Come on guys, it’s time to get a little more net-savvy.
* CELEBUTARD: Noun, A portmanteau, or new word, made by combining celebrity, debutante and retard. Used to describe pseudo-celebs who are often famous for little more than their ability to enter rehab.