I have mixed thoughts on the Scarlett Johansson pictures and the whole situation behind them.
First and foremost, I don’t care who you are, if you take nude pics of yourself, you run the risk of them getting out. It could be an accident on your part, a former boyfriend/girlfriend seeking revenge, etc. If you are a celeb, you are definitely a target. This was a dumb thing to do.
Secondly, I don’t condone the action of hacking her account, but there are measures one can take to minimize the possibility of this happening. Was it as secure as it could have been? I don’t know. If she had easy to guess passwords and the like, again… her fault.
Thirdly, I guess if you are in that situation you have 3 options. The first is that old standby “Deny, Deny, Deny”. That can work to an extent since some pictures aren’t very clear and there are a lot of people that may resemble someone else. In this case, they were pretty clear… or so I was told…
The other option would be to say “that’s me” and move on. People will forget about it shortly. Remember, the Kardashians, Lohan, or Paris Hilton will do something stupid to get the focus back on them.
The third option, and the one that she appears to have chosen (or more likely, “her people” chose) is to get lawyers involved and also the authorities. I don’t necessarily disagree with getting the authorities in on this. A crime was committed. They need to investigate. But her lawyers need to take a little lesson in Internet Tubes 101.
“The highly personal and private photographs at issue capture our client self-posing in her own home in a state of undress and/or topless. If you fail to comply, you will be acting at your own peril.”
What they are saying is “We confirm that these are nude pictures of Scarlett Johansson. We are also going to go after you because we are going to rid the internets of these pictures”.
Guess what? The pictures may disappear from one site, but they are going to be up on another… and another… and another. They will never disappear and there is nothing you can do about it.
And as far as the FBI goes… I’m sure agents are going to pull rank so that they can get this assignment. So they can take a very close look at the stolen pics… a very close look… and round up as many other nude celebrity pictures as they can for evidence.
It is unfortunate that this happened, but she made the decision to take the pics herself. And as that old saying goes, any publicity is good publicity. She should be more concerned if the pics came out and no one cared. That would be indicative that her career was over.