How Cameron LaCroy Hacks Paris Hilton's Cell Phone

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In 2005, Paris Hilton's cell phone was hacked and nude photos were posted on the internet. A 16 year old boy known as Cameron LaCroy exploited web interfaces in order to gain access to data on cell phones. He knows that she has a T-Mobile account because he sees a commercial with Snoop Dogg. It took me about three years to track him down after four years of COVID.

Modern computers are somewhat more secure against being hacked - either by an inanimate virus or a human interloper - than they used to be. But as our lives are increasingly intertwined with computers, the dangers that hacking poses are enormously greater. Why don't we just build unhackable computers? Scott Shapiro, who is a law professor and philosopher, explains why that's essentially impossible. On a philosophical level, computers rely on an essential equivalence between "data" and "code," which is vulnerable to exploitation. And on a psychological level, human beings will always be the weakest link in the chain of security.

Web page with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/05/29/238-scott-shapiro-on-the-technology-and-philosophy-of-hacking/

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Scott Shapiro received a J.D. from Yale Law School and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia. He is currently the Charles F Southmayd Prof of Law and Philosophy at Yale University. He is the Director of the Yale Center for Law and Philosophy and also Director of the Yale Cybersecurity Lab. He is the Co-Editor of Legal Theory, and Co-Editor for philosophy of Law at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. His new book is Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks.

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