George Clooney, WikiLeaks' lawyer wife hand out burner phones to wedding guests George Clooney and his new wife – a human rights lawyer who has represented six-fingered embassy dweller Julian AssangeTM – went to extreme lengths to safeguard the privacy of their wedding, even issuing guests with "burner phones" under their control. Guests at last weekend's nuptials between George Clooney and top lawyer …
> Lawyer who has represented a client does not necessary have the same views as client.
Agreed!
Also, unless you paint with a very broad brush, they are not the same problems at all.
One is throwing light on public affairs, the other is preventing unwarranted publicity of private affairs.
So if some websites weren't leak proof, nothing can(should) be leak proof even if you benefitted from the aforementioned leaky websites ?
Or, if a lawyer defends a person who is defending a case when airbags didn't inflate during an accident shouldn't buy a car with airbags.
Or, more to your point, thieves shouldn't lock their doors ?
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/relevance/composition/
Is it just me that's nostalgic for the old days where we had 1 telephone and it was sitting at home connected to the wall through a cable.
The only way to share your pictures was to lug a album to the neighbors and show them. A "like" consisted of having a good time over a glass of coffee or beer.
aaaagh those were the times
Put down your spam fritters, and get with the program Daddio!
Now we've got telephones so small they can actually fit in a satchel. We've got modern fabrics that allow the production of flourescent socks. And we've got this amazing new storage format that allows you to record tons of music and text, or up to 2 hours of video. It's called laser disc...
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That could be the ultimate way to secure the exclusive rights to your 'special' day and maximise profit from Hello!* magazine. Set up an entire fake wedding, with fake guests and a fake bride. Go off and do that, and let the tabloids get all the snaps they want. Plus you can then invite all the horrible celebrity hangers-on to that one.
Meanwhile you sneak off for the real wedding the next day, with only the guests you want, to someone completely different. Then sell the rights and exclusive to that for a fortune. Obviously you have to cross your fingers behind your back when making the vows for the first wedding.
As an alternative you could send look-a-likes to the first wedding of the couple and whatever celeb guests you actually want at the real one. Then you don't have the unfortunate risk of accidental bigamy. This distracts the tabloids and the hangers-on nicely. They're all too dim to notice the fakes. Just tell them there's an exclusive new brand of fake-tan and fake-breasts that the guests have to use as their invites - they'll never spot it...
*Eureka! I've just realised who Yahoo! should merge with. Hello! They could call themselves Halloo!...
They do not really have a choice given the army of photographers that follow them everywhere ... so they could just try to escape, however, we all know that is futile.
Remember HRH Princess Diana crying in the street, because they would not leave her alone ... eventually killed her, they did ...
So 'burner' phones handed out and guests prevented from using their own? And the private numbers they dialled now belong to American Vogue? Were the calls auto-recorded by pre-installed apps as well?
A much simpler solution to their privacy concerns would have been to reduce the guest list to genuine friends and close family.
Quote: A celeb with real friends. This one is really normal for a seleb. He actually goes to the local gym in the places where he films (with or without Matt Damon who is also relatively normal) to shoot some hoops without sending 20 goons to clear the place first. We nearly ended up playing against them about a couple of years back at the village hall where I live (we would have if we did not move the venue for our usual Sunday bball meet that week).
"because the couple are said to have sold the rights to the wedding photographs to a magazine"
That's all this stuff ever is! Granted in this case there was some charity donation thing too but most of the time it's all about recouping the cost of your $750,000 wedding event through sales of the images. Celeb weddings aren't weddings like we plebs have, they're more like the political weddings of the middle ages royalty, all about prestige.
These days celebs consider themselves lucky when they don't have a virtual "airforce" of paparazzi helicopters flying overhead on their wedding day. (or any other day). "Privacy" is tough to come by.
In this day and age, buzzing drones with cameras aren't out of the question either. By control over the attendees phones and the attendees themselves, the couple removed the possibility of people leaking the location and the taking of unauthorized photos. They worked out a deal for American Vogue to take the photos in exchange for a charitable donation. The value of the donation would be diluted if the pictures were leaked.
The mere fact that their huge wedding went off as planned and with no leaks is actually impressive.
There are some governments that could learn from them.
The phones probably were setup so the cameras could not work and other features (gps) were likely disabled. If you ask me, thats a lot of forethought and use of technology.
All the negatards here would be first to jump all over any story that pictures had been leaked with "helpful" after-the-fact advice like "they should have secured their environment".
Azathoth on a bike, give the man a break. He did what the security "experts" here always tell people they should have done - got a clue and put some serious dosh behind a serious attempt to secure the digital environment surrounding his wedding.
As for where he chooses to sell his pictures of the event, that is his affair and not that of some nosy twat with a ridiculously long focal length lens or a team of haxxors on the payroll.
Is it just me trying to figure out why anyone would need phones at a wedding that can't communicate with the outside world?
For pictures/video then point'n'shoot handed out and collected at the end would be easy and very secure.
Or maybe weddings have now become pop concerts where the guests are simply there to sit and poke meaninglessly at a 4" screen and not socialise or participate in the proceedings?
Ok.. so us "normal" folk, if we wanted a private wedding, would go out of town and have a quiet wedding at place that handles them. Certain celeb types have done the "quiet" type. Then there's those that make noise about "private", invite several hundred people, spend an ungodly fortune... and don't want the press to run amok or know about it.
If they wanted privacy, they should have followed us "normal" folks and those few celebs who have done the quiet thing. Anything else is pure publicity and hype. Which to most celebs is what it's all about... no such thing as bad press, etc.
OK, so he acts, and pretty well, but look up George Clooney's career. He's a lot more than a pretty face.
You have a movie producer/director who can organise a complex situation, and you have a barrister who can keep a secret. This isn't just the celebrity business: they're advertising their business competence.
Good look to them.
It might have been easier to just inform guests that a condition of attending the ceremony and reception is that they leave their phones at home (hotel, car, somewhere else). Maybe even provide lock boxes so guests could go to a room, retrieve their phone and check messages. In turn, the Clooney's could allow guests to download photos or receive a certain number of prints from a service at a later date that were taken by the photographer(s) hired to take pictures of the event. Cell phone pictures suck and they are even worse if taken from 50ft away. Just enjoy the event and get a few photos later of much higher quality.
Even though I am a photographer, I don't take my camera to weddings I get invited to. It's too much work and I can get all the photos I want later. I never shoot friend's weddings.
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