How to disable iCloud, protect your nude selfies

I’m sure you’ve probably all heard about “The Fappening”. Dozens of nude celebrity photos were leaked onto the internet by some asshole who hacked iCloud. We’re all assholes for looking at them too. Myself included, since I’ve been a big advocate for online privacy over the years. I’m tempted to release my own nudes in solidarity with J Law. However, that would probably break the internet for a different reason. So instead, I’m going to show you how to disable iCloud backups.

iPhone and iPad

First, we need to delete those incriminating photos of that time when you got drunk and ate an entire wedding cake.

Open up the Photos app, navigate to Photo Stream. Select all your photos, then click the little trash can icon. Boom, they’ve been banished from the internet. It’s exactly the same way you would delete regular photos from your phone.

Disabling iCloud is pretty easy on your iDevice. Go into settings then scroll down to iCloud. You’ll be presented with a list of different things you can sync. This is really a chose your own adventure, depending on what level of security you want. Syncing calendars, reminders, and email is probably not too big a deal. Though if there’s anything on there that could do some damage if it got out, you’ll want to turn that off.

For photos, scroll down and make sure “My Photo Stream” and “Photo Sharing” are both turned off. Everybody should do this, as you can always backup your photos to your computer

Windows PC

In your system tray, on the task bar in desktop mode, right click the iCloud icon and and select “Open iCloud Control Panel” From there, you can simply uncheck the box next to photos to disable it.

Before doing that though, it’s a good idea to delete anything that you’ve already uploaded to iCloud Open up a new desktop window then find “iCloud Photos” on the left hand navigation bar. It should be under “Computer.”  Alternatively, you can select “Computer” from the start menu. Then select every photo in “My Photo Stream”  and delete them. Make sure you back them up first by dragging them to a folder on the desktop.

Go back into iCloud Control Panel and disabled photos when you’re done.

Macintosh Go to your Apple menu and select the Control Panel. Find iCloud, open it, then uncheck photos. That was easy.

To delete them, pop open iPhoto, select Photo Stream, then hit delete on your keyboard. Simple as pie.

With your iCloud photo uploads purged and disabled, you can rest easy knowing you’re safe from prying eyes. Though in the future, you might want to restrict your nude selfies to an old fashioned, offline camera. Remember kids, nothing is unhackable.