<nettime> PornoLeaks

[Flick Harrison <flick@flickharrison.com>]

It should have been obvious to us all that the practice of leaking and the
power of the web would come together in a terrible, childish and unstoppable
tantrum of the kind described in this article.

Anywhere sensitive data is collected; where mentally-unstable, unhappy or
vindictive people might work; is vulnerable to self-righteous "leaking" that
may or may not align with any rational moral calculus.  If we've experienced,
over and over, the phenomena of the disgruntled shooter, mass murdering
rampages against so-called "enemies" in the workplace, home or school... how
much lower is the rage threshold for a revenge leak?

If we support the anti-establishment leakers of incriminating info about the
bigwigs and mucky-mucks, how do we confront leakers whose social alignment is
different from our own? How does that affect our  cheerleading lyrics?

Or is this another CIA plot in disguise!?

Adult industry enraged as 'Porn Wikileaks' gives stars' real names
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/sex-industry/adult-industry-enraged-as-porn-wikileaks-gives-stars-real-names-2258874.html


Friday, 1 April 2011

By Guy Adams in Los Angeles

Erotic stars such as Jenna Jameson, her male counterpart Seymore Butts and
Charlie Sheen's latest inamorata, 24-year-old blonde former centrefold Bree
Olson, are all so mainstream that their lives are detailed in Wikipedia.

But the 1,500 or so performers in the seedier end of the pornographic film
trade, predominantly based in California, often sought to conceal their
"acting" careers from friends and family and especially later employers.

Now the ability of those pornographic film performers to hide their identity
behind sometimes bizarre stage monikers has been shot to pieces after a website
published a leaked database containing the real names, dates of birth, and
official nicknames of more than 15,000 of the adult industry's hard-working
performers, past and present.

Most of the information revealed by the Porn Wikileaks site is likely to have
come from computer files that originally belonged to the Adult Industry Medical
Healthcare Foundation [AIM], an STD-testing facility based in the San Fernando
Valley, north of Los Angeles, which caters to the 1,500 working erotic film
actors based in the region at any one time.

Under guidelines that are supposed to minimise the spread of HIV and other
venereal diseases ? in an industry that does not always insist on condom use
except in titles aimed at the gay market ? all pornographic actors are supposed
to be tested at the clinic once a month. Producers and directors are then able
to access the database it holds, before casting their movies.

The information published by Porn Wikileaks was first uploaded several weeks
ago but only began being widely disseminated yesterday, after its existence was
highlighted by Mike South, a blogger who covers adult entertainment issues.
"Your information is now in the hands of people who shouldn't have it," he
warned his readers in the trade.

Although the leaked database does not include private medical information or
test results, it includes names, addresses and copies of identification
documents of everyone who has registered at AIM. In some cases, it also
includes Google Maps photos of their homes. The site will therefore effectively
"out" anyone who has worked as an erotic actor since the clinic opened in 1998.

That prospect is uncomfortable for porn stars who have neglected to inform
friends of family members of their profession. And it's even more chilling for
former adult actors who may have quit the trade several years ago in order to
pursue mainstream employment. In two cases in recent months, US schools have
sacked members of their teaching staff after it emerged they had starred in
erotic films when younger.

No one knows what motivated the creator of Porn Wikileaks, which is amateurish
and yesterday struggled to cope with a sudden surge in traffic. The site is
registered in the Netherlands, apparently by a disgruntled member of the "porn
press", and describes the purpose of its existence as being a "media
organisation" devoted to making the industry more transparent.

The leak of the database meanwhile comes at a bad time for the AIM clinic,
which was founded by Sharon Mitchell, a former adult actress, in 1998. It was
briefly closed by regulators last year following an HIV outbreak among
performers tested there.

--
* WHERE'S MY ARTICLE, WORLD?
http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Flick_Harrison

* FLICK's WEBSITE & BLOG: http://www.flickharrison.com 


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