All is fair in the blunder games saga

Mark Dawson, Editor of Wanganui Chronicle

"You're nobody if your phone hasn't been hacked."

It took Dame Helen Mirren to bring much-needed perspective to the squeals of outrage that have followed the posting online of compromising photos of celebrities.

The photos - apparently quite explicit - have been "stolen" after cellphones of the rich and famous were hacked.

Private - and naked - images of Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence, model Cara Delevingne, Downton Abbey actress Jessica Brown Findlay and many others have been exposed for all the virtual world to see.

Ms Mirren - always a class act - felt "insulted" that she had not been a victim.

"I kept desperately looking at the list of people whose phones were hacked, hoping to see my name," said the Oscar-winning actress who, at 69, retains a smouldering sexiness that even the most myopic hacker couldn't fail to appreciate.

One's sympathy for those illegally exposed is tempered by the knowledge that they have been happy to reveal plenty of flesh to further their careers.

And if they must keep pictures of themselves in the buff on their cellphones then, in this age of rapidly diminishing privacy, they must accept the risks. A case of "stripper beware".

But this scandal has been overtaken by a bigger one.

Spark, the company formerly known as Telecom, suffered a meltdown after what is claimed to be a sustained cyber attack over the weekend, leaving thousands of customers without a service.

One report said the outage was initially put down to a network upgrade, but then the hacked celebrity photos story emerged and Spark is now suggesting a surge of internet interest in the photos may be to blame.

How convenient. There will be no refunds if they're absolved.