News of the World Investigation Expanded to 9/11 Victims

for the wrong reasons by Trepidity · 2011-07-11 03:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

is likely to see organizations examining their own policies and reminding their staff on acceptable usage and best practice for email

It'd be pretty sad if the lesson people take from the News Corp fiasco is: man, their IT staff should've really been more on the ball about making sure no evidence of the crimes they committed was accidentally retained.

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10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10

Re:for the wrong reasons by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2011-07-11 03:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

It'd be pretty sad if the lesson people take from the News Corp fiasco is: man, their IT staff should've really been more on the ball about making sure no evidence of the crimes they committed was accidentally retained.
It's been an open secret for well over a decade now that email retention policies are purely legal dodges. There is no other reason to automatically delete such massive stores of institutional memory except for the possible legal threat they may pose. It isn't like email storage requirements are a practical limitation - any company with terabytes of email is going to have an IT budget so large that those costs will be lost in the noise.
And, while I don't have a link at hand, I recall a case a couple years ago where the government was pursuing charges that a large corp's email retention practices were a deliberate form of destruction of evidence - despite all of the lawyerly sign-offs and standardised corporate practices verbiage. I wish I did have a link because I'd like to know how that case turned out.

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When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Re:for the wrong reasons by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 03:29 · Score: 0

Call it the Nixon Watergate Tape lesson.
Re:for the wrong reasons by vlm · 2011-07-11 03:39 · Score: 3, Funny

It isn't like email storage requirements are a practical limitation
Talk like that is going to result in the lawyers requiring all emails to be hidef videos with 5.1 sound, no more plain text. Keep quiet lest a lawyer hear us, unless you look forward to supporting that kind of a monstrosity...

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"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Re:for the wrong reasons by ray-auch · 2011-07-11 04:09 · Score: 2

It's been an open secret for well over a decade now that email retention policies are purely legal dodges. There is no other reason to automatically delete such massive stores of institutional memory except for the possible legal threat they may pose
Not true.
Emails often contain personal information, at the very least contact information, and keeping such information indefiintely risks breaching data protection laws in various jurisdictions.
Re:for the wrong reasons by tpholland · 2011-07-11 04:19 · Score: 2

Yes, but according to the Guardian who have been doggedly pursuing this story, there was an external company involved, Essential Computing, who were the ones who blew the whistle and recovered the incriminating messages. In other news, it sounds like the Bangalore operation they outsourced most of their IT to have had no problems disappearing vast amounts of information.
Re:for the wrong reasons by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 04:44 · Score: 0

It'd be pretty sad if the lesson people take from the News Corp fiasco is: man, their IT staff should've really been more on the ball about making sure no evidence of the crimes they committed was accidentally retained.
It's been an open secret for well over a decade now that email retention policies are purely legal dodges. There is no other reason to automatically delete such massive stores of institutional memory except for the possible legal threat they may pose. It isn't like email storage requirements are a practical limitation - any company with terabytes of email is going to have an IT budget so large that those costs will be lost in the noise.
And, while I don't have a link at hand, I recall a case a couple years ago where the government was pursuing charges that a large corp's email retention practices were a deliberate form of destruction of evidence - despite all of the lawyerly sign-offs and standardised corporate practices verbiage. I wish I did have a link because I'd like to know how that case turned out.
(Posted anonymously for the sake of my employer) Where I currently work, there is a fairly short email retention policy (1 year), but it's less a "legal dodge" than it is a financial one. As we are a government agency, we're subject to the Freedom Of Information Act, as well as subject HIPAA and FERPA to make everything extra fun. We have a legal department who is tasked with dealing with all of that. So the hardware of storing the email is not the cost we are trying to avoid, it's the cost of the lawyers required to sift through the email to deal with it... the shorter the retention policy, the less legal staff required. And, unsurprisingly, it's not nearly as trivial as the hardware costs...
Re:for the wrong reasons by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 05:44 · Score: 0

You are absolutely right; I previously worked for a subsidiary of a major insurance company that received a pretty hefty fine as a result of their policy of deleting e-mails.
The result was a policy of the company retaining all e-mails (and all physical documents dealing with clients) for (I think) 10 years- even if you delete it from your inbox- the company still holds a copy for a decade.
Whereas deleting e-mails to prevent proof of wrong-doing may help some companies- it will land others in hotter waters. Best policy anyone company can make is to take an ethical standpoint from the beginning. All wrongdoers get caught eventually if they do wrong for long-enough. Deleting e-mails won't help them.
Re:for the wrong reasons by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 05:51 · Score: 0

It has hardly been mentioned that News International and the News of the World ran an Irish operation (12 full-time and 20 part-time staff) from offices in Dublin. They seem to have had a view that this out-of-jurisdiction operation was not subject to any of the legislation applying to UK staff, and passed a lot of fax spoofing and telephone hacking through this office.
At some point this will get a mention - possibly from the 32 very annoyed ex-staff they just sacked in Ireland.
Re:for the wrong reasons by throbber · 2011-07-11 05:56 · Score: 1

Your right. That's the job of their Records Management staff.
Re:for the wrong reasons by throbber · 2011-07-11 05:57 · Score: 1

You're
Re:for the wrong reasons by Lythrdskynrd · 2011-07-11 06:16 · Score: 1

Perhaps you mean:
http://www.aiim.org/Infonomics/ArticleView.aspx?id=30580

Stiff sanctions have been awarded against parties who fail to meet their production obligations and criminal prosecutions are possible for deliberate attempts to interfere with federal investigations or administrative proceedings. (7)
7. See, e.g. Coleman (Parent) Holdings, Inc. v. Morgan Stanley, Inc., 2005 WL 674885 (Fla. Cir. Ct. March 23, 2005) (entering default judgment based on, iner alia, failure to timely produce relevant email); In re Prudential Ins. Co. of Am. Sales Practice Litig., 169 F.R.D. 598 (D. N.J. 1997) (imposing fine for failure to adequately act to preserve email). In addition, as part of the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, Congress stiffened existing law and added new criminal penalties if one knowingly alters or destroys documents with the intent to impede a federal investigation or proceeding or "in relation to or contemplation of such matter or case." 18 U.S.C.A. 1519 (2002).
Re:for the wrong reasons by Runaway1956 · 2011-07-11 06:20 · Score: 2

Maybe you aren't aware that corporations also destroy physical dead tree documents, religiously. Papers are retained for as long as the law requires, then they are destroyed. Electronic documents of a similar nature should be dealt with in the same manner. There is no reason to archive stuff for decades, just because you consider the cost to be trivial.
The more records being retained, the more records are available to be stolen, whether they be stolen by industrial espionage agents, the courts, or whoever.
Ditch those records, at the earliest opportunity.

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"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Re:for the wrong reasons by jimicus · 2011-07-11 06:26 · Score: 2

It's been an open secret for well over a decade now that email retention policies are purely legal dodges. There is no other reason to automatically delete such massive stores of institutional memory except for the possible legal threat they may pose. It isn't like email storage requirements are a practical limitation - any company with terabytes of email is going to have an IT budget so large that those costs will be lost in the noise.
You'd be surprised.
Data storage on one single desktop-class SATA disk is very cheap, you're right there.
Data storage on a SAS disk is about three to six times the cost - that's before you factor in storage losses through RAID.
If you want really fast access to data, it's common to buy lots of smaller drives and spread the data across more spindles. This increases your cost per gigabyte quite a bit further because smaller disks are never very cost-effecient.
If you need the manageability you get from something like a SAN (and you actually want the manufacturer to support you), you need vendor-certified drives. Even if the only difference between them and a bog-standard drive is the label on the front (though customised firmware is by no means unknown), that bumps the price up quite a bit further - and you wouldn't buy something like that without a hardware maintenance contract.
Next up you've got backup and retention. If you want the backup to be complete in a short space of time, you need something fast. There's a few options available, such as live mirroring with snapshots (Oh goodie! Now you need two SANs in two separate locations and a very fast link between them!), tape (fast sequential access but pretty dire random access), virtual tape (hard disk based systems that present themselves as tape, frequently for compatibility reasons).
Re:for the wrong reasons by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2011-07-11 06:55 · Score: 2

Maybe you aren't aware that corporations also destroy physical dead tree documents, religiously.
I'm quite aware. Just like I'm aware that librarians regularly cull their collections of dead tree books. But electronic documents are not the same as dead trees and treating them as such is to ignore everything that makes them superior. You can't grep dead trees and they take up serious amounts of physical space. Neither is the case with old email.

There is no reason to archive stuff for decades, just because you consider the cost to be trivial.
There is no reason NOT to archive stuff for decades precisely because all of the costs except for legal liability for wrong doing are trivial.

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When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Re:for the wrong reasons by drsmithy · 2011-07-11 11:43 · Score: 1

It isn't like email storage requirements are a practical limitation [...]
Proper storage - and particularly backup - of email can very quickly run into a practical limitation of extremely high costs.
Re:for the wrong reasons by Slur · 2011-07-11 15:58 · Score: 1

In my techie opinion, strong-encrypted tarballs uploaded to something like Amazon S3 or iCloud would be a very safe way to go for indefinite storage. They take care of the redundancy, all you have to do is pay your bill. It's as close as you can get to free, too.

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-- thinkyhead software and media
Re:for the wrong reasons by Neil+Boekend · 2011-07-11 20:16 · Score: 1

hidef video with 5.1 surround sound with only a picture of an text only email (with some robotic overlord reading said email, in order to have some content in the audio) would compress quite nicely. You can drop the keyframe frequency to 0, as long as you have a key frame in the beginning.

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Re:for the wrong reasons by RockDoctor · 2011-07-13 01:08 · Score: 1

It'd be pretty sad if the lesson people take from the News Corp fiasco is: man, their IT staff should've really been more on the ball about making sure no evidence of the crimes they committed was accidentally retained.
But that is the lesson that is being taken.
I wonder if other people more generally are also taking the lesson that you can't give anyone's phone number to anyone else for any reason without the first person's explicit permission. (That applies to mobile and landline numbers, and any other number that isn't printed on business card or advertising media ; the business card is an implicit permission to distribute, I guess. IANAL.)
The policy I've taken for years is that if A wants B's number from me, then I'll tell A that I'll give A's number to B and leave it up to B to make the contact. Over complicated, maybe. But B's phone number is not my information to distribute.

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Different email policies by mwvdlee · 2011-07-11 03:14 · Score: 2

...Because we all know the best solution to morally bankrupt business practices is to make sure there is no paper trail, analog or digital.

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Re:Different email policies by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 03:40 · Score: 0

There are valid reasons to do it for non-evil companies as well. Let us all take the lesson of mcom.bad-attitude to heart. Well, for 30 days. And then perform cardiac expungings.

Yeah like it's only them doing this sort of stuff. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 03:14 · Score: 0

There is no way the News of the World is the only paper or new group being doing this sort of stuff.
It's all too easy to do for any hack to resist.

There's blood in the water.... by darien.train · 2011-07-11 03:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

And a lot of it too. Everyone can smell it and the revelations are only in their infancy. I always thought Murdoch was a blight on the news industry and a poster child for the evils of media consolidation but this scandal shocks even me. This is mafia-level shit.

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I don't know how many years on this Earth I got left. I'm going to get real weird with it. - Frank Reynolds

Re:There's blood in the water.... by RyuuzakiTetsuya · 2011-07-11 03:25 · Score: 1

Yeah, real evil nasty business.
I think the only way this could get worse is if Rupert Murdoch did a press conference with a long mustache that he kept curling.

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Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Re:There's blood in the water.... by Rogerborg · 2011-07-11 03:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

Oh, pfft, Murdoch could eat an orphan live on Sky 1, and he'd still be feted and fawned over come the next general election. Keeping that harridan Rebekah Brooks on-board is a clear F-U to the peons (in which I include such non-entities as mere Prime Ministers).

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Re:There's blood in the water.... by echnaton192 · 2011-07-11 03:36 · Score: 1

+1
Re:There's blood in the water.... by MightyMartian · 2011-07-11 04:59 · Score: 3, Interesting

It's getting actually downright scary. Apparently there's evidence that a member of the Queen's security team was taking bribes for information on the doings and whereabouts of members of the Royal Family. Let's keep in mind here that the Queen is the head of state of the UK and fifteen other Commonwealth Realms, and this is a massive breach of security.
Imagine for a moment what would be happening right now to any newsroom that had managed to penetrate the Secret Service and was gaining information on the President's whereabouts, or that of his wife and children. The Secret Service would be tearing the newsroom to pieces, reporters and editors, Christ, even the bloody janitors and the guy that flips the water bottles, would be sweating it out under a bright light bulb in front of guys in suits and sunglasses.

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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:There's blood in the water.... by Hope+Thelps · 2011-07-11 05:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

Keeping that harridan Rebekah Brooks on-board is a clear F-U to the peons (in which I include such non-entities as mere Prime Ministers).
Maybe.
I'd pretty much assumed that she was just being kept ready as the scape goat of choice when things get really bad (and we don't know how much there is yet to come). "Oh, we don't want to lose Rebekah, we have complete confidence in Rebekah, no absolutely we won't fire Rebekah... well, okay, you win, Rebekah has been escorted out of the building - a big triumph for the will of the public. Massive embarassement for us but you beat us. Now let's move on."
Maybe I'm just naive.

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Re:There's blood in the water.... by Nimey · 2011-07-11 05:14 · Score: 1

Not the same at all. The Queen is an utterly powerless figurehead, and if she dies tomorrow Cameron's still in charge.
It wouldn't be /good/ if her security was penetrated, but it's not the same sort of "oh fuck" as if a for-real head of state had that happen.

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Hail Eris, full of mischief...

E pluribus sanguinem
Re:There's blood in the water.... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 05:19 · Score: 0

I'm pretty sure we could plod along quite merrily if Cameron dropped dead tomorrow. In fact, "oh fuck" probably wouldn't come into it at all.
Re:There's blood in the water.... by s0litaire · 2011-07-11 05:35 · Score: 1

Does Murdoch own a yacht....????
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell#Death

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Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
Re:There's blood in the water.... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 05:48 · Score: 0

The Queen is an utterly powerless figurehead
In practice, yes. In theory, no; for example, she is the ultimate head of the armed forces. Of course this is actually a side issue - the GP's point is absolutely correct. We're talking about a head of state, whether she has power or not.
Re:There's blood in the water.... by MightyMartian · 2011-07-11 05:49 · Score: 1

Anybody with even a passing familiarity with the British constitutional system knows that the Queen is not powerless. That the Sovereign rarely if ever uses her powers does not make her powerless. The last UK election showed just how extensive the Regal powers can be.

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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:There's blood in the water.... by MightyMartian · 2011-07-11 05:50 · Score: 1

He is, after all, merely a Prime Minister.

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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:There's blood in the water.... by Nimey · 2011-07-11 05:54 · Score: 1

Explain your point about the last election. How'd the Queen arrange to get Labour booted out?

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Hail Eris, full of mischief...

E pluribus sanguinem
Re:There's blood in the water.... by MightyMartian · 2011-07-11 06:14 · Score: 2

In the case where there is no clear winner of a general election, the British Sovereign (and their Vice-regal representatives in the other Commonwealth Realms) can decide who forms a government. Since the previous government no longer is in a position to advise the Sovereign on who forms a new government, other than the Sovereign's advisers, this is entirely up to the Sovereign.
Beyond that, the Sovereign still holds wide reserve powers. Under normal circumstances these are only used on the advice of the Government of the day, but never the less, the fact that the Sovereign holds them means the Government does not. This is the underlying concept of "negative power".

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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:There's blood in the water.... by Tasha26 · 2011-07-11 06:16 · Score: 1

Just in: "Former prime minister Gordon Brown had his phone hacked and bank account breached by The Sunday Times, another British newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch's media empire" ....god know what darker things will come out the woodwork.
Re:There's blood in the water.... by MightyMartian · 2011-07-11 06:17 · Score: 1

No, that's pretty standard fare for a scandal. Pick your scapegoat, support them until the point when supporting them is no longer possible and then get them to fall on their sword.
The chief difference in this case is that Brooks is a good pal of David Cameron's, which means her downfall may be the last straw for him. He's already bleeding like crazy over Andy Coulson's being charged. There are legitimate questions as to how much more damage Cameron can accrue before his own position becomes untenable.

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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:There's blood in the water.... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 06:41 · Score: 0

Technically speaking she can disolve parliment. Of course it would only ever happen Once.
Re:There's blood in the water.... by leathered · 2011-07-11 08:23 · Score: 1

The intrusion into Gordon Brown's bank account revealed that he had a massive overdraft and had sold all his family's gold at the bottom of the market. So it wasn't really newsworthy.

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For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
Re:There's blood in the water.... by newcastlejon · 2011-07-11 08:31 · Score: 1

As Humpy said in my favourite quote of his: "You have to get behind someone before you can stab them in the back."

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If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Re:There's blood in the water.... by That+Guy+From+Mrktng · 2011-07-11 16:36 · Score: 2

As Mighty Martian said, that is pretty much PR 101, good insight sir.
After her you only have Rupert's son, now thats when it would get interesting. We all know Rupert can't smack his own son for the good of the empire, right?
Re:There's blood in the water.... by Macgrrl · 2011-07-11 17:51 · Score: 1

From the same episode:

Hacker: Don't tell me about the press, I know exactly who reads the papers: the Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; the Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; the Times is read by people who actually do run the country; the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; the Financial Times is read by people who own the country; the Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; and the The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.
Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?
Bernard: Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits.

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Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Re:There's blood in the water.... by Nimey · 2011-07-12 09:11 · Score: 1

Those'll be one-shot powers, much like the how the sovereign gives a pro-forma assent to every law passed by Parliament. The first time she refuses to assent will be the last.

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Hail Eris, full of mischief...

E pluribus sanguinem

Ok, ok. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-07-11 03:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

Can we finish locking the News of the World staff in their headquarters and burning it to the ground, along with anybody found to have aided or abetted them(given that their contacts with the Met and right up to the PM are well known, this probably includes a few people in addition to their shady PIs...) and get on to an important matter:

Why are phones, particularly the VM box that is more or less an automatic part of today's cell phone, so damn vulnerable? The Telcoes seem to have no trouble tracking our activities in great detail if those activities are something for which we can be billed, and they also seem eminently willing to cooperate with law enforcement. Why, then, do I have absolutely no way of knowing when, and from where, my VM box was called into, and why would the VM box of a phone that is subject to police investigation be accessible from the outside at all?

I certainly wouldn't mind seeing a bunch of tabloid flacks roasted in their own slime; but if voicemail hacking and phone intercepts by random PIs are that easy, we have a problem that needs to be solved by better security, not just crushing malefactors after the fact...

Re:Ok, ok. by Herkum01 · 2011-07-11 03:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

I know VM is not very secure, but what I don't understand is why everyone is not screaming about this being a hacking crime. If an individual does this they want to throw the book at them and lock them up for years.
Just because it is a newspaper out to make money does not entitle them to escape criminal charges. They should be out there pressing charges and fining Murdoch for this behavior.
Re:Ok, ok. by clickclickdrone · 2011-07-11 03:29 · Score: 0

Why are phones, particularly the VM box that is more or less an automatic part of today's cell phone, so damn vulnerable?

All they did is access voicemail accounts which had the default PIN i.e. 1234 or whatever. Nothing clever. Once they had the mobile numbers, they just dialed in from another phone, access VM and entered the PIN. Simples.

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I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Re:Ok, ok. by khr · 2011-07-11 03:30 · Score: 2

Why are phones, particularly the VM box that is more or less an automatic part of today's cell phone, so damn vulnerable?
Probably the trade-off between security and convenience... Not enough paying customers have yet to demand increased security on it, or canceled their accounts because of the lack of it...
Re:Ok, ok. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-07-11 03:30 · Score: 1

Oh, I would certainly view the pressing of serious criminal charges against as many of them as possible with the greatest pleasure. I'm just not entirely optimistic that a media empire as influential as Murdoch's will be attacked as strongly as it ought to be, and definitely sure that if a major newspaper got away with hacking high-profile phones without being noticed, much less stopped, for a period of years, Joe Blow doesn't have a chance in hell if somebody with the cash for a PI takes an interest in him.

The former problem is solvable with sufficient political will, and plenty of cells and hard labor; but the latter is really a systems security issue.
Re:Ok, ok. by h4rr4r · 2011-07-11 03:32 · Score: 1

Which changes nothing about how illegal it is. It is very easy for me to open your house with a bump key, but I don't because it would be illegal and I am not that sort of person.
Re:Ok, ok. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 03:33 · Score: 0

Why are phones, particularly the VM box that is more or less an automatic part of today's cell phone, so damn vulnerable?
All they did is access voicemail accounts which had the default PIN i.e. 1234 or whatever. Nothing clever. Once they had the mobile numbers, they just dialed in from another phone, access VM and entered the PIN. Simples.
No, they were spoofing caller ID to get around the PIN requirement altogether.
Re:Ok, ok. by clickclickdrone · 2011-07-11 03:36 · Score: 1

OK, I'd not heard that and it wasn't what was initially reported (but then what was..). Thanks for the correction :-)

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I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Re:Ok, ok. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 03:44 · Score: 0

0000 or 1234. Users don't change their PIN.
Re:Ok, ok. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 03:49 · Score: 1

...attacked...
The rhetoric here and in other posts is really strong. What's wrong with just applying the law and seeking justice?
Re:Ok, ok. by jabuzz · 2011-07-11 03:50 · Score: 1

There is many stories about what they actually did, but there is a suggestion that it is only a four digit pin, so they manually brute forced it. Yes it is tedious but the $$$ rewards made it worth it.
Remember they where making payments totaling hundreds of thousands of pounds to corrupt police officers.
Re:Ok, ok. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 03:54 · Score: 0

The most recent reportage explains that police were bribed by the News Of The World (ROH, as in Rot In Hell to that rag) to give the paper the police access levels to the VMs.
Re:Ok, ok. by wolrahnaes · 2011-07-11 03:55 · Score: 2

Why are phones, particularly the VM box that is more or less an automatic part of today's cell phone, so damn vulnerable?
In most cases, because the users are stupid. In some cases, because the telco is stupid.
The majority of the time, the user will have a stupidly weak password like 1234, 123456, 111111, etc. I do VoIP for a living and one of the platforms I support, Broadworks, can not block a user from having a password like 123456. 111111 is banned, but easy sequences can't be yet. Due to this, I have on average 3-5 cases a month of people getting their accounts hacked and someone trying to forward calls to some other country. We block this system-wide, so it just results in the user's incoming calls breaking until it's noticed, but it happens with reasonable regularity.
In a few cases, the telco is retarded and allows the user to set that calls from their phone be allowed directly in to the voicemail system. Unfortunately they do not sanity-check this to verify that the call is actually coming from that phone and instead depend entirely on caller ID. Anyone with a VoIP or PRI system and a trusting upstream carrier can send whatever caller ID they want, making it trivial to get in to the voicemail. I think T-Mobile was in that category last time I checked, no idea on the others.

The Telcoes seem to have no trouble tracking our activities in great detail if those activities are something for which we can be billed, and they also seem eminently willing to cooperate with law enforcement. Why, then, do I have absolutely no way of knowing when, and from where, my VM box was called into, and why would the VM box of a phone that is subject to police investigation be accessible from the outside at all?
When, they should easily be able to give you and if they don't its only policy. From where, that's a lot tougher, given the ease of spoofing caller ID. Also, a lot of attacks are routed through multiple systems to disguise the source(s). Most attacks I see seem to come from other PBXes, likely hacked in similar ways.
Agreed on the box being open to remote access. It's trivial on my systems to allow incoming messages but break phone access to any given box, and investigators could just access the e-mail server that stores the messages directly via IMAP.

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I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
Re:Ok, ok. by digitalmischief · 2011-07-11 03:56 · Score: 1

or they could have done it with CLI spoofing, as when you call up from your own phone by default the vm system will not require a pin, so if you use a CLI spoofing service you can get it with no pin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID_spoofing
Re:Ok, ok. by canajin56 · 2011-07-11 04:03 · Score: 2

It's kind of clever, actually. I can only speak for my provider (Bell Mobility Canada) but it only asks for your PIN if you are calling from an outside line. And (apparently, I've never tried) it tells if it's an outside line by caller ID, not some tower signal voodoo. So even if you change from the default password, you can still be hacked if your provider works that way. (Bell doesn't for landline VM, it prompts even from your own line). But on the other hand, I think the default voicemail password was randomly assigned. When I got my new phone, I received a text that said "Your default voicemail password is 8231, please dial #whatever to set up your inbox" (or whatever, like I remember). So, that's good. It's just too bad about the caller ID trick ;)

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ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Re:Ok, ok. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 04:10 · Score: 0

Also this is stuff which happened in the past, not stuff happening now. The phone companies _assumed_ you'd want this feature to work out of the box. Once they were told that people used it illegally they changed it to be off by default. So if you buy a phone today the News of the World trick doesn't work until you set up a PIN and most people will never bother to do that.
What was going on at News International wasn't about this specific hack, in a way it was almost admirable. It was about being able to prove every exclusive story. They wanted to run only true stories. Which is nice. But they didn't care how they got them. If they had to bribe your milkman to hide a camera in your pint that's what they would do. If they ran a story that broke up a marriage, that was fine by them. If they ruined a police investigation or messed up a trial, that was OK too. Nothing was more important than being able to put an exclusive story on the front page.
Assuming things haven't changed radically, I would expect that last month NotW staff spent their time trying to match email addresses and usernames from files provided by outfits like Luzlsec with the names of celebrities and their staff. A Facebook password for a major celebrity is way better than Voicemail access to a royal aide's phone.
Re:Ok, ok. by Score+Whore · 2011-07-11 04:49 · Score: 1

Um, the PI they hired to do the this work is already in jail because of it.
Re:Ok, ok. by bmo · 2011-07-11 04:51 · Score: 3, Interesting

>The majority of the time, the user will have a stupidly weak password like 1234, 123456, 111111, etc. I do VoIP for a living and one of the platforms I support, Broadworks, can not block a user from having a password like 123456. 111111 is banned, but easy sequences can't be yet.
The next time you go to the ATM take a look at the number pad, where people put in their PINs.
You will see that numbers 1 through 5 have the most wear.
It's like this everywhere.
--
BMO
Re:Ok, ok. by hey! · 2011-07-11 06:39 · Score: 1

Can we finish locking the News of the World staff in their headquarters and burning it to the ground, along with anybody found to have aided or abetted them and get on to an important matter:
No, because you left out the really important part: taking a whiz on their freshly dug graves.

--
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.

Are they just the ones that got caught? by Coisiche · 2011-07-11 03:23 · Score: 1

As the continuing revelations over the NotW practices come to light I have to wonder if they were the only newspaper indulging in this... or just the only one to be caught.

Is anybody checking for unusal data clean-ups among other newspapers?

Re:Are they just the ones that got caught? by slim · 2011-07-11 03:34 · Score: 1

Of course the other red-tops have done it. The Daily Mail has been noticeably reluctant to comment on the subject, for example.
Already today, the Sunday Times and the Sun are being implicated in illegally investigating Gordon Brown's affairs (including his child's medical records).
Re:Are they just the ones that got caught? by clickclickdrone · 2011-07-11 03:39 · Score: 4, Funny

>The Daily Mail has been noticeably reluctant to comment on the subject, for example.
They just haven't found an angle yet to blame it on immigrants. Luckily, Murdoch has just arrived...

--
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Re:Are they just the ones that got caught? by biodata · 2011-07-11 03:44 · Score: 1

Are newspapers the only ones or does this extend into other media? (TV news I am looking at you).

--
Korma: Good

Re:Yeah like it's only them doing this sort of stu by echnaton192 · 2011-07-11 03:35 · Score: 1

This may be the case. Like there is not only one rapist, child abuser, murderer, thief and kingpin. But to ME that does not mean that the prosecution of those bastards should stop. It's bad enough the government is far to excessive in their invasion of the private lifes of people who are no criminals because there might (!) be a case somewhere. But a news corporation that invades the privacy of other people just because their completely legal activities might be news is despicable. The only place for such "journalists" is behind bars.

There is policy and there is practice by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 03:45 · Score: 0

I once worked for a Fortune 100 company that had a seemingly reasonable retention policy for email:

* You were required to flag certain items and only those items for retention beyond 2 years or some such. Almost all projects lasted well under 2 years.
* You were required to mark anything related to any known existing or reasonably anticipated legal case "do not delete."
* Everything else got automatically deleted.

In practice people found ways to save "local" copies of what they thought they might need later, either on paper or on disk.

With the particular mail system we had at the time, it was simply easier to make a local copy of everything than to save only certain things.

A/C for a reason.

Press charges against Murdoch and Brooks by G3ckoG33k · 2011-07-11 03:45 · Score: 5, Interesting

Published: September 1, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/magazine/05hacking-t.html

IN NOVEMBER 2005, three senior aides to Britain’s royal family noticed odd things happening on their mobile phones. Messages they had never listened to were somehow appearing in their mailboxes as if heard and saved. Equally peculiar were stories that began appearing about Prince William in one of the country’s biggest tabloids, News of the World.

As Scotland Yard tracked Goodman and Mulcaire, the two men hacked into Prince Harry’s mobile-phone messages. On April 9, 2006, Goodman produced a follow-up article in News of the World about the apparent distress of Prince Harry’s girlfriend over the matter. Headlined “Chelsy Tears Strip Off Harry!” the piece quoted, verbatim, a voice mail Prince Harry had received from his brother teasing him about his predicament.

The palace was in an uproar, especially when it suspected that the two men were also listening to the voice mail of Prince William, the second in line to the throne

The ones in charge, Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks, have known about this for years and approved of it. They are the ones who should be charged, not the pianists, i.e. the reporters. They did what they were told to do.

"When The Times reporters asked one veteran News of the World reporter how many people in the offices knew about the hacks, the reporter said “Everyone knew The office cat knew."

and

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/world/europe/12hacking.html?_r=1&ref=world
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/world/europe/11britain.html?ref=world

The evidence is there, and everywhere, Murdoch and Brooks are scum.

Re:Press charges against Murdoch and Brooks by Zelos · 2011-07-11 03:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

What about the morons who kept buying the paper every Sunday to read those kind of idiotic stories?
Perhaps it's a case of getting the newspapers we deserve?
Re:Press charges against Murdoch and Brooks by Viewsonic · 2011-07-11 03:52 · Score: 1

The morning news were saying that the way some laws are written that they will have to do the time, even if proven that they had nothing to do with it. At one point or another someone was tired of watching scapegoats being lead to the slaughter while the people on top were immune. It looks like a few of these laws that may have been broken do hold those in charge at the very top responsible for all the actions of their underlings. They were showing Murdoch's son superimposed behind bars all morning long.
Re:Press charges against Murdoch and Brooks by MightyMartian · 2011-07-11 05:13 · Score: 1

The Younger Murdoch may be facing serious charges in the US over the bribing of British police officers (and now, we learn, even a member of the Queen's security staff). There's some suggestion that the only reason Rebekah Brooks hasn't been forced to fall on her sword yet is to try to deflect the lightning from James Murdoch, but that won't preserve him if the DoJ decides to go after him over bribery of foreign officials.
The Murdoch's are in serious trouble.

--
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:Press charges against Murdoch and Brooks by G3ckoG33k · 2011-07-11 05:37 · Score: 1

Those morons were never in charge or paid by Murdoch to commit crime.
They were not even aware that they were witnesses to crimes, repeatedly.
Re:Press charges against Murdoch and Brooks by s0litaire · 2011-07-11 05:45 · Score: 1

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/section/79
Criminal liability of directors etc.
(1)Where an offence under any provision of this Act other than a provision of Part III is committed by a body corporate and is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of
—
(a)a director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate, or
(b)any person who was purporting to act in any such capacity,he (as well as the body corporate) shall be guilty of that offence and liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly
(2)Where an offence under any provision of this Act other than a provision of Part III
—
(a)is committed by a Scottish firm, and
(b)is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of, a partner of the firm,he (as well as the firm) shall be guilty of that offence and liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.
(3)In this section “director”, in relation to a body corporate whose affairs are managed by its members, means a member of the body corporate.

--
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
Re:Press charges against Murdoch and Brooks by tbannist · 2011-07-11 06:20 · Score: 1

I don't think that's particularly fair. How would the readers know that the Newspaper was breaking the law to get it's stories? And, of course, if you're going that way what about the advertisers who paid the News of the World to commit the crimes and entice the readers? After all, the readers are mere witnesses, the advertisers aided and abetted the crimes by providing the money for them...
No, the responsibility for the crimes lies with the people who did them, and the people who ordered them done.

--
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Re:Press charges against Murdoch and Brooks by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 06:33 · Score: 0

Those morons were never in charge or paid by Murdoch to commit crime.
No. Its far worse. Those morons were paying Murdoch to commit crimes.
You cannot honestly believe that these sorts of stories can be made available in a publication without either a) the assistance of the individual(s) in question or b) a criminal act of some sort.
The assistance can be in the form of carelessness, emotional public outbursts, candid interview, whatever. Criminal act could be relatively minor like trespassing on up to major stuff like bribery, comm intercepts, and fraud.
Myself, if a reporter/editor/owner thinks the story is worth the crimes it takes to gather the information: prove it. Go to jail for the crimes you had to commit. If you're not willing, clearly the information wasn't worth obtaining.
Re:Press charges against Murdoch and Brooks by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 07:34 · Score: 0

The owner Rupert Murdoch chose the chief executive of News Corps, Rebekah Brooks, which as the former editor of the News of The Worlds fulfilled and perpetuated the low, well documented low standards of Murdoch. Strangely, Rebekah is not even honorary white trash (from Wikipedia):
"In 1994, she prepared for the News of the World’s interview with James Hewitt, a paramour of Princess Diana, by reserving a hotel suite and hiring a team to "kit it out with secret tape devices in various flowerpots and cupboards", Piers Morgan, her former boss and now a CNN talk show host (and ABC talent-show judge}, wrote in his memoir The Insider", the New York Times relayed in July, 2011.[8] In 1998 she transferred to the News of the World's daily counterpart, The Sun, where she was appointed its deputy editor. In this period, she reportedly attempted to persuade David Yelland to end the Page Three Girls feature.[9] She then returned to the News of the World in 2000 as editor; at the time, she was the youngest editor of a national British newspaper.[1]
While at the News of the World, she oversaw its controversial campaign of "naming and shaming" convicted child sex offenders, after the murder of Sarah Payne.[10] The paper's decision led to angry mobs terrorising those they suspected of being child sex offenders,[11] which included several cases of mistaken identity and one instance where a paediatrician had her house vandalised, apparently by people who misunderstood her occupational title to be the same as paedophile.[12][13] The campaign was labelled "grossly irresponsible" journalism by the then Chief Constable of Gloucestershire, Tony Butler,[5] but Brooks defended the paper's actions [...]"
These two murky trash characters have set the lowest of standards, globally. That Murdoch character for decades and that Brooks character for years.
Unfortunately, there are others of their kin, waiting in the wings.
Re:Press charges against Murdoch and Brooks by Zelos · 2011-07-11 09:24 · Score: 1

Sure, I'm not suggesting the NOTW shouldn't be held responsible. But it just seems a little hypocritical for tabloid readers to spend years avidly reading the kind of intrusive stories described by the OP, only to then turn round and act horrified when they discover they were created using dodgy practices.
Re:Press charges against Murdoch and Brooks by wild_berry · 2011-07-11 09:30 · Score: 1

Can I ask someone in the US to get the Feds on to this? News International's staff are alleged to have bribed UK Police, which is a federal crime under your Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Please get it investigated, and get New International prosecuted for perverting justice.
Re:Press charges against Murdoch and Brooks by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 16:01 · Score: 0

So I never read a tabloid but my phone still gets hacked. Did I get what I deserve?
Re:Press charges against Murdoch and Brooks by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 17:57 · Score: 0

Why not? It sounds possible. Just make sure that you ask a lawyer to help you formulate the issue at hand. Otherwise the case may be lost beforehand.
Re:Press charges against Murdoch and Brooks by AlterEager · 2011-07-11 23:56 · Score: 1

In this period, she reportedly attempted to persuade David Yelland to end the Page Three Girls feature.
Yeah, she's pure scum - no respect for British tradiotion.
Hanging's too good for her.

Re:When do the investigations here start? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 03:46 · Score: 0

I wouldn't be surprised if all big news organizations do it, CNN and MSNBC included. They are all scum, right up there with FoxNews and Mudoch's tripe.

"Technology and Moral Panic" is the previous story by circletimessquare · 2011-07-11 03:47 · Score: 1

"Technology and Moral Outrage" should be the title of this story

some will blame technology, rather than murdoch thugs

don't believe me? just watch. "the devil made me do it" is the oldest defense in the book. where "the devil" = "backwards lyrics on beatle albums" / "videogames" / "dungeons and dragons" / whatever

anything to avoid personal accountability when it comes to punishment, anything to embrace personal accountability when it comes to reward

--
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it

It's funny... by AngryDeuce · 2011-07-11 03:49 · Score: 1

A person gets caught doing this to a corporation, and 9 times out of 10 they end up in Federal 'Pound Me In The Ass' Prison with a fine so large it'll take years to pay back.

But if a corporation does it to a person...well, maybe they'll get a strongly worded email or something, or an unflattering article in a major newspaper (but not too unflattering, don't want to get sued for defamation or anything!)

...and people wonder why nobody trusts big business or the government anymore...

Re:It's funny... by rednip · 2011-07-11 06:26 · Score: 1

Actually, the private eye who actually did the crime is in jail already.

...and people wonder why nobody trusts big business or the government anymore...
Yea, some people in government and big business twist facts and logic to suit their purpose, just like you. The only difference is that people listen to them, does that make you jealous?

--
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Re:It's funny... by AngryDeuce · 2011-07-11 07:29 · Score: 1

Actually, the private eye who actually did the crime is in jail already.
And who was he working for again? Oh, right, I'm sure they had no idea how he was getting the information he was passing along to them. And now that there is evidence that they were actively courting other people to break the law and hack into other voice mail 10 year ago, we're supposed to believe that it's just some big coincidence and that the corporation had no idea what he was doing?
Come on. They were obviously commissioning people to break the law on their behalf. If an individual did this, they would be in handcuffs and justice would be done. You think justice is gonna be done here? Please.
Re:It's funny... by AlterEager · 2011-07-12 00:02 · Score: 1

A person gets caught doing this to a corporation, and 9 times out of 10 they end up in Federal 'Pound Me In The Ass' Prison
What is this American fasination with male on male anal rape?
Get a grip.
Re:It's funny... by AngryDeuce · 2011-07-12 01:09 · Score: 1

It's a line from a movie, Office Space, that's kinda caught on.
Here's the clip from the movie
It's not fascination, it's how we designate between white collar country club prison and the prison that the rest of us go to because we're not rich enough to get out of it.

Re:When do the investigations here start? by Danathar · 2011-07-11 03:50 · Score: 1

Or MSNBC for that matter.....

how easy to hack voicemail by peter303 · 2011-07-11 03:52 · Score: 1

The land line line playbacks had 2-digit codes. A hacker could try all of the them. My cellphone passcode defaulted as my birthdate.

Don't sack the sys admins by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 03:52 · Score: 0

To me what comes from this is the fact that NOTW staff are now leaking information all over the shop after being canned. The policy changes were only known to some senior managers and a few of the technical staff a few months ago, and I can't see that that has changed as it was a direct result of the widening investigation into the illegal activities which caused the change in heart of News International (who are in the process of moving all their mail to the cloud including Wade/coulson/Murdoch junior) and the choice to dump a load of mail at the last minute stages of the project.

The moral of the story is don't sack the sysadmin you trusted with this information, management wouldn't leak the story, but a BOFH scorned is a dangerous thing.

Re:When do the investigations here start? by HangingChad · 2011-07-11 03:53 · Score: 4, Insightful

See, I don't buy that. You may want it to be true because it excuses Fox. False equivalence lets one side keep moving the goal post. The other side does it, therefore it's okay if our guys do it.

--
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage

What's new here? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 03:53 · Score: 0

Everyone that's anyone knows to never conduct any business via email. People got wise long ago that the person instigating an (internal to your business) email conversation with you is only doing so to cover their own ass or create incriminating material for future use. Most bosses use phones or meetings for this reason.

I've been burned before, so take this to heart: never commit to anything via email.

You've got the narrative wrong by DNS-and-BIND · 2011-07-11 04:14 · Score: 0

The narrative is wrong here. Journalists are heroes, not villains. They are the hardworking people who ask the hard questions and bring the news to a grateful, if ignorant, public. You see, people will make the correct decisions if informed correctly by the Fourth Estate. I can think of no better standard-bearer for this zeitgeist (widely shared among journalists - get a few drinks in one and ask her) than the quote below:

"CBS News has a culture, has a history that for those of us who work here, is very real - that we see it as a sort of magical mystical kingdom of journalistic knights - and I know I can mentally hear people rolling their eyes, that's the way we feel."
Ex-CBS News anchor Dan Rather

This knight of journalism was run out of office by neocons for trying to show the world the truth about President Bush. It didn't work. :( We got four more years of Bush. :( :( :(

After being fired for his daring move to remove Bush and elect Kerry, Rather said, "In many ways on many days, [reporters] have sort of adopted the attitude of 'go along, get along. What many of us need is a spine transplant." The Texan added. "Whether it's City Hall, the State House, or the White House, part of our job is to speak truth to power." Powerful words, from a powerful man. The world needs more people like him, to tell stories according to the prevailing majority (among journalists, that is) narrative. We miss him.

--
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!

Re:You've got the narrative wrong by CapuchinSeven · 2011-07-11 04:43 · Score: 1

The narrative is wrong here. Journalists are heroes, not villains.
Deleting voicemails off of a murder victims voicemail inbox, that they had hacked, and then leading her family to believe that she was still alive and deleting her voicemails not only makes you a villain, you makes you fucking scum, evil and a blight on the face of the earth. Months ago an ex News of the World Journalist claimed on British TV that this sort of thing was going on, and had been for sometime, he claimed he had done nothing wrong in his quest for the truth and I stated at the time, where do we draw the line? If we allow this to carry on, just where will this end, just how much are they getting away with in this quest for the truth? Well, I guess the News of the World showed us where the line is, I guess they showed us just where it would end. Scum.
Re:You've got the narrative wrong by Wyatt+Earp · 2011-07-11 05:09 · Score: 2

No, no one misses Dan Rather, he didn't try to show anyone the truth about President Bush, he tried to swing the election with forged documents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents#Review_panel_established
Re:You've got the narrative wrong by Nick+Ives · 2011-07-11 05:23 · Score: 1

Nobody is arguing against journalists using subterfuge in public interest cases.The NotW famously caught Jeffrey Archer admitting to perjury which led to his conviction.
That doesn't mean it's OK to hack into the voicemail of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and then run a story about his baby daughter dying of Cystic Fibrosis just because that's what you happen to find.

--
Nick
Re:You've got the narrative wrong by MightyMartian · 2011-07-11 06:28 · Score: 1

In journalism, the line is supposed to be where the information no longer serves the public good. Journalists have long crossed the line of legality (ie. publishing Wikileaks details), but there has been the justification that the information was in the public interest. But hacking into the voice mail of a missing girl cannot in any way be presented as furthering the public interest. It's a repugnant form of tom-peepery, with no other purpose than to scoop some lurid details and be the first to press with them.

--
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:You've got the narrative wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 08:26 · Score: 0

He was caught in a very clever trap laid down by Republicans. They bet on his desire to break a major story overriding his fact-checking procedures, and they were right. And even if it had been fact checked and not run there would have been little to lose for the people planting the story.
Re:You've got the narrative wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 10:29 · Score: 0

The narrative is wrong here. Journalists are heroes, not villains.
Enter the real world, which is not quite so binary and static. They can be heroes. They can also be villains, or fools, or ignorant, or informed, or wise. They can even be combinations of these things in varying degrees. The mere act of taking up the profession of journalist does not somehow automatically make one a paragon of truth, righteousness, and intellectual integrity. Your own example of Dan Rather proves it:

This knight of journalism was run out of office by neocons for trying to show the world the truth about President Bush. It didn't work. :(
It didn't work because he reported a lie about President Bush, not the truth. In doing so, he gave Bush's neocon supporters an excuse to ignore any evidence that Bush was not a great guy, because they could tell themselves "oh, it's just another biased Dan Rather media liberal". So actually, he harmed the cause you claim he was a martyr for.
What he did wasn't heroic, it was foolish. If I recall correctly, there was a hefty dose of ego involved - Rather was so eager to get the scoop out there that he didn't listen to some voices of sanity inside CBS who thought it should be checked a little more before running the story.

We got four more years of Bush. :( :( :(
I think it's a bit of a stretch to lay that solely at the feet of the Dan Rather incident.

After being fired for his daring move to remove Bush and elect Kerry, Rather said, "In many ways on many days, [reporters] have sort of adopted the attitude of 'go along, get along. What many of us need is a spine transplant." The Texan added. "Whether it's City Hall, the State House, or the White House, part of our job is to speak truth to power." Powerful words, from a powerful man. The world needs more people like him, to tell stories according to the prevailing majority (among journalists, that is) narrative. We miss him.
No, the world needs more people who live up to the ideal he expressed, while also living up to the ideal of reporting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, to the best of their ability. Rather didn't do that.
About 'the truth, the whole truth' etc.: Don't take that to mean that I think journalists should try to sell themselves as being perfectly unbiased. That's not possible. In fact, mindless worship at the altar of "unbiased" is a major problem in journalism today. Look at every story where, just because there are two sides, approximately the same amount of column inches and respect are given to each, even when one side is ludicrous and the other is sane. The vaccine-autism panic probably wouldn't have gotten off the ground without this kind of pandering to nutjobs. It's a total copout to present two opposed ideas as having equal plausibility when you know for a fact that this is not so, but that is the way the media spins a lot of stories.
No, what I mean is simply that journalists should try as much as possible to report the truth, and to use appropriate levels of self-doubt to at least try to ensure their own biases aren't causing them to do something wrong. Rather let his biases and ego goad him into reporting a brazen lie as verified truth. That's not good.

Gotcha! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 04:29 · Score: 1

It's not just at the NoTW that fingers are now being pointed:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14112097

(mentions both the Sunday Times and the Sun)

Email DELETION policies by ljw1004 · 2011-07-11 04:47 · Score: 1

The phrase "email retention policies" is double-speak. It should be "email deletion policies".

Re:"Technology and Moral Panic" is the previous st by Gideon+Wells · 2011-07-11 04:48 · Score: 1

There is a chance the inverse could happen here and it will be quietly kept downplayed.

The most adamant, in the US, "The devil made them do it and the devil is technology!" new POV tend to gravitate under or near Murdoch. This is like spending years calling people witches for having warts, strange feline familiars of dark coloring and reports of flying around on a broom. Then one day having it discovered you have a black cat, a well saddle attached broom and industrial strength war remover in your bathroom.

They can't attack the "Devil" without attacking themselves through hypocrisy. Those hounding them are after the head of the leadership, not demonization of the "Devil".

--
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?

Breaking News!!! They hacked the PM! by Kamiza+Ikioi · 2011-07-11 04:57 · Score: 1

News International papers targeted Gordon Brown
Newspapers obtained details from the former prime minister's bank account and legal file and his family's medical records - Thanks to Jeff Jarvis for the story.

--
I8-D

/. would be supporting it by Wyatt+Earp · 2011-07-11 05:03 · Score: 2

If Wikileaks had done it.

If Wikileaks was accused of going after Dick Cheney or George W. Bush's email and telephone records there would be overwhelming support for the actions. But News Corp asshats did it so it's a bad thing.

It's actually a bad thing no matter who did it, wikileaks, the FBI, FBS, News International, etc.

Re:/. would be supporting it by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 05:24 · Score: 0

I think there's a difference. NOTW wasn't trying to do investigative journalism, it was trying to get dirt and something to base sensationalist headlines on things that have little or nothing to do with us aside from our fascination with celebrity and dead people whom we should allow privacy.
There was no journalistic integrity, no working for the common good in according ideology as far as i can see.
It sold news papers, it didn't uncover corruption, hypocrisy in government or corporations breaking the law just created some tabloid fodder.
That is the difference between WikiLeaks and NOTW.
Re:/. would be supporting it by Nick+Ives · 2011-07-11 05:27 · Score: 2

This is so ridiculous. The NotW does have a proud history of investigative journalism, the most famous example being Jeffrey Archer. The editor at the time ended up resigning over that though as Murdoch didn't want his papers going after Torys. In any case, that was a clear case of public interest.
The same argument can be made about Wikileaks. Leaking things that could embarrass the government in order to expose hypocrisy or lies is fine. Digging up dirt on someone just because they happen to be on TV and having an affair, hacking into dead girls voicemails or doing the same for stories about how a politicians baby girl is dying are not the same thing.

--
Nick
Re:/. would be supporting it by Wyatt+Earp · 2011-07-11 06:05 · Score: 2

Wikileaks spokespeople are completely unrepentant about people killed from Wikileaks dumps, so if death is the metric, Wikileaks is much worse.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/01/julian-assange-wikileaks-afghanistan
"The leak exposed massive corruption by Daniel Arap Moi, and the Kenyan people sat up and took notice. In the ensuing elections, in which corruption became a major issue, violence swept the country. "1,300 people were eventually killed, and 350,000 were displaced. That was a result of our leak," says Assange. It's a chilling statistic, but then he states: "On the other hand, the Kenyan people had a right to that information and 40,000 children a year die of malaria in Kenya. And many more die of money being pulled out of Kenya, and as a result of the Kenyan shilling being debased."
What a wonderful attitude, they are poor and they'd die anyway, so who the fuck cares that more died and were displaced? It's for the greater good!
Or something.
Re:/. would be supporting it by tbannist · 2011-07-11 06:40 · Score: 1

If News Corp was accused of going after Dick Cheney or George W. Bush's email and telephone records, few people would be complaining. It's the target, not the perpetrator that's important. This is an old scandal, it's been known for years that they were hacking celebrity voice mails. What turned the story into an albatross was the revelation that they were hacking the voice mail of the victims and their families. Celebrities are famous, they give up some privacy for that fame. However, when you target the victims of crime, you've gone too far. Hacking a celebrities voice mail is at least a little grey, hacking the voice mail of a murdered girl is darkest black.
We tend to be more understanding when reporters go after people with power, but when they go after people with no power it's just despicable.

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Fanatically anti-fanatical
Re:/. would be supporting it by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 07:43 · Score: 0

Celebrities are famous, they give up some privacy for that fame. However, when you target the victims of crime, you've gone too far. Hacking a celebrities voice mail is at least a little grey, hacking the voice mail of a murdered girl is darkest black.
We tend to be more understanding when reporters go after people with power, but when they go after people with no power it's just despicable.
Not only hacking the dead girl's phone they wound up deleting messages which led to the belief that she had been kidnapped hindering a police investigation.
When you do that to victims of crime public support disappears quite quickly.
Re:/. would be supporting it by cyber-vandal · 2011-07-11 09:12 · Score: 1

Perhaps you should try reading what the News Corp asshats have been up to. Hacking the Queen's voicemail was pretty tame compared to all the other stuff. Plus the Queen didn't lead us into an illegal war with lies about WMDs that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives. If someone hacked into Bush's voicemail and found incriminating evidence about that then I'm not quite sure what would be more in the public interest to be honest.
Re:/. would be supporting it by Nick+Ives · 2011-07-11 10:09 · Score: 3, Insightful

Wait a second, you're seriously arguing that it would have been better for the Kenyan people to not know about the corruption? That the fixing of an election and the ensuing violence was Wikileaks fault?
Wikileaks didn't kill those people, cabinet ministers in the Kenyan government planned and promoted the violence in order to crush the opposition! Sure, if the opposition hadn't found out about the corruption there would have been no reason to kill them. If you want to follow that logic though, we should just burn all newspapers and do whatever the people in power tell us to do.

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Nick
Re:/. would be supporting it by AlterEager · 2011-07-12 00:25 · Score: 1

If Wikileaks was accused of going after Dick Cheney or George W. Bush's email and telephone records there would be overwhelming support for the actions.
Absolutely. Why not?
Now, if Wikileaks had been going after their childrens medical records, not so much.

Re:it happened to me by MightyMartian · 2011-07-11 05:05 · Score: 1

You were killed in the collapse of the North Tower, and the only thing you found odd was old voice mail you hadn't heard before?

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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.

Re:When do the investigations here start? by Nick+Ives · 2011-07-11 05:14 · Score: 1

All tabloid newspapers in the UK are implicated in this hacking scandal; it's only a matter of time before dirt is found on the other tabloids.

No broadcasters are likely to be implicated though, as the broadcaster regulator OFCOM has statutory powers investigate and make broadcasters issue corrections. If any TV news journalist had tried to use evidence gained through hacking or bribery it would quickly have become apparent in any ensuing investigation.

The print press, however, just had the non-statutory Press Complaints Commission. This was run by newspaper editors and when they received a complaint, they'd deal with it by asking the paper in question if they really did it or if the story was really true. Obviously they rarely found against newspapers.

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Nick

Imo, Murdoch thrives on corruption by thetoadwarrior · 2011-07-11 05:39 · Score: 1

I'm sure they'd love to say it's just how tabloid journalism in the UK works but that's not the case. One quick look into Fox News and you find them doing all sorts of questionable things like photo manipulation, wikipedia edits and being in bed with Bush. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel_controversies

I would guess there is a whole load more we haven't found out about. I believe this guy thrives on this sort of scum. I hope someone has enough balls to stop his bskyb bid and I hope more people start boycotting news international products. Let the old man die knowing his empire is falling all around him.

Why has murdoch not apologized? by WindBourne · 2011-07-11 05:53 · Score: 1

Odd, that he has not apologized. KIlled paper and wants to get rid of all evidence. Yet, he has not apologized. Worthless POS.

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I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.

Re:Why has murdoch not apologized? by Nimey · 2011-07-11 06:30 · Score: 1

Because that would mean admitting this in any way his fault. Politically that would be bad for him.

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Hail Eris, full of mischief...

E pluribus sanguinem
Re:Why has murdoch not apologized? by u38cg · 2011-07-11 09:33 · Score: 1

Because he's one step ahead. The whole newspaper industry was at it, without a doubt. He's created a precedent about what happens to newspaper that get caught with their pants down and you can bet revelations will soon emerge about other people's rags.

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[FUCK BETA]

Collusion by Teun · 2011-07-11 05:53 · Score: 1

The way the UK (Tory) government is pussy-footing this issue I would not be surprised when collusion between the Conservative Party and Rupert's gang is going to be uncovered.

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"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."

Re:Collusion by MightyMartian · 2011-07-11 07:14 · Score: 1

The current theory is more along the lines that Murdoch's minions have the dirt on a number of senior politicians of both major parties, which is why even the previous Labour government was fairly subservient. There are anecdotal stories that N.I. journalists and representatives have, at various times threatened politicians with some sort of exposure, or at very least with an organized campaign against them in N.I. publications. The growing body of evidence that Gordon Brown, for instance, was targeted as far back as 2000, seems to be bring at least some weight to those allegations. This was a media empire that seemed to have little compunction about digging up all manner of lurid details.

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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:Collusion by Builder · 2011-07-11 20:49 · Score: 1

Really ? You're going to blame the Tories for this !?
Remind me who was in power when we first started to hear about the hacking scandal. Remind me what they did about it. Remind me what the outcome of the first two investigations, er, I mean whitewashes was.
Oh yeah, the answer to all of the above is 'Labour'. Now, remind me of a scene with the Labour MPs booing and hissing in parliament over this EXACT SAME THING when they were in power. Oh, that's right - there isn't one. They only started to get a bit frothy about it _after_ they'd been voted out and it came to light that some of their members were targeted.
This isn't a partisan issue, so please don't try and make it one.

Re:"Technology and Moral Panic" is the previous st by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 06:06 · Score: 0

You could do a movie about devil zombies. That would be great.

Re:When do the investigations here start? by rednip · 2011-07-11 06:13 · Score: 2

Have you even seen an FNC broadcast? It's talking points and wire reports all day with commentary all night. No 'room' for investigative reports.

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The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.

Their Australia Network bid is also in doubt by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 09:25 · Score: 0

The tender process should have ended in May. Now thanks to this issue it has been extended. The other bidder is the Government run ABC which was the current owner of the Australia Network. News Ltd. papers have been viciously attacking every decision of the current Government, especially those involving Stephen Conroy, who now will be the one deciding who gets to own the Australia Network. Oops.

Re:When do the investigations here start? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-11 11:06 · Score: 0

What evidence is there that other tabloid newspapers are implicated?

This scandal has been going on for five years, and one major broadsheet has been diligent in investigating it as far as they possibly can. If there was any evidence implicating other tabloids, why hasn't it been brought to light yet?

Re:When do the investigations here start? by Builder · 2011-07-11 20:43 · Score: 1

Before this story was posted it was already revealed that at least one other paper (The Times - not really a tabloid) has been caught in this.

So it has been brought to light.

Re:When do the investigations here start? by AlterEager · 2011-07-11 23:51 · Score: 1

Before this story was posted it was already revealed that at least one other paper (The Times - not really a tabloid) has been caught in this.

That would be The Times that is also published by Mr Rupert Murdoch, would it?

Re:When do the investigations here start? by Builder · 2011-07-12 03:16 · Score: 1

Yes... But firstly, they're not considered to be a tabloid, and secondly, the idiot I was replying to was boldly asserting that no other tabloid papers had been implicated.

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News of the World Investigation Expanded to 9/11 Victims

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