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Murdoch Faces Allegations of Sabotage

Posted by Unknown on from the cloak-and-dagger dept.

Presto Vivace writes "Neil Chenoweth, of the Australian Financial Review, reports that the BBC program Panorama is making new allegations against News Corp of serious misconduct. This time it involves the NDS division of News Corp, which makes conditional access cards for pay TV. It seems that NDS also ran a sabotage operation, hiring pirates to crack the cards of rival companies and posting the code on The House of Ill Compute (thoic.com), a web site hosted by NDS. 'ITV Digital collapsed in March 2002 with losses of more than £1 billion, overwhelmed by mass piracy, as well as technical restrictions and expensive sports contracts. Its collapse left Murdoch-controlled BSkyB the dominant pay TV provider in the UK.' Chenoweth reports that James Murdoch has been an advocate for tougher penalties for pirates, 'These are property rights, these are basic property rights,' he said. 'There is no difference from going into a store and stealing a packet of Pringles or a handbag, and stealing something online. Right?'"

6 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. Rupert Murdoch has no scruples. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This guy is basically like Mr. Burns on the Simpsons. What a horrible excuse for a person.

    1. Re:Rupert Murdoch has no scruples. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Call me a cynic, but when a wealthy sonofabitch who we all know corrupts the politics of multiple countries and plays dirty is caught at doing something like this, I think it's time for a good chuckle. My only hope is that if he ever really goes down, he'll take a few politicians down with him. He's enough of a scumbag to do it if he ever really loses his sway.

    2. Re:Rupert Murdoch has no scruples. by TWX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, but do you really think this is the only business that does this kind of thing?

      It may not be the only business that does this kind of thing, but it certainly seems to be the most visibly blatant at the moment, and that's telling for an organization that controls such a large amount of the media in the areas its malfeasance is being reported in.

      Seeking to crack opponents' tech, not a surprise.

      Hosting a site or forum dedicated to the tech, including security and the like, meh.

      Seeking to create ever-stronger penalties for violations of security, expected.

      Using corporate resources to crack a competitor's technology and intentionally posting the technical information needed to allow others to also crack said technology, while advocating for laws that should theoretically result in essentially a corporate death penalty- that's a surprise.

      Corporations are chartered by the government. Simple solution, revoke their charters when the violations stack on like we've seen with News Corp. Force the assets into auction, require revenues to pay legal damages and then distribute what remains proportionally to those stockholders that weren't also employed in the company and engaging in the wanton illegal activity or directly managing those who were.

      If corporations faced their charters' revocation, and if egregious offenders actually saw this happen from time to time with dramatic losses to stockholders, maybe stockholders and corporate officers would reduce the amount of corruption in their ranks.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    3. Re:Rupert Murdoch has no scruples. by Y-Crate · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And what about all the nerds that actually did it?

      They'll inevitably get hefty prison sentences, while Murdoch goes free with a "please don't do any more bad things until the next time you do bad things" warning.

    4. Re:Rupert Murdoch has no scruples. by Custard+Horse · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sadly I think that it will be swept under the carpet. Murdoch has already replaced the News of the World with a Sunday edition of The Sun so everything is as it was before. The fact that Murdoch also owns the more respectable The Sunday Times means that he has both ends of the market.

      What we really need it for Murdoch's hapless son to be put in the frame for something serious only for him to give evidence against his father and bring the whole lot crashing down - including the politicians and police officers who have been paid off over the years.

  2. Re:Is there evidence that Murdoch knew about this? by Guppy06 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Murdoch has enough money to buy plausible deniability.