Phone Hacking Journalists

sketchley

Now that is hacking.

Just been through my voice mail options and turned on "Pin Prompt" now vm asks for pin even if called from mobile.

cee

Sketchley wrote:

Now that is hacking.

Just been through my voice mail options and turned on "Pin Prompt" now vm asks for pin even if called from mobile.

still not hacking....phreaking....I would give you...but hacking...no.

actually....

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Of course it's Hacking

Low level journalists are also called hacks, therefore anything they do is hacking.

All tech pedants stand down.....there no argument on this one!

pdw

WGWarburton wrote:

Indeed- think of it as a combination lock. If you really don't care who looks in your briefcase or locker then you don't need to bother changing the combination.

If someone helps themselves to the contents, it's still theft. Your insurance company would probably reject a claim but you won't be suing the padlock seller :-) .

No, it's actually very different.

With a briefcase it's very obvious to the user what the risk is: if someone gets physical access to your briefcase, they can open it with no further information. You can make informed decision about whether that extra protection is worth anything to you.

People assume that's the same with their voicemail PIN: if someone gets physical access to your phone, they can access your voicemail.

Most users have absolutely no idea that remote access to their VM is even possible, let alone that the default settings for it are totally insecure. I certainly don't recall ever seeing something that suggested that if I didn't set a PIN then other people would be able to access my voicemail.

They don't need to provide individual PINs, they just need make it so that unless you've explicitly set your PIN, the service is disabled. Not shipping with unused services enabled is basic good security practice everywhere in the IT industry, and there's no reason why it shouldn't be the same here.

NGale

alas it's a practice some journalists have been using for years. in my short time in the industry (and one of my reasons for getting out of it) I was asked to listen into the voicemail messages of someone to get a story. This was for a local newspaper which was no more than the local pig breeders gazette!

All in the name of 'news' and selling papers.

I refused and 'strangely' I was dismissed from my job two weeks later on account of being 'unsuitable' for the job. I just perfer to think that I had some moral standards unlike the gutter snipes I was working for!

rjsterry

Loving the latest excuse from Rebekah Brooks: "I was on holiday". It would be funny if it wasn't so serious. Looks like the advertising pull-out from NOTW is gathering pace - that could sink it faster than anything else.

NGale

If Brooks didn't know what was going on then she is an incompetent journalist and manager and if she did know what was going on then she is a criminally incompetent journalist and manager

Either way she needs to consider her position and the kind of person journalist and manager she is to allow/authorise this to happen.

Initialised

I'd be surprised if thee Tories weren't using similar techniques to undermine and predict the Labour Party's defence and strategy at the last election.

The mess goes all the way to the top. It's time for Cameron to come clean and resign.

NGale

Initialised wrote:

I'd be surprised if thee Tories weren't using similar techniques to undermine and predict the Labour Party's defence and strategy at the last election.

The mess goes all the way to the top. It's time for Cameron to come clean and resign.

The tories were tapping phones during the 80s of known union activists and labour party members under the guise of 'security'

My father awaits the public inquiry and apology for that one....

jimmypippa

From the guardian

News of the World surveillance of detective: what Rebekah Brooks knew

Brooks summoned to meeting with Scotland Yard to be told her journalists had spied on behalf of murder suspects

As editor of the News of the World Rebekah Brooks was confronted with evidence that her paper's resources had been used on behalf of two murder suspects to spy on the senior detective who was investigating their alleged crime.

Brooks was summoned to a meeting at Scotland Yard where she was told that one of her most senior journalists, Alex Marunchak, had apparently agreed to use photographers and vans leased to the paper to run surveillance on behalf of Jonathan Rees and Sid Fillery, two private investigators who were suspected of murdering their former partner, Daniel Morgan. The Yard saw this as a possible attempt to pervert the course of justice.

bails87

Christ ......

kurako

bails87 wrote:

Christ ......

They got Him too?

bails87

It wouldn't be a surprise![/quote]

secretsam

Apparently they've now been accused of hacking into phones of relatives of dead servicemen

Public interest my ar5e, I couldn't care less what their families are going through, it's none of my business to intrude on their private grief.

W1: you're wrong. End of. "Investigative journalism" has its place - absolutely- but the public interest must be greater than the damage done. What they are accused of doing is foul. Defending the indefensible? I admire your stance but I think you'll find you are very much in a minority. "Responsible journalism".

rick_chasey

Some chat on twitter from PR guys saying that news desks are unusually curt and the Guardian's not picking up the phone, so they reckon something big is going down.


Then again, judging by the quantity of police, ambulances fire engines, and helicopters around bank tube station (it is 7/7 after all) it might be to do wit that.

Wallace1492

Apprantly chemical spillage at Monument....

NOTW new campaign for servicemen and women.... Hack the Hero's....

bails87

The Sun had a big collaboration with Help The Heroes. Wonder if that'll carry on?

There's a perfect storm gathering....lefty types don't like the intrusion of privacy and general awful behaviour of the media (although some of us have been saying it for years) but they're easy enough to ignore. Guardian readers boycotting the NOtW? I'm sure they're quaking in their boots! But once they stop pi55ing off celebrities and start pi55ing on the graves of "our boys", as they like to call them, as well as doing crappy things to victims of terrorists and child murderers, they're pretty much attacking the people they've told their readers are the most valuable/important/sacred.

If they've done something to 9/11 victims families......well, I don't think the American's will take to kindly to that.

DonDaddyD

Was on tube going to Moorgate, said it was a fire at Bank and that there was no access to the District or Circle Line tube from there [Bank station].

I'm going to say something controversial here:

On the subject of the press I can't help escape the view, "What do you expect from tabloid journalism?" In some ways our interest in trashy sleaze driven stories has given fuel to sleazy journalists and investigators in kind.

How did they get Ashley Cole's photo's off his mobile? But we (society) bought the paper in the millions eager to find out about him, Cheryl and co. Vernon Kay and the text messages? Very juicy to some.

But that will only take you so far. The newspapers know what sells and they need to go further to increase their profit and market share. It's not personal, it's business and there are very few morals in an open market. (Not an excuse but that is how it is).

The public want the juicy stories, invasion of privacy be damned! Gossip columns rule! The Papers are prepared to break the rules to get the stories and the journalists/investigators are ever willing to go one step further, they gotta paid too right? Celebrities and footballer scandals were becoming run of the mill, where do you go next? We already know journalists/investigators had sold their moral compass. They had gone too far years ago.

I'm not saying it's right, but I find it rich that people who buy the News of the World and who fueled this kind of thing are screaming that this isn't journalism or news reporting. When did that paper ever report anything truly newsworthy? Why is Kerry Katona a celebrity? When was it ever reputable? It made it's name selling stories like this and the general public bought it by the millions never stopping to once think about the consequences of invading a persons private life.

So here we are and I can't help thinking that tabloid press got too powerful and got to this, in part, because we (general public) fueled it.

And while the case was about (then) current affairs and not a celebrity, this is what you get when you have sleaze driven tabloid press trying to find a story amongst the unsuspecting public.

I could be wrong.

Paul E

There is a difference between what is "of public interest" and what the public is interested in. More and more dirt is being discovered and as soon and Rupert Murdoch thinks he is being harmed by Rebekah Brooks being in her position, she will go.

I love his statment though - The News Corporation boss described the recent allegations about phone hacking and payments to police officers by the News of the World "deplorable and unacceptable".

The allegations are deplorable and unacceptable, not the actions of his employees but the allegations.

I am so glad I have just terminated my Sky tv package and gone with virgins tivo box.

rick_chasey

Paul E wrote:

There is a difference between what is "of public interest" and what the public is interested in. More and more dirt is being discovered and as soon and Rupert Murdoch thinks he is being harmed by Rebekah Brooks being in her position, she will go.

I love his statment though - The News Corporation boss described the recent allegations about phone hacking and payments to police officers by the News of the World "deplorable and unacceptable".

The allegations are deplorable and unacceptable, not the actions of his employees but the allegations.

I am so glad I have just terminated my Sky tv package and gone with virgins tivo box.

Rebekah will continue to keep her job as long as she continues to be the lightning rod for all the critcism, rather than the sh1t flowing upwards.

DonDaddyD

There is a difference between what is "of public interest" and what the public is interested in

Absolutely, but the News of World has spent an age delivering stories that the public has been interested in. They got those stories using the recently exposed tactics (and probably worse) and we bought into those stories indicating a system that works.

Now they are using those tactics for "public interest" news stories. Had we not driven this kind of journalism in the first place, it wouldn't be so prevalent.

bails87

DonDaddyD
Agree with you entirely, as does one of my favourite bloggers.

The issue is, are NOtW readers, many of whom will read the Sun during the week, even that aware of this? The Sun has been very, very quiet on the whole thing. If their only source of news is other NI outlets, people won't really care so they'll carry on buying it regardless.

rick_chasey

bails87 wrote:

DonDaddyD
Agree with you entirely, as does one of my favourite bloggers.

The issue is, are NOtW readers, many of whom will read the Sun during the week, even that aware of this? The Sun has been very, very quiet on the whole thing. If their only source of news is other NI outlets, people won't really care so they'll carry on buying it regardless.

If anything proven comes out they'll be forced to publish apologies etc.

DonDaddyD

Rick Chasey wrote:

bails87 wrote:

DonDaddyD
Agree with you entirely, as does one of my favourite bloggers.

The issue is, are NOtW readers, many of whom will read the Sun during the week, even that aware of this? The Sun has been very, very quiet on the whole thing. If their only source of news is other NI outlets, people won't really care so they'll carry on buying it regardless.

If anything proven comes out they'll be forced to publish apologies etc.

If deleting the voice messages is proven or paying the police for information I'm expecting a custodial sentence for some top people. I also don't think the public should settle for less. If the Government shows leniency then we should call for it's head.

First the banks, now the newspapers. Government has to reign in it's industries.

MonkeyMonster

Kurako wrote:

bails87 wrote:

Christ ......

They got Him too?

It's only taken then 2000 years or so... Alive one day, dead the next but then people see him alive a few days after again - something fishy going on there for sure

bails87

Rick Chasey wrote:

bails87 wrote:

DonDaddyD
Agree with you entirely, as does one of my favourite bloggers.

The issue is, are NOtW readers, many of whom will read the Sun during the week, even that aware of this? The Sun has been very, very quiet on the whole thing. If their only source of news is other NI outlets, people won't really care so they'll carry on buying it regardless.

If anything proven comes out they'll be forced to publish apologies etc.

That's pretty naive isn't it? Sure, they can print an apology, but if it's in size 2 font on page 97 in between ads for chat lines who's going to notice. The Daily Mail have a strange habit of putting their online apologies (and there's a lot of them) at the very bottom of the US section of the website. It's almost as if they don't want people to find them.

This is beyond a PCC issue anyway (they had their chance and are bloody useless), as already said, it's crossed the line into criminality and should be treated as such.

rick_chasey

bails87 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

bails87 wrote:

DonDaddyD
Agree with you entirely, as does one of my favourite bloggers.

The issue is, are NOtW readers, many of whom will read the Sun during the week, even that aware of this? The Sun has been very, very quiet on the whole thing. If their only source of news is other NI outlets, people won't really care so they'll carry on buying it regardless.

If anything proven comes out they'll be forced to publish apologies etc.

That's pretty naive isn't it? Sure, they can print an apology, but if it's in size 2 font on page 97 in between ads for chat lines who's going to notice. The Daily Mail have a strange habit of putting their online apologies (and there's a lot of them) at the very bottom of the US section of the website. It's almost as if they don't want people to find them.

The law can specify the kind of apology.

The McCan faff required the star and express to make their apology front page



But yes, it goes beyond all that. If it is proven, they should let their readership know clearly what they have been prosecuted with, and what they've done which has broken the law. etc etc.

sketchley

Last Edition ever of NOTW this Sunday! :shock:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -live.html

Power to the people and all that!

Wallace1492

Latest news - NOTW will cease after Sunday.....

DonDaddyD

Wallace1492 wrote:

Latest news - NOTW will cease after Sunday.....

I guarantee that is going to be one of the best selling Newspapers in the history of Newspapers.

I can count on one hand how many newspapers I've bought this year but I'm tempted to buy a copy, might be worth millions years down the line...

Still I think it's an empty gesture, they'll either sell more copies of the Sun. Or, at some point create a new Newspaper to fill the gap in the market. I want to see people who broke the law convicted, that's justice.

asprilla

I give it six months before the launch for your seven day a week super soaraway Sun....