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back to article News International mail server password FAIL exposed

A letter from News International chairman James Murdoch to the Commons Culture Select Committee has let slip details of how to gain full access to the company's MS Exchange email system – albeit the information is from four years ago. MPs published a raft of letters this lunchtime including one from jailed News of the World …

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  1. Captain Scarlet
    Mushroom

    Well

    at least the password wasn't password

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      RE:Well

      Or 1234567890

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    2. Neil Charles
      Reply Icon
      Joke

      Surely

      Passw0rd

      They're not complete muppets you know.

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  2. Fehu
    FAIL

    Left out disclaimer

    "I can confirm that we did not find any evidence that proved that either [redacted], [redacted] or [redacted] knew that Clive Goodman, Glen Mulcaire or any other journalists at the News of the World were engaged in illegal activities prior to their arrest." in the extremely limited and obviously cherry picked sample of emails that you provided, making this exoneration completely worthless.

    I'll take my check now.

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    1. Captain DaFt
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      Is it just me?

      Or were the first names to spring to mind after reading "I can confirm that we did not find any evidence that proved that either [redacted], [redacted] or [redacted] knew", were "Larry", "Moe", and "Curly"?

      "Nyuck-yuck!" "Why you chowder head, I outta... BOINK"

      (OK, I'm through, quit pushing!)

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  3. Oninoshiko

    12345

    So the combination is... one, two, three, four, five? That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard in my life! The kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!

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    1. Handle This
      Reply Icon

      . . . and +1 for cultural reference

      May the schwartz be with you!

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  4. vic 4

    Deliberate?

    Maybe they could claim any incriminating emails where planted/sent by some one who got by the poor security

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  5. JamieL
    Meh

    Cunning double-bluff?

    Of course, if it becomes apparent that their IT security was near-useless, then any actions which migh appear to have been done by one of their personnel on their systems might have been done by someone else?

    Sort of like a witness reducing their own credibility such that they can no longer reliably self-incriminate.

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  6. b166er
    Facepalm

    Which means

    that it's more than likely their domain wasn't enforcing password complexity.

    Uberfail

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    1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Bollocks to password complexity

      Interestingly, a recent "XKCD" cartoon online presents a persuasive argument that r0b3rt#@€ is not a good complex password, because you can't bloody remember it, whereas, ironically, "Bollocks to password complexity" -is- a good complex password.

      If the work computer makes users use a different alphanumeric case-shifted password each month, expect (if you sniff the network) to see "Word1108" going by between now and September, but with a very rude word in place of "Word". I can testify it releases a lot of tension against stupid password policies, until the wording words in IT find another wording way to word it up for you. Stupid worders.

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  7. Jacqui

    Lets get this right

    a business that may have its email logs/archives required soon by the "only slightly bent" Met police gets "hacked" and magically the archives are now legally worthless as evidence.

    I suppose some Sun readers will believe anything.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Holmes

    Now, if *you* were [redacted],

    and you *knew* you hadn't known about something, would you feel the need to hire expensive lawyers to make sure you'd covered the tracks you hadn't left?

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