back to article 2011 Reg roundup: Hacking hacks, spying apps and an end to Einstein?

As mobile sales and connections continued to soar and break records, just how much your phone knows about you and who can see that information were big subjects in 2011. The long-smouldering issue in the UK of newspaper journos paying private investigators to break into mobile voicemail inboxes in search of scoops finally …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Ironically, Scotland Yard officers later reported, in December, that the voicemails deleted on Dowler's phone – the catalyst for the entire firestorm – were found to have been deleted not by intrusive NotW journos, but by the voicemail system itself, which automatically canned messages after a period of 72 hours."

    A statement that was immediately disputed by Dowlers solicitor as the messages deleted included ones that Millie Dowler could not have listened to.

    1. hugo tyson
      FAIL

      NotW listened, but did not *explicitly* delete

      AIUI the voicemail system automatically deleted messages which has been listened to, 72 hours later. NotW criminals listened to them, but did not deliberately delete them. The system deleted them after a time, after they had been listened to.

      Sounds like the solicitor didn't understand what was being claimed either....

      1. Graham Marsden
        Boffin

        Re: "did not *explicitly* delete"

        But, none the less, because they *were* listened to, they were subsequently deleted, so whilst they weren't deliberately deleted by the illegal actions of people employed by the NotW, none the less their actions caused them to be deleted.

        So, either way, the NotW *were* responsible for the messages being deleted.

    2. Steve Foster

      T-Mobile's voicemail system will delete messages after 3 days whether you've listened to them or not.

      As soon as you playback a message, you get an option to "save" it, which will keep it for 3 days from that point. Replaying the message later lets you "re-save" it, which starts the 3 day deletion timer over again (IME).

      Basically, T-Mobile are trying to not be in the business of keeping messages...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Curiosity is NASA's fourth Mars rover

    remember Sojourner?

  3. davenewman

    why leave out El Reg's own space efforts in the review?

    I expected to see something about P.A.R.I.S and L.O.H.A.N

  4. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Meh

    "Physicists working for CERN in September fired a beam of 15,000 neutrinos from Geneva, LHC's HQ, to Gran Sasso in Italy"

    That would be "fired many many beams of many man very high-energy neutrinos through 700km of rock and about 15'000 of the neutrinos were found to do something in the detector"

    "only to find the particles completed the 730km journey 60 nanoseconds faster than light would have."

    Only to find that measurement devices indicated that the particles completed the 730km journey 60 nanoseconds faster than light; finding no obvious errors in the setup they went public.

    Hope of this result standing up to scrutiny: 0.0000000001%

  5. Morg
    Facepalm

    Funny Homeland Guy ;)

    I like how people who know nothing about technology hire other people who know nothing more to do a job that actually requires that knowledge --

  6. Brangdon
    FAIL

    Another irony

    The super-injunction against Imogen Thomas became IT-worthy when it was widely flouted on Twitter. This led to huge media controversy and the injunction system falling further into disrepute. Like many injunctions, the one against Imogen was granted because the judge believed she was attempting blackmail. It's now accepted that she wasn't, and had never wanted to publish the information covered by the injunction. The whole fiasco was unnecessary.

    (But the injunction still stands, so I'm being circumspect here.)

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    People seem to forget that corrupt police officers have been involved to a large degree, yet only a single police officer seems to have been arrested. None have been charged.

    Compare and contrast that to the number of other people outside the police that have been arrested since the investigations began...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    euphemism for theft

    "Sites were knocked offline and gigabytes of personal data - email, credit card details, and social security numbers - lifted"

    don't lull us calling it lifting, call it what it is, theft.

  9. b166er
    Coat

    Particle physics gives me a Hadron

  10. Silverburn
    Happy

    Reg measuring units

    "..about the size of a mini cooper".

    Does this apply exclusively to Lunar Vehicles, or can I use this generically? Could I apply it to - for example - mother-in-laws?

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Trollface

      RE: Reg measuring units

      Also, does this mean the old, Imperial Mini Cooper standard, or the overwieght and oversized Metric MINI Cooper?

  11. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    WTF?

    Bit unfair on the Ruskies?

    "......The mission was simple: travel to Mars, orbit the uninviting planet, land on the Martian moon Phobos, gather samples, lift off and arrive back on Earth in 2014....." Nothing simple in that at all! I think the article would have been more interesting/amusing if it had included the knee-jerk, totaliterian response of the Russian politicians and their "failure is not acceptable" witchhunt of their own scientists and rocket techies (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/29/phobos_grunt_dark_again/)

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