Max Clifford takes £1m to drop hack probe Celebrity publicist Max Clifford has agreed to accept a £1m plus payoff in exchange for dropping phone hacking allegations against the News of the World. Clifford's settlement over allegations that the paper intercepted his voicemail messages, means the case will not proceed to court, and that News of the World publisher News …
I disagree. Clifford is smart enough to know that his threat has worked, and he's taken the compensation because that was worth more than wasting his time in court. The journo's may have gotten away this time, but I bet they will be a LOT more careful with Clifford now - which was the actual objective.
When I was young, I discovered - now changed - that at least Vodafone voicemail could be 'hacked' by dialing the intended party, getting to their voicemail, pressing star* and entering the default PIN of 0000.
A relative worked in the newspaper industry and immediately told them, and suddenly all newspapers introduced a new PIN-change policy.
I was aged 9 at the time.
Bit older than 9 but used to change the VM messages of friends phones (all the networks at time time had a default VM PIN). Never went too far but the favourite was to get the GF at the time (and myself) to leave a VM default message with lots of panting explaining that it was "difficult" to get to the phone - Parents wouldn't look at their kids again in the same light :-)
It's sad but true. This is now getting ridiculous. How much phone hacking is needed to do anything these days? Someone criticised Max Clifford ? Disgraceful. The News of the World have a lot in common with that 18th century Mary-Ann Twanet in their "Let them eat cake" attitude. This is not an exaggeration.
So, the old pals have sorted out thier squabbles and Murdochs minions escapes once more.
Cameron's ring(sorry) mouthpiece lives to shite another day and Tory central office can relax as another old pals scandal conveniently bites the dust.
Just wonder if this would hqave been the outcome had it not been election year.
Justice will prevail? like fuck it will if the money is right.
Justice is once again seen to be a whore where the scales are balanced by adding money to one side to counteract truth.
"Justice will prevail? like fuck it will if the money is right. Justice is once again seen to be a whore where the scales are balanced by adding money to one side to counteract truth."
To be boring and tedious about it: justice or the public interest wasn't intended to be served here. AFAICS Clifford thought that he personally (not society) had been damaged and he brought an action in his own name. NoTW and he came to a private agreement to resolve the lawsuit and settled out of court, just like most litigation is settled.
If there's been an offence against society, criminal prosecution (or possibly a civil action by the state?) is appropriate. If this had been a criminal prosecution, of course, then NoTW paying Clifford not to testify would be highly illegal.
However, hopefully this expensive settlement now means that everyone else who was hacked will sue and impoverish News Corp further - except for one plaintiff who goes to trial and humiliates News Corp all the same.
Sick of Murdoch whining about how difficult it is to make money in the newspaper business.
Stop gifting celebs £1m and Rups might find he isn't so short of cash.
Yet if £1m is the going rate, I guess 8 million BT customers can't wait for the credit to their phone bill. And BT might find itself with an £8000bn problem that makes its pension deficit look like a walk in the park.
I'm now down several brain cells after reading about this story in its final-last-spin-that-wheel remix edition. I didn't ask for this interception and a common pin was hacked in the guise of a news article.
On another note, why does voicemail require you to enter a 4 digit PIN when you could use your voice - I for one like the passphrase "like my nibblets", most useful when having to deal with call centre staff as a form of verification.
Also why dont phone companies also provide detailed call logs of who calls you and when and were your voicemail was accessed, realy wouldn't be that hard and is the kinda extra level of service that puts polish on a package.
EIther way fair play to Max, not for winning the case but for proving poor hackers realy are not cost effective. Had they applied just a little intellegence they would of bieged the lines of a competing paper so that any fallback had a scapegoat that only made you more news to your advantage.
But default PIN hacks and the kind are sadly still more than viable with alot of people and systems, sure you could even find a nice banks AS/400 with a default account still active, seriously. Should be just as much a crime as in so much that its entrapment via stupidity.
So, boys and girls, the moral/message in the tale is ? Global telecommunications are easily hacked and monitored and have been for some considerable time, ergo is society, which is poor you, easily fcuked and exploited.
Although surely y'all must have known that for some time.
And how perverse and corrupt of the Justice and Criminal Prosecution Service to practically and virtually condone it with their inaction? But then y'all must have known that for some time too.
Rules are for poor people, just like taxes and surely that too is starting to sink in?
Our corrupt government allows Phorm to spy yet someone spies on a phone line and its a £1M payout?!
How the hell are we the common people expected to respect the government and their ever growing rule book we are forced to call "The Law" when the our arrogant two faced ruling elite runs a society that allows this kind of injustice?!
But then the law is really just a series of rules initially created for good reasons and then amended to hell by generations of the rich and powerful for their own gain. Worst still these days they show they are able to bypass the law often completely, so what is classed as right and wrong seems to be getting decided by what businesses can negotiate, rather than simply punishing them via the law as an uncrossable moral line they cannot avoid. Right is right, wrong is wrong, they done wrong, they get punished. Otherwise the law is meaningless.
Our corrupt society is run these days like a Kleptocracy and then to add insult to injury, they then use some of the money they earn via the Kleptocracy to buy off people! Don't allow them to turn it into a profit share scheme!. So much for the law. Should be punishing them not allowing these detestable bunch of lying, cheating, manipulative underhanded two faced scum bags to buy off people.
The News of the World done wrong, punish them, and make the punish hurt bad, and sure as hell don't allow the two faced scum to buy off people.
The more I see of the corrupt two faced way our society is run by our rich and powerful, the more angry I'm getting at all these detestable Narcissistic scum bags.
Sigh. No phones were hacked, and no fluffy animals were damaged in the process. This is VOICE MAIL hacking.
Phone hacking was easy in the analogue days where all you needed was a re-chipped NEC P3 to listen in to all that was going on around you (and occasionally join in to piss people off).
It takes a lot more resources to do this in the digital world (not impossible, but with a much higher effort.
Hacking voice mail, however, is child's play (evidently :-)..
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