100s to be contacted in re-opened NotW hacking case

Its a little more complex than that

Allegedly, people were selling confidential celeb phone numbers to the private investigators involved in this scam, and customer services staff at operators like Vodafone have been mentioned as a source of confidential PIN numbers.

Allegedly.

But even if people didn't change their PINs, or their numbers were well known... that still doesn't excuse the behaviour of the people involved in this scam.

Not just celebs and pols

Whilst my sympathy for those politicans who cracked down on personal privacy is extremely limited, the case is not as straightforward as you think.

It wasn't just celebrities who were targetted. Victims of serious crime such as rape were also hacked by journos looking for gossip. So were potential witnesses. People with pretty innocuous jobs, such as PAs and accountants were also hacked, leading to at least one blameless person losing their job. When it came to people in the public eye their families, friends, and in some cases children also had their voicemail intercepted.

Yes, some people didn't change their default PIN. Many did, and somehow the press still accessed their voicemails.

Just because some of the loudest bleaters aren't exactly the greatest defenders of civil liberties we shouldn't ignore the extent of this scandal.

so which newspaper do you work for?

Considering the outragous (totally unaccountable) power held by the press, and the arrogant way in which they knobbled the the police & politicians and bought off the celebs. I think this is a pretty important case.

We elect politicians to 'manage' the country (yeah they used to have leadership, but thats a different rant :D) in OUR interest. So how many times has our interest been sidelined but some grubby little journo threatening to dish the dirt on a particular MP, or in some cases wrecking their careers to pursue the newspapers agenda? Or to put it another way, how many times did our agenda even get a look in?

The tale about some kind of matey quid pro quo twixt the met and Fleet st. stinks too. if Fleet st. knew what the cabinet was up to do you REALLY think they would not have a file stashed away detailing the predilicitions/lodge membership details/financial ins and outs of a bunch of met plods too?

It's exactly the same deal that allowed hoover to have a stranglehold on the 'land of the free' for 50 years. and you think some dickhead nicking nextdoors playstation is a bigger deal?

FFS

This is supposed to be a democracy after all,

you know 1 man one vote,

i just think that one man should not be rupert fucking murdoch

apply clue above

FFS! It's getting attention because the whole thing stinks.

The News of the Screws has been caught hacking voicemail. They've lied about it too: remember their "one bad apple" defence?. Their top management may be facing perjury charges:. Ex editor Coulson twice said on oath he knew nothing of the hacking. News International told a House of Commons committee they pay police for information. That's illegal as well. Though the other tabloids are probably just as guilty of all of that. Check out the edition of Dispatches that went out on Channel 4 the other day.

When the first complaints were made a few years ago, the Met did a half-assed job of investigating. So only Mulcaire and Goodman got charged and convicted. The cop in charge of that investigation retired to take a job as a columnist on the News of the Screws. Perhaps that was just a coincidence.

When the investigation was re-opened screeds of "new information" emerged. Like Fatty Prescott being a victim. You might also think the police would have shown some interest then in violations of the Deputy Prime Minister's privacy, even if it was Prescott. Other MPs have been misled by the Met. Until the "new evidence" emerged. So the relationship between the press and the police needs to be looked at as well as how that initial Met investigation was carried out.

There is some serious shit going on here. It looks like a powerful newspaper group are able to influence police investigations into serious offences by their employees. I think that's far, far more disturbing than who nicks Joe Public's DVD player.

BTW social engineering and backhanders to phone company employees have been used to get access to voicemail and other private details: call records, billing info, etc. This has gone on for ever. So even if a celeb or fuckwit politician has taken reasonable precautions, they could still have had their privacy invaded. And not just for phone company data.

Default PINs are not the issue!

You cannot access your voicemail from another phone, regardless of what network you're on, until you've changed the PIN from the default.