News International and Phone Hacking

[WhiteCrowNZ]

It does seem odd that everyone is being arrested and brought to bear *except* the news editor who was in charge at the time most of this went on. She definitely seems to know some major dirt for her so far "get out of jail free card".

[Stuart Wallis]

Meanwhile, a 60-year-old man arrested on Thursday morning is understood by the BBC to be Neil Wallis, the former executive editor of the News of the World.

No relation, I'd like to point out - separate evil empire!

Si, the sad fact is papers like The Sun and the N,O.W, are popular because people like and want to read about the Royals and celebreties private lives. These papers take a great delight in building people on tv or sport up in to heros then take an even greater delight in bringing them down. I remember a few years ago Frank Bruno, who is one of the most popular British sportsman of the last 30 years was suffering from personal and emotional problems yet The Sun, in a complete lack of compasion or understanding had "Big Frank in Mental Home". splashed across itr's front page. The person who wrote that did it without stopping to think how upsetting it would be for Frank's daughters seeing those things written about their dad, but that is just typical of the trash these papers write.

Tall poppy syndrome! What the point of it is, don't ask; all I know is, it's just sensationalism, getting a bit of scandal out of the woodwork just because it makes not just Murdoch, but the Star and the Mirror Group, and for that matter some of the womens' glossies, a few cocoanut shells. Admittedly in some quarters - eg. police corruption - there's no smoke without fire (or as Michael Flanders once translated it, nil combustium pro fumo); but press rabble-rousing has just become the new opiate of the masses, which says a lot about somebody...

Which brings me back to Frank Bruno's contribution to this thread. It upset me, as someone who's had a bit of depression, to see the poor man turned into a dancing bear. What really put me off the tabloid press while we're on the subject, was a cartoon in the Sun, published when Jeremy Brett was at the height of his popularity, showing him after his nervous breakdown, bouncing on the beds in a mental hospital, dressed as, and claiming to be Sherlock Holmes. If ill people can't get a shred of decency or sympathy from the likes of News International, I'm not sure i can offer the same to them at this time.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

If ill people can't get a shred of decency or sympathy from the likes of News International, I'm not sure i can offer the same to them at this time.

They create the stigma which makes a lot of us hide our condition it's true.

[Darren]

Rebekah Brooks has been arrested and Met Chief Sir Paul Stephenson has resigned.

[Awesome Wells]

Cameron will be next.

[Perry Vale]

I think I'd actually burst with pleasure if that really happened.

[Awesome Wells]

I would weep milky tears of joy.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Cameron will be next.

Isn't this being done by the same judge that brought us the Hutton Inquiry? The one where Tony Blair acted in good faith, and didn't have the report into Iraq's weapons of mass destruction changed to meet his political purposes?

I won't be holding my breath ...

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Hmm - again taking a quick look on the Sun website, they lead with the Beckham's baby girl, you really can't find anything on this story at all. So odd for a paper which usually enjoys making the news ...

[Perry Vale]

I heard on the news that Rebecca Brooks "resigned" with a £3.5 million 'pay-off'. Nice work, if you can get it.

[Rob McCow]

I'd have thought that screwing up other people's lives was its own reward.

I noticed in The Metro today (reading over people's shoulders) that they had a pic of Robbie Williams in bed with an oxygen mask over his face, headlined 'Robbie Ill-iams'. So I'm feeling reassured that the future of gutter journalism is in safe hands.

[Stuart Wallis]

I'm sorry, is this some definition of safe that I was previously unaware of?

[Perry Vale]

News of the World phone-hacking whistleblower found dead

Oh dear. A David Kelly moment?

[Jeff]

So when will the Hollywood movie version of all this be out, and who will be starring in it?

[Perry Vale]

So when will the Hollywood movie version of all this be out, and who will be starring in it?

Funny you should ask...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFufr...embedded#at=40

[Rob McCow]

Looks like the revelations aren't about to stop. This story is going to run... and run... and run...

The hacktivists behind a hack on The Sun's website claim to have extracted an email archive which they plan to release later on Tuesday.

News International's systems were hacked on Monday night. As a result, visitors to The Sun's website were redirected towards a fake story on the supposed death of Rupert Murdoch by infamous hacktivist collective LulzSec. The group also redirected visitors to the main News International website to the LulzSec Twitter feed. In addition, the hack may have allowed LulzSec to gain access to News International's email database.

Sabu, a prominent member of LulzSec, said via Twitter that the group was sitting on emails of News International staffers that it planned to release on Tuesday.

In the meantime, Sabu released email login details for former News International chief exec Rebekah Brooks, a central figure in the News of the World voicemail-hacking scandal.

Brooks (then called Wade), edited The Sun between 2003 and 2009, and – at least according to LulzSec – had been using the password 63000 to access her email account at the paper. As IT blogger John Graham-Cumming points out, 63000 is the same number as the text tip-off line used by the Sun.

LulzSec also posted the supposed password hash – but not the password – of Bill Akass, former managing editor of the News of the World.

The hackers also posted the mobile phone numbers of three News International execs. This information seems to have come from, at best, an old database. The Telegraph reports that one of the phone numbers belongs to Pete Picton, a former online editor with The Sun who left to work on News Corp's iPad-only publication, The Daily, last year. Another phone number belongs to Chris Hampartsoumian, an IT worker. Hampartsoumian recently announced, via Twitter, that he does not work for any News Corp firm.

LulzSec certainly obtained deep enough access to News International systems during the Monday break-in to pull off a redirection hack on The Sun, but whether it obtained the depth of access it claims to have done remains unclear. A News International spokeswoman declined to comment when we asked if the organisation was taking the email hack claims seriously or whether it was taking any remedial action.

She said the firm was "aware" of the website redirection hack on The Sun, adding that all News International websites were now up and running as normal.

However The Guardian reports that News International took its webmail systems and remote access systems offline as a precaution following The Sun website redirection hack. Passwords were reset before remote access and other systems were restored on Tuesday morning, the paper adds

[Larry]

News of the World phone-hacking whistleblower found dead

Oh dear. A David Kelly moment?

no doubt all the conspirecy rumours will start - I saw some thing in the Mail, the other day that Rebekah Brooks, who was arrested by police and then released is threatening to sue claiming her arrest has "blackened her name" well dear in case you hadn't noticed you're already damaged goods.

[Si Hunt]

'Sorry' PM sees value of hindsight

Does this mean next time he's blaming the entire state of the nation on the last government, he'll pay similar dues to being wise after the event?

Si.

[SiHart]

What is it I always say about hindsight Si?

[Si Hunt]

You do always say that Si!

Although, to be fair, you haven't said it for a while. With hindsight, you probably should have said it more often.

Si.

[Stuart Wallis]

What is it I always say about hindsight Si?

In hindsight I should have been listening when you said it...

[Rob McCow]

I thought everything was black and white in hindsight.

Then I realised that was hound sight.

[Rob McCow]

The phone-hacking scandal took a sinister new twist last night after it emerged that police have warned the mother of Sarah Payne that a phone given to her by the News of the World may have been targeted by a detective working for the paper. Sara Payne was given the phone shortly after her eight-year-old daughter, Sarah, was abducted and murdered in July 2000.

Police had previously told her that her name was not among those recorded by the NOTW investigator Glenn Mulcaire, but on Tuesday officers from Operation Weeting said they had found her personal details among the investigator's notes; the information had previously been thought to refer to a different target.

Friends of Ms Payne said she was "absolutely devastated and deeply disappointed" at the disclosure. Her campaign to give parents the right to know if paedophiles were living in their area was championed by the NOTW, in particular by its former editor Rebekah Brooks.

(From the Independent)

Oh dear. I don't know whether this is 'Stabbed them in the back' or 'Shot themselves in the foot'. Either way, if it's true, this is the nastiest and most manipulative act they've been accused of yet.

[Lissa]

The News of the World gave this woman a phone and then listened to her messages? But that would be like the Russians giving the American President a microphone shaped paperweight and then bugging his office. Disgusting.

[SiHart]

Even more so for the fact that they were the paper championing "Sarah's Law" and using that as evidence that they were a force for good when the phone hacking scandal emerged in the first place.