Q& A: News of the World phone- hacking scandal. Image caption. British tabloid the News of the World closed in July 2. The row over phone- hacking by journalists has led to the closure of the News of the World newspaper, the establishment of the Leveson Inquiry, an MPs' inquiry and the launch of three police investigations.
The BBC takes a look at the key questions it poses. What is the phone- hacking scandal? The story goes back to 2. Clive Goodman, the then News of the World royal editor, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator were convicted of intercepting voicemail messages left for royal aides and subsequently jailed. Their newspaper said they had acted alone - but the then editor Andy Coulson quit, saying he took responsibility for what happened. Two years later, the Guardian newspaper reported that News International had made confidential settlements totalling ВЈ1m to three people who said their phones had been hacked. By September 2. 01.
The turning point came in January 2. Metropolitan Police launched Operation Weeting, a fresh phone hacking investigation which included looking at the original 2. The investigation slowly widened to include allegations of improper payments to public officials and separate claims of computer hacking. The critical political moment in the affair came when the Guardian newspaper reported that the newspaper had hacked the mobile phone belonging to murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. What happened to the News of the World? The Sunday newspaper was one of the oldest in the UK and sold some 2.
Its fondness for sex scandals gained it the nickname "News of the Screws". Rupert Murdoch closed it down in the wake of the Milly Dowler revelations. Its final front page declared "Thank you and goodbye".
Image caption. Claims that Milly Dowler's phone was hacked were described as "truly dreadful" by the prime minister. How many people have been hacked? More than 4,0. 00 people have been identified by police as possible victims of phone hacking by the No. W. The forthcoming prosecutions (see below) specify 6. The alleged targets have included politicians, celebrities, actors, sports people, relatives of dead UK soldiers and people who were caught up in the 7/7 London bombings.
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How does phone hacking work? The opportunity to access voicemail messages came down to a simple security oversight. Mobile phones used to be supplied with a default factory- set personal identification number that could be used to access voicemail from another phone or abroad.
Customers were encouraged to change that Pin, but very few did. That meant that anyone could call the phone and if the owner did not answer, the caller could use the Pin to access the voicemail and any stored messages.
Is phone hacking illegal? Yes. Hacking voicemails is classed as an unlawful interception of communications under Section One of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2. Has anyone been charged? On 2. 4 July, the Crown Prosecution Service announced it would be charging eight people with phone hacking. The group includes Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor and, more recently, David Cameron's former spokesman. Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, was also among those charged.
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Both Ms Brooks and Mr Coulson have said they will fight to clear their names. Rebekah Brooks, her husband and others also face a separate charge of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in relation to the police investigations. What role has the Met Police played in the affair? Image caption. Sir Paul Stephenson quit as Met chief amid criticism for hiring an ex- No. W executive as an advisor.
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Just how easy is phone hacking? By. Reporters used a technique called “double screwing,” which involved calling the same number at the same time.
The Met has faced enormous criticism over its initial approach to the allegations. The original inquiry in 2. Officers told MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee that News International had tried to "thwart" the original inquiry. In 2. 00. 9 the force decided not to relaunch the investigation despite pressure to do so.
Phone hacking: Durham police called in to. been called in by the new commissioner of the Metropolitan force to review the ongoing phone-hacking. . how the phone hacking. Phone Hacking: How the scandal unfolded. With Mr Cameron’s judgment in appointing Coulson being called into.
Since then, the force has faced claims of an overly cosy relationship with News of the World journalists. Sir Paul Stephenson quit as the Met's commissioner, as did assistant commissioner John Yates, following criticism of police links to former News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis. In February 2. 01.
No. W. What has happened to victims? News Corporation set up a special process to consider compensation claims for those who believe they were hacked. Some cases have already been settled in the High Court. These include a payment of ВЈ6. Charlotte Church and her parents.
- How phone hacking worked and how to make sure you’re not a victim. I have a number in my settings that is called voice mail, have never called it.
- Phone hacking is the practice of intercepting. Other techniques for phone hacking include tricking a mobile phone user into downloading malware which.
- Phreaking has since become closely linked with computer hacking. [1] This is sometimes called the H/P culture. Phone phreaking got its start in the late 1950s in.
- . News of the World phone-hacking scandal. Is phone hacking illegal? Yes. Hacking voicemails is classed as an unlawful interception of.
- So I set about finding out about the threats to your phone and mine. I called the network I. 'In recent years it's gone way further than phone hacking.
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You can read about more victims here. How has the government handled the affair?
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The prime minister has announced two inquiries and said the Press Complaints Commission should be scrapped. Lord Justice Leveson is conducting a two- part inquiry, initially looking at "the culture, practices and ethics" of the UK press and its relationships with police and politicians. It will later examine the extent of unlawful conduct within newspaper groups and the police's original phone- hacking investigation. Image caption. Andy Coulson blamed coverage of the hacking story for his resignation. Former Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Elizabeth Filkin has already examined the relationship between the media and Metropolitan Police. She concluded that the "close relationship" between parts of Scotland Yard and the media had caused "serious harm". She said there were "some very serious issues" relating to contact between journalists and police which had "eroded trust from the public".
Among her recommendations, she told officers to "watch out" for "late- night carousing" with journalists, and flirting. Prime Minister David Cameron has faced questions over his judgement, given that he employed Mr Coulson.
How has News International responded to the scandal? News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch has issued an apology for the "serious wrongdoing" by the No.
W. In July 2. 01. Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch gave evidence to the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee and denied knowing the full extent of the allegations until evidence in civil cases was requested in late 2.
James Murdoch told MPs he had not been aware of an email suggesting hacking went beyond a single "rogue" reporter. Two former News of the World executives later issued a statement claiming they had informed him. James Murdoch was questioned again by the media committee in November 2.
How phone hacking worked and how to make sure you’re not a victim – Naked Security. Mobile phone security expert David Rogers of blog. A lot of mobile customers are bewildered by the events going on in the world press at the moment with all this talk of ‘phone hacking’.
Many of my friends have asked me what they can do to protect their phones and what the whole thing is about. The truth is, there is no actual phone hacking involved and it is also wrong to call what went on hacking. What’s really being discussed is illicit access to voicemail messages. I’m going to explain a bit about what exactly is behind this, how it works and what you can do to protect yourself from people wanting to access your voicemails. There are a number of possible methods to gain access to someone’s voicemail illicitly. In the UK at least, given the original police inquiry into the News of the World scandal, mobile network operators improved their security mechanisms to increase protection of users. The good thing is, you can test out these mechanisms yourself as you can see below – if your operator hasn’t taken steps to close down the basic loopholes, ring them and tell them!
Default PINs. A lot of the problems that arose in the voicemail scandal arose from the use of well- known default PINs for voicemail access. In fact, you as a customer may never have used a PIN for accessing your voicemail. That is because on most mobile phones, the network recognises that it is your phone calling in and makes life more convenient for you. So you would never even think that someone could access your voicemail by just dialling a number and entering a well- known default PIN. These PINs can be found across the web – they naturally needed to be publicised to customers so they knew how to get remote access if they wanted. As you’re probably thinking right now, this is a really poor security measure. Although the use of default PINs appears to have been brought to a halt in the UK, if you live in another country, it might be worth checking to see whether this practice is still being used by your mobile operator.
As late as March 2. Netherlands were exposed by the use of a default PIN.
Remote Access to Voicemail. Operators often provide an external number through which you can call to access your voicemail remotely. This was one of the mechanisms allegedly used by the News of the World вЂphone hackers’ to get access to people’s voicemails without their knowledge. If you’d never setup a PIN, the attackers would get in via well publicised default PINs. If they came up against someone who was using their own PIN, they would then use social engineering techniques to trick the operator into resetting the PIN to the default. Homework: If you haven’t ever used it before, find out what the remote access number is to your voicemail. What happens? You should be asked for a PIN code.
If you don’t already use a PIN, use the web to see if you can find the default voicemail your provider has advertised in the past. If you enter the default, what happens? Now try entering a wrong PIN. Do you get an SMS on your mobile telling you about it? Be careful not to block yourself out of your account, another security measure will be to block access if there are three wrong attempts. Calling your own phone.
Another not- so- well- known method of accessing voicemail is to actually call your own mobile number. Claims about the voicemail hacking scandal say that one journalist would call up a celebrity to engage the phone while another would then go into the voicemail using this method.
This seems pretty likely as a lot of celebrities’ phones are looked after by personal assistants, not the celebrity themselves so it could look fairly legitimate to call up the PA. More homework: Call your own mobile phone number. While you’re listening to the bit where it asks you to leave a message, press the * (star) key. You should then be brought to your own voicemail menu! The system should ask you to enter a PIN. Follow the same process as above and see what happens.
Notifications. One of the security measures that have been introduced is to notify the customer more often by SMS when something goes on that they should know about. Remember that if a third- party was accessing your voicemails remotely, you as a customer wouldn’t normally get to know that anyone had been there. In some cases, the attackers deleted the voicemails. The type of notifications you could get could tell you that there has been a remote access to your voicemail, that there was an invalid PIN code attempt or that your voicemail PIN has been changed – all useful bits of information! This is something that has been borrowed from the banking industry. It is a simple, effective early warning mechanism that something could be wrong.
Because it shouldn’t happen very often, you shouldn’t be plagued by messages, equally you are the best person to know if it is dodgy activity or not. However, always be careful with any message you receive.
The best thing to do if you are unsure is to ring the customer helpline of your operator who’ll be able to tell you whether the message is genuine. Newer methods of hacking voicemails. Sadly, there are always people who want to find out what others are up to, illegally. The methods for doing this are continually evolving. Some of the newer methods involve faking a phone’s displayed number so it can trick access to voicemail. This technique has been used in the USA and recently in the Netherlands to get access to the voicemails of politicians.
To block this attack, you need to setup a PIN to access your voicemail. By doing this you prevent automatic access to your voicemail (as if you were ringing from your own mobile). Summary. You now know how it works and you’ve been able to check whether you’re properly protected and set your own PIN number up.
The customer service websites of operators should also be able to give you some good advice on PIN security and their voicemail service. Remember that with all the publicity around the issue, it’s not only the operators who are reacting to the revelations; there will be bad people out there who are only now starting to exploit illicit voicemail access.
Don’t let yourself be a victim. What happens next? Well, customer use of voicemail technology has evolved a lot, even in the last five years with the result that habits are changing. That is why I am asking the network operators to look at the use of remote voicemail access in general, with the proposal that they should consider shutting remote access down entirely. Follow @drogersuk.