Editorial: 鈥�Phone-hacking: new technology, ancient psychology鈥�
Phone hacking could be just the tip of the iceberg.
Last week, British publisher News International tried to draw a line under the scandal that has engulfed it by closing the 168-year-old tabloid 快猫短视频 of the World. The closure was announced after it emerged that the newspaper鈥檚 journalists had used default passwords to eavesdrop on 鈥� and sometimes delete 鈥� voicemails on an abducted teenager鈥檚 cellphone.
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But the scandal may encompass other forms of technology, too. On 8 July, the police investigation has been hampered by one News International executive deleting thousands of potentially incriminating emails from an internal archive.
It may not help: a corporate IT specialist contacted by 快猫短视频 says it is highly probable that NI has off-site backup storage of its data for disaster recovery reasons.
Pinging police
On 11 July, yet another type of technocrime emerged. 快猫短视频 of the World staff had bribed police to track people鈥檚 cellphone locations. This must be authorised by a senior police officer under English law, but the NYT says corrupt officers did the job 鈥� dubbed 鈥減inging鈥� 鈥� on request for around 拢300.
This is possible because any cellphone network can be used to track people (or rather, their phones) simply by triangulating signal strength from the three masts nearest their phone.
鈥淚f the police want to hear the content of a phone call, they must get permission from the Home Secretary,鈥� says , a security and privacy researcher with the Oxford Internet Institute in the UK. 鈥淏ut if they only want your location, a senior police officer can authorise it.鈥�
We told you so
Brown and like-minded colleagues warned British lawmakers about this self-authorisation and other anomalies during the passage of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) in 2000. Gordon Brown, chancellor of the exchequer at the time, that his son鈥檚 medical information had been appropriated by another News International title, The Sun.
鈥淲e predicted facilities like RIPA鈥檚 self-authorisation would be abused, but the government called us paranoid, asking us what we had to hide. We said it鈥檚 not so much government we鈥檙e worried about as hackers and corrupt insiders 鈥� and we have been proven right,鈥� says Ian Brown.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a case of 鈥榃e told you so鈥�.鈥�
It doesn鈥檛 end there: two formerly anonymous sex bloggers turned authors, Brooke Magnanti and Zoe Margolis, of spyware attached to emails from News International鈥檚 Sunday Times. Both believe trojans downloaded when they opened the emails .
