The News of the World Phone Hacking Scandal

The Tracking Methods that Brought Down a Historic Newspaper

 

 

One of journalism's most notorious security scandals involved the British tabloid, News of the World. NOTW was part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire. Founded in 1843, it was at one time the most popular English language newspaper on the planet.
But in 2011, wide-spread privacy breaches brought the once proud paper to sudden, ignominious end. Log on to the NOTW website and (as of the this writing) the only words you'll find are "The World's Greatest Newspaper 1843-2011. Thank You & Goodbye."
Growing Scandal
The chain of events that would eventually silence NOTW's presses traces back to 2002 and the death of British teenager, Milly Dowler. In the early days of Dowler's disappearance a NOTW investigator, along with journalists covering the story, hacked into the missing teen's voicemail box. They listened to Dowler's messages and even deleted some, destroying potential evidence and leading to speculation that the missing girl was still alive.
As it turns out, Dowler's was not the only voicemail box that NOTW agents had surreptitiously accessed. The weight of the collected phone hacking scandals reached critical mass in 2011 and forced the historical publication to close its doors.
Phone Hacking
The common references to News of the World "phone hacking" are a little misleading. Reporters and investigators didn't actually intercept anyone's calls or plant spyware on phones. Rather, they invaded voicemail accounts to gather private information.
The dirty deeds were pretty low-tech. Some perpetrators used a technique known as pretexting. Pretexting is simple; I call your phone company and pretend to be you. Your phone company gives me the password I need to access your voicemail. Now I can hear your messages. Others may have dialed into voicemail accounts by simply guessing at weak passwords.
It should be noted that intercepting cell phone calls is relatively easy, though, provided you can gain physical access to the phone on which you want to spy. Many inexpensive applications allow you to remotely listen in on phone conversations, and even turn on a phone's speaker or camera to do a little eavesdropping.
In order to load one of these applications, however, you need to be in possession of the handset. Therefore, one of the best defenses against this type of attack is simply to password protect your smartphone.
Pinging
Besides invading voicemail boxes, News of the World reporters also engaged in a practice called "pinging" to stalk the subjects of their investigative journalism.
More precisely, they paid the police to ping for them.
Pinging works by reading a phone's signal strength at cell towers. Whenever a mobile phone is powered up, it constantly sends out a signal to determine the closest tower. The towers record the strength and direction of the signals they receive, so with the data from two cell towers and some basic trig, you can dial in on a phone's location.
Under the UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), pinging data must be requested by a senior police officer on a case by case basis. But the late Sean Hoare, a former News of the World reporter turned whistleblower, had said that the paper could purchase pinging data directly from the Metropolitan Police. The pinging requests cost the paper the equivalent of about $500 each. News of the World is said to have used this technique to locate, among others, author James Hewitt, a former paramour of Princess Diana. RIPA requests, however, are intended for national security and crime prevention purposes, not for tracking pop stars and royals.
Summary
The News of the World scandal was one of the more notorious privacy breaches of the digital tracking age. The mobile devices we've come to rely on spray tracking data around like so many digital bread crumbs. That being the case, there will always be a strong temptation for those who value this information to snatch at it with no regard to our privacy or security. Each of us has the responsibility to guard private data. And those, such as the Metropolitan Police, who have the power to either guard or invade our privacy must do so without compromise.