News of the World phone tapping scandal “gift that keeps on giving” for Rupert Murdoch

British tabloid newspaper News of the World has once again been thrust into the spotlight over a phone hacking scandal that seems to be linked with more high-profile targets by the week. Recent revelations relating to the 2002 murder of two schoolgirls, true or false, threaten to further strengthen the newspaper’s already vice-like grip on the national media:

“The whole situation is like a cash machine that swallows your card but gives you $1,000 from someone else’s bank account, free of charge. News of the World has been the top-selling Sunday newspaper ever since it was alleged we tapped into Her Majesty’s private voicemail in 2006. My only regret is that we didn’t intercept more messages before we got caught. Just think, we could have been listening in on Taliban conversations and had Osama bin Laden exterminated… oh wait, we did.” – Rupert Murdoch, News Group International

Murdoch quickly retracted his comments when it was revealed private investigators had also tapped into his account, and that details of an alleged tax-avoidance scheme could be emailed to international news outlets in a matter of minutes. He then had them reinstated when he remembered he owns the world and can buy the right to say whatever he likes.

The latest in a long-running series of stories regarding News of the World tapping scandals immediately follows allegations that hacktivist community LulzSec, whom Murdoch once described as “a bunch of jobless script kiddies representing the web’s hyperactive twelve-year olds”, shared findings with the multi-millionaire media mogul’s online representatives. This led to widespread fear that people’s web browsing histories and IRC chatlogs at private sites such as hungryandhorny.com would appear in British daily newspapers. The information would also be syndicated on the News of the World website, but since there is currently a paywall in place, nobody but NOTW Online’s 32 readers would ever see it.

“If your password is ‘Batman’, ‘1111’ or ‘password’, you can rest assured we have already drained your bank, building society and PayPal savings accounts, and that there is nothing more you can do. Since you are a News of the World premium subscriber, your story will never hold up in court. Have a nice day.” – Email to all News of the World premium subscribers, later revealed to be from LulzSec

Amid increasing panic over hacking of personal details, the Ministry of Defence has urged people ‘not to do anything stupid’ and to ‘avoid lending your phone to strange men hanging around the estate in suits and ties’. In an official statement issued by the MoD, members of the public were also politely asked to return equipment stolen from their offices in London ‘or else [they would] sell your Facebook password to the News of the World’.

Sources

• Phone call from Rupert Murdoch to an unnamed contact in Kerguelen, thought to be Lord Lucan, taken from the private inbox of Sir Keith Rupert Murdoch
• Intercepted phone conversation between Osama bin Laden and Domino’s Pizza Abbottabad branch, Pakistan
• Private radio transmission by the UK Ministry of Defence to the President of the United States of America
• Message written on back of public toilet door, Wickford, Essex
• Encyclopedia Dramatica, before it was hacked

Image modified from original by David Drexler (CC2.0)