The Official Newscorp/UK end of season finale/Rebekah Brooks did 9/11 thread

blowing whistles in heaven now

NYTimes goes in. HUGE amount of allegations, go nuts. Plus plenty of roffles:

Mr. Dacre, The Daily Mail editor, told his senior managers that he had received several reports from businesspeople, soccer stars and public relations agencies that the News International executives Will Lewis and Simon Greenberg had encouraged them to investigate whether their phones had been hacked by Daily Mail newspapers . “They thought it was unfair that all the focus was on The News of the World,” said one News International official with knowledge of the effort. The two men have told colleagues they did not make such calls, but two company officials disputed that.

Mr. Dacre confronted Ms. Brooks over breakfast at the plush Brown’s hotel. “You are trying to tear down the entire industry,” Mr. Dacre told her, according to an account he relayed to his management team.

Ms. Brooks, whose tenacity is legendary, was not deterred. At a dinner party, Lady Claudia Rothermere, the wife of the billionaire owner of The Daily Mail, overheard Ms. Brooks saying that The Mail was just as culpable as The News of the World. “We didn’t break the law,” Lady Rothermere said, according to two sources with knowledge of the exchange. Ms. Brooks asked who Lady Rothermere thought she was, “Mother Teresa?”

re: dacre, thought this was interesting:

Asked whether unlawful newsgathering techniques could ever be justified, he said: "Goodness me, deep waters. I have considerable sympathy that if there's a great public interest then those methods can be justified."

However, he added later: "I don't think you should ever use hacking or blagging as a [public interest] defence because they're criminal offences."

like how much room is he leaving here for diff readings of 'if there's a great public interest' - like there is an obvious defence when it's regarding genuine journalistic enquiry, but given that the daily mail peddles a lot of gutter bullshit about cellulite and celebrity affairs that, y'know, there's a great public interest in, it's p interesting.

Mr. Murdoch was attending a conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, in early July when it became clear that the latest eruption of the hacking scandal was not, as he first thought, a passing problem. According to a person briefed on the conversation, he proposed to one senior executive that he “fly commercial to London,” so he might be seen as man of the people. He was told that would hardly do the trick, and he arrived on a Gulfstream G550 private jet.

"Get me a ticket on Freddie Laker's airline."

haha

not really keeping up w/ this thread, but the wsj editorial about this is hilariously small-minded and cunty

The Bancrofts were admirable owners in many ways, but at the end of their ownership their appetite for dividends meant that little cash remained to invest in journalism. We shudder to think what the Journal would look like today without the sale to News Corp.

read: "our only loyalty is to power, you can basically ignore what we say"

Really don't think Lady Rothmere is as bad as Mother Teresa, to be fair.

"The British politicians now bemoaning media influence over politics are also the same statesmen who have long coveted media support."

logic.ppt

And how the WSJ will trumpet this:

9.26pm: Standard and Poor's have put News Corp on negative credit watch, according to the AFP news agency.

What time does it kick off tomorrow?

http://www.dwot.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/schadenfreude.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14194623

Hmm.

10.00pm: Three Police officers carrying cameras and wearing white forensic suits arrived a short time ago at Sean Hoare's flat in Watford.
Fifteen minutes earlier, at about 9.15pm, a police van marked "Scientific Services Unit" pulled up at the address, a block of flats that the journalist moved into in November 2009.
The Press Association reports that two officers emerged carrying evidence bags, clipboards, torches and laptop-style bags and entered the building.

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaow

Nothing suspicious here obviously.

Fuck 'UK end of season finale', it's getting more like '24' end of season finale.

One of the more ridiculous later seasons, too.

Britain, you really have the best scandals ever.

My mom has not fallen for the dismissal of the story a la Fox and is actually going to watch the Parliamentary hearing, even if she has to go to C-SPAN. I really hope this is her big Helen Keller moment with this shit. OTOH: "Who's the redhead? Is sex involved?"

the hackers hacked:

http://whois.domaintools.com/new-times.co.uk

http://www.new-times.co.uk/sun/

now thesun.co.uk is redirecting to the hacked page.

http://twitter.com/#!/anonymouSabu/status/93062692327264256

omg @ that hack

wow!

I didn't know he had a famous topiary garden!

http://www.onlineworldofwrestling.com/pictures/s/sabu/23.jpg

this is awesome!

I know newscorp people on fb who were all like 'uuuh not dead, hacker fail' and the links they posted are redirecting to the hack.

fucking hell ed miliband is a robot

Looks like the AnonymouSabu twitter account is going even further (no idea if what they are posting is actually real)

What do those numbers do though?

This is absolutely nuts in a predictable "what zeitgeisty infosec trope hasn't turned up yet?" way.

xpost
Think it's a cryptographic key to store the password?

Yes... The password hashes and salts are needed to decrypt the passwords.. Using these details the passwords could be cracked in seconds...

The Sun homepage thesun.co.uk now redirects to the LulzSec twitter page

this is all just spiffy

End of season now feels too small, somehow...

SABU

i seriously would never have imagined that the parly grilling tomorrow would end up feeling like a sideshow

This is crazy. I've got to interview someone discussed on this thread tomorrow - musician - first thing and I know we are going to spend half of it not talking about anything but this.

Waking up is brilliant these days. I need to take a day off just to work through the past few hours.

11.37pm: A News International spokeswoman has confirmed to the Press Association that the company was "aware" of what was happening, but made no further comment.

What else could be said, anyway? "Uh, yeah, we're fucked."

xp wooooow

This is crazy. I've got to interview someone discussed on this thread tomorrow - musician

Say hi to Mr. Michael for us!

Via twitter:

PaulLewis

I've been at Sean Hoare's house. Police/ambulance there 11am-3pm. Then nothing. Story breaks. Forensics arrive 9pm.

Hahaha Ned, unlike GM, this interviewee has never had a homosexual experience.

Say hi to William Hague for us!

looool

i mean just in the last 24 hours there's been

- the supposed suicide of a key whistleblower
- a mysterious bag with computer and files in it found near rebekah brooks' house
- hackers who claim to have snaffled all NOTW and the Sun's emails

in the 24 hrs before that there was rebekah brooks' arrest and the chief of scotland yard's resignation. this is starting to make "house of cards" look unimaginative