Anonymous To Release Sun, News of the World Emails 363
siliconbits writes "After having hacked Rupert Murdoch's flagship news website, thesun.co.uk, and redirecting its readers to a spoof front page and pilfering its email servers, Anonymous' unofficial mouthpiece, Sabu, has revealed that the group is 'sitting on [the sun's & NOTW's] emails' with a press release from Anonymous & possibly more coming in a few hours. While that website has already been taken down, the email bounty is likely to be potentially more damaging with Sabu releasing details of two of the Sun's top three employees, Rebekah Wade and Bill Akass, the former editors of the Sun and News of the World respectively as well as Lee Wells & Danny Rogers, Editorial Support Manager at News International and Sun Online Editorial Manager respectively, as a taster of what's coming next."
Compromising the investigation (Score:5, Insightful)
While I'm quite enjoying what Anonymous/Lulzsec are doing, I hope it does not compromise the criminal investigations that are to follow.
Re:Compromising the investigation (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope it does not compromise the criminal investigations
You mean the investigations that Scotland Yard has already swept under the rug and tried to kill several times? Yeah, we wouldn't want to compromise those thorough investigations by competent, unbiased police officers. Shit, I heard they're going to put Sherlock Holmes on it, just the make sure that Scotland Yard's unblemished reputation in this matter is upheld.
Re:I love this (Score:5, Insightful)
It's good to see them getting a taste of their own medicine.
Re:Hacking innocent people's email accounts?!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if Anon and Lulzlzlz (what the fuck ever) realize that they are and have been doing the very same thing they are pissed at The Sun for doing. They just have different targets that in their minds, deserve it.
Re:Hacking innocent people's email accounts?!?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Funny but doesn't Anonymous do that exact same thing? I mean dumping users email addresses and password hashes hurts the users as well as the companies.
Re:Hacking innocent people's email accounts?!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hacking innocent people's email accounts?!?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep - releasing userid/passwords is the same thing as hacking into dead childern's voicemails for scoops.
Re:Compromising the investigation (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether or not the evidence is tainted depends on a few factors. First off, if the evidence is illegally obtained by a third party not under the influence of the authorities, the evidence is not automatically tainted. Chain of custody becomes an important issue, however, since the prosecution would have to pretty much prove that the evidence was not altered by the third party. However, the most important one to this example, I think, would be the exceptions to the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine. Namely, whether the authorities would have inevitably discovered these documents in the course of their investigations (assuming full compliance with warrant issued by the court). I don't think there is any way the authoities would NOT serve a warrant for those emails.
There are of course other factors involved in whether the evidence is admissable. But a third party acting completely independently from the authorities acquiring evidence illegally does not make that evidence inadmissable, no matter whether or not it taints the jury pool.[1]
And for what it's worth... without public outcry, it's quite possible that the alleged guilty parties at NOTW would enter a plea bargain and have the evidence suppressed (legally or extra-legally, they have a ton of influence). It's why this is such a big scandal... that's exactly what they've been doing for years. Public access to the information is the foundation of the only weapons we have against the government-corporate-media complex[2] that subverts the US democracy.
[1] IANAL. If you want a real legal analysis, consult a real lawyer. YMMV. Half of what I know about law I learned from Perry Mason, Colombo, and Law and Order. The other half comes from researching topics relevant to slashdot discussion on the internet. Do not use my post as legal advice. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
[2] I don't think I'm a conspiracy theorist, no matter how much that line makes me sound like one. It's obvious to me that US Legislators are far more beholden to the companies that pay their election bills and hire them once they are out of office than they are to the public; especially so for media companies, who by-and-large control what information the public has.
Re:Hacking innocent people's email accounts?!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
At the end of the game, The king and the pawn go back in the same box.
Re:Hacking innocent people's email accounts?!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
More like evidence was tampered.
First, listening to voicemail often clears the "new voicemail" flag, and unless you're really anal, no one listens to every voice mail they have daily.
Perhaps the bigger crime is the fact they destroyed evidence - the voice mailbox was full. They deleted voicemails to make room for more. Sure we can hope the reporters deleted the unimportant ones, but can you really be sure?
Lulzsec at least isn't tampering with these things - these emails exist, and they're releasing it. They haven't come in, deleted emails or read unread email (and fail to reset them so the recipient never notices they haven't actually read the email yet).
Yes, there were mistakes on all sides. But leaving my front door unlocked doesn't give anyone the right to enter my house, and especially not to go through my computer reading my email, answering machine/voice mail
Re:Hacking innocent people's email accounts?!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
A world that is blind is still better than a world where only the wrongdoers keep their eyes, after all.
As a wise man has said, All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Re:Compromising the investigation (Score:4, Insightful)
Good point, that's how Batman is able help win legit convictions: he's not acting on authorization of the police, so when he leaves the criminals at the crime scene bundled up with the evidence, Gotham City can use all they found in court.
I mean, if all that happened in real life.
Re:Hacking innocent people's email accounts?!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
What about:
1) Hacking the phones of the police officers investigating the phone hacking case?
2) Bribing police officers for information on those same officers.
3) Blackmailing some of those officers with information obtained by 1) and 2).
4) Bribing the officers they couldn't blackmail in 3 to drop the case.
5) Hacking the phones of politicians.
6) Bribing police (and doctors?) for information on politicians.
7) Using the information gained in 5) and 6) to dictate favorable legislation.
8) Using his control of diverse news media to interfere with elections.
9) Using the threat of interference to influence politicians
There's a lot more to this case than just the phone hacking. Picking on "regular people" is what outraged a lot of people, but now they might actually pay attention to the other, more important, stuff.
You know you have a PR problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anonymous cannot be trusted (Score:5, Insightful)
Civil Rights protesters can't be trusted -- If they're breaking the law by riding in the front of buses or participating in illegal protests speaking out the very laws that make such things illegal, or performing their "duty as a statesman" to overthrow an oppressive government (as mentioned in their original Declaration of Independence), then they can clearly NEVER be Trusted!
Are you now or have you ever been in violation of any law? Aha! Your vehicle exceeded the mandated speed limit! Your words are meaningless to me now!
Also: I do not abide by laws that are unjust, or logic that is flawed. Nor do I wait idly for the next blow from my assailant's fist.
Re:Hacking innocent people's email accounts?!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hacking innocent people's email accounts?!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what happens when he law fails. Murdoch and his ilk cannot and will not be punished in our current system of law. Vigilante justice is wrong, but it is the only justice left to deal with these folks. If the law would do its job this would not happen.
Re:Hacking innocent people's email accounts?!?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, I think it is more severe to hack and release the emails of a company/person facing both civil and criminal charges/actions.
Now all the internal email and communications that could be subpoenaed to discover the depth of this scandal and criminal or civil liability can be questioned for it's legitimacy. after all, their servers were hacked and some activist group had complete control over them for an unspecified period of time in which they covered their tracks making it difficult to know exactly what they did while in control of it.
So in court, it would go like this, well, MR CEO, did you tell the reporter to hack the voice mail as is stated in this document? You Honor, I have never ordered anyone to do anything of the sort, it was not a company policy and if it was know, the people responsible would have been reported to the authorities and terminated, that accusation is a fabrication created by an activist group calling itself anonymous who hacked our servers and planted evidence of what they wanted the case to become.
But the investigators have this email sent from your computer. Well, your honor, those documents were retrieved by investigators after the activist group had illegally accessed our servers and one of our IT staff showed us how these headers and identifying information can be fabricated like in this example that looks very realistic as if it was an email you sent under your court email account but from a Disney world resort 3000 miles away and 5 minute into the future from now. IF this was planted on the courts servers by an activist group, would it be evidence that you went to Orlando Florida instead of presiding over this hearing?
The judge would then order the evidence after the break in unreliable unless supported by something the activist group did not hack into. This would likely result in only low level employees who admitted to the deeds getting into trouble.
Re:Hacking innocent people's email accounts?!?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Both groups do it for both those reasons (albeit Anonymous' system for turning the profit is far less well-developed); you just happen to agree politically with one of them.