How Long Were News Hacks Hacking Phones?

Something I missed before; the phone hack of murder victim Milly Dowler was back in 2002 according to this. I conflated it with the royal voicemail scandal, which is a different but likely related story.

I’ll guess that journos and PIs have been figuring out how easy it is to navigate voicemails since the technology was invented. Maybe they found it more convenient and less risky than breaking in to homes and offices to listen to taped messages on the old first generation machines? Since many people never changed the default passwords on their analog and digital voicemails, it just was too temptingly easy.

The scandal exploded this week after it was reported that the News of the World had hacked the mobile phone of 13-year-old murder victim Milly Dowler in 2002 while her family and police were desperately searching for her. News of the World operatives reportedly deleted some messages from the phone’s voicemail, giving the girl’s parents false hope that she was still alive.

via News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch swoops into offices of UK newspaper division amid scandal – The Washington Post.

Weekly Tweets 2011-07-10

  • RT @cdashiell "Only the liberal churches protested slavery." #
  • Wow, an oil pipeline UNDER a major river. What genius thought that one up? #
  • No asthma or tight chest today! #fb #
  • What is wrong with United Airlines at IAD? Long lines, nobody available to check my guy in because kiosk can't handle British passport??!! #
  • 2nd time this week UA at IAD has my people missing flights because no one available to help customers. The kiosks don't work for everyone. #
  • London Bomb Blasts: You Can't Beat the System http://flic.kr/p/39bDK #
  • RT @ThriftyinWhite: Just got assigned an indepth story about the @SecondLife virtual job market…signing up for acct now & I AM SO NERVOUS. #

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