News of the World Hacking. How are they obtaining victims mobile numbers.

wantmemoney

apart from unscrupulous employees supplying the hackers the numbers how else would it be possible?

@MSE
I realise this topic isn't specifically related to this forum but I would appreciate it if the Moderators would leave it here as most of the knowledgeable employees read these posts

jhp

Should it not be in the mobile section given its about mobile numbers.;)

wantmemoney

@Moderator.. could you move this to mobile please...thanks

Heinz

wantmemoney wrote: »

apart from unscrupulous employees supplying the hackers the numbers how else would it be possible?

Or friends or relations naively letting them slip to journalists?

spike7451

Modern surveillance equipment can do a lot of things,older mobile's were analogue & easy to listen to with certain equipment.A lot of stuff which the NotW used was no doubt bought from specialist private eye suppliers.
In fact,servicemen going on Op's are not allowed to take their mobiles in theater with them due to the danger of any calls they make being intercepted by the Taliban & the number back traced.Remember the extremists who planned on kidnapping & beheading a British Soldier home on leave to the UK?..Apparently that's how the extremists found out who he was & where he lived.

mnbvcxz

I always assumed, but don't really know, that once they had one celebrities number they hacked into their phones messages by guessing the pin code by trial and error and then they would have the numbers of all the celebrities leaving messages on that phone. Then they hack those celebrities and get all the number of people leaving messages on their phone and so on.

Mind you if you are a connected journalist its probably not that hard to get someones number from a hanger on or whoever.

vax2002

The Rozzers and envelopes of cash, but we will never find our because the Lamb has be slaughtered upon the alter

ManAtHome

Why the "apart from".?

spenderdave

A good article on how it was done can be found in this week's New Scientist - http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20660-voicemail-hacking-how-easy-is-it.html?full=true

Note that it is the voicemail that was hacked, not the phone itself. The phrase 'phone hacking' used by the media is totally misleading. 'Illegal reading of voicemail messages' is more accurate.

And despite all the furour there seems little hard evidence of what was actually overheard. Most voicemail accounts would contain little more than 'John please ring me back, Fred', many may never have been accessed by the user for months. Having a phone number in a journalist's book does NOT mean that voicemail has been accessed. Gutterpress media at its best, I just switch the radio/TV off.