Tuesday, July 19, 2011

IN WHICH I DON TINFOIL, WANDER WAY OUT OF MY DEPTH, AND ASK: DID MURDOCH LET HACKERS IN DELIBERATELY?

So what happened on July 4 of this year? Well, among other things, The Guardian reported that Milly Dowler's voicemail was hacked by Rupert Murdoch's News of the World -- the story that changed everything for Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation. What else? By an odd coincidence, the Twitter feed of FoxNews.com was hacked -- false messages were posted saying that President Obama was dead.

Adjusting my tinfoil, I ask: Is this possibly not a coincidence? I ask now because the FBI has just raided the homes of some alleged hackers on Long Island -- and FoxNews.com has the story, in an "EXCLUSIVE." The alleged hackers are said to be members of Anonymous -- and after the Fox hack, the student paper at Stony Brook University, on Long Island, published what it said was an interview with the hackers, who said they were members of a group called Script Kiddies; one said:

"I would consider us to be close in relation [to Anonymous], 2 of the members of our group were members of Anonymous," said a representative of The Script Kiddies, who, for reasons that should be quite clear, asked to remain, yes, anonymous. "I was a member of Anonymous. We hope to be working with them soon."

So here's my theory, and tell me if it's preposterous.

Team Murdoch knew that the phone-hacking story was about to bust wide open. The Murdochites are -- to say the least -- quite comfortable working with law enforcement.

So is it possible that they found a way to allow a hack, which made the FBI's attempts to find these hackers easier? Or is there some other way that they could be cooperating with the FBI that involves both good citizenship and being hacked publicly, which makes them victims, at a moment when it's really useful to them to seem like victims? Note that hackers in the Anonymous/LulzSecurity orbit are claiming at this moment to have News Corp e-mails. Would Team Murdoch possibly have allowed some not-extremely-embarrassing e-mails to be scarfed up by hackers, in the interest of appearing victimized? Also, note that LulzSec just hacked the Web site of Murdoch's Sun, posting a fake report that Murdoch himself was dead.

I dunno. This is not my area of expertise. Is what I'm thinking at all plausible?

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