The fact investigators working for the News of the World hacked into my mobile phone to cut me out of a potential £30,000 celebrity scoop is not surprising. If you swim with sharks you expect the odd puncture wound. The fact this process is so simple, swift and apparently routine is shocking.
I called the Sunday tabloid one bright afternoon with the name of a celebrity chef and tales of famous London nightclubs, glamorous hotels and sexual impropriety. The reporter I spoke to was Clive Goodman. He promised me the Screws would pay the most – but something about his conspiratorial tones turned me towards a more gregarious Sunday Mirror news editor.
The News of the World was not going to let this apparent front page get away. A rapid succession of calls to my mobile followed. These allowed the caller to access my voicemail – I had not set a password. My personal greeting gave them my real name and my place of work while the messages revealed the identity of my then girlfriend, who was the source of the story.
Goodman called me on my work mobile and aggressively demanded the name of the chef's female acquaintance. I refused.
It was after that that my mobile phone records were hacked. T-Mobile confirmed a bizarre call where someone pretending to be me failed the most basic security question – my date of birth. Despite this, the caller was able to try again just 15 minutes later and, this time being successful, he was given a full rundown of my recent calls. He then tried to hack my partner's phone records.
News Source:- http://www.guardian.co.uk
<< Back to news...