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The man who tried to alert the world to the potential of hacking scandal in 1999

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Interesting website from Steven Nott detailing an amazingly long battle to try and alert the media and authorities about what became phone hacking back in 1999, but to no avail.

He contacted the likes of The Sun, The Daily Mirror and ITN News and was promised stories after he had highlighted how easy it was to hack the voicemail of Vodafone phone users, but despite talking to journalists nothing was ever written.

He eventually, after ten months of trying, got a story in his local newspaper in Wales, the South Wales Argus, which tells the story how he tried to raise the alarm about the possible interception of voicemail, which we now know so well as phone hacking (see below).

Since then he has contacted John Prescott who wrote to him saying his information had been passed on to the Metropolitan Police. The Met’s hacking investigation team, Operation Weeting, has been in touch and he has given it a statement after a lengthy meeting. He has also been called in as witness to one of the civil cases suing Newsgroup newspapers and Glenn Mulcaire.

From the South Wales Argus: A Cwmbran sales manager says he has discovered a major security problem with one of the country’s largest mobile phone networks.

Horrified Vodafone subscriber Steve Nott, 32, found the ANYONE can access his answer phone service and listen to his private messages….helped by the giant network’s own operators.

He explained ” Some time ago, the Vodafone network went down because of a technical fault. I had some important messages coming in, so I rang Vodafone to access them.

“I was asked by an operator if I had programmed a PIN number into my answer service. When I said I hadn’t, I was told it didn’t matter, that I all I had to do was key in the default number…”

You can read Nott’s full account of his story on his website. It adds an interesting perspective to the hacking story and leaves you with the impression that this was a story the British media really didn’t want to tell. For good reason: it was the goose that was laying the golden eggs — although exclusives on tap and the public and the victims all none the wiser.


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