General Discussion

caduceus111

(132 posts) Wed Mar 28, 2012, 04:25 AM Mar 2012

A secret unit within Murdoch's News Corp promoted a wave of high-tech piracy.

Didn't see this posted here. Holy crap. Four-year investigation just published by the Australian Financial Review.

A secret unit within Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation promoted a wave of high-tech piracy in Australia that damaged Austar, Optus and Foxtel at a time when News was moving to take control of the Australian pay TV industry.

The piracy cost the Australian pay TV companies up to $50?million a year and helped cripple the finances of Austar, which Foxtel is now in the process of acquiring.

A four-year investigation by The Australian Financial Review has revealed a global trail of corporate dirty tricks directed against competitors by a secretive group of former policemen and intelligence officers within News Corp known as Operational Security.

Their actions devastated News’s competitors, and the resulting waves of high-tech piracy assisted News to bid for pay TV businesses at reduced prices – including DirecTV in the US, Telepiu in Italy and Austar.

9 replies

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A secret unit within Murdoch's News Corp promoted a wave of high-tech piracy. (Original Post) caduceus111 Mar 2012 OP

Murdoch is a criminal malaise Mar 2012 #1

This on the back of allegations about the same thing in the UK: Spider Jerusalem Mar 2012 #2

BBC Panorama expose caduceus111 Mar 2012 #3

Thank you so much... nenagh Mar 2012 #6

Does anyone believe that this criminal org stopped its nefarious ways at our border? ChairmanAgnostic Mar 2012 #4

Put the Murdochs in prison anfd strip them of their wealth Uben Mar 2012 #5

Why work and investigate when you can just eavesdrop and get all the juicy details? SoCalDem Mar 2012 #7

k & r snagglepuss Mar 2012 #8

I suspect that the murdocks will be forced out of newscorp. wilsonbooks Mar 2012 #9

malaise

(269,200 posts)

1. Murdoch is a criminal

Reply to caduceus111 (Original post)

Wed Mar 28, 2012, 04:36 AM

Mar 2012

A 100% scumbag
Hope you watched Frontline last night on the hacking scandal

Spider Jerusalem

(21,786 posts)

2. This on the back of allegations about the same thing in the UK:

Reply to caduceus111 (Original post)

Wed Mar 28, 2012, 04:39 AM

Mar 2012

Part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation empire employed computer hacking to undermine the business of its chief TV rival in Britain, according to evidence due to be broadcast by BBC1's Panorama programme on Monday .

The allegations stem from apparently incriminating emails the programme-makers have obtained, and on-screen descriptions for the first time from two of the people said to be involved, a German hacker and the operator of a pirate website secretly controlled by a Murdoch company.

The witnesses allege a software company NDS, owned by News Corp, cracked the smart card codes of rival company ONdigital. ONdigital, owned by the ITV companies Granada and Carlton, eventually went under amid a welter of counterfeiting by pirates, leaving the immensely lucrative pay-TV field clear for Sky.

The allegations, if proved, cast further doubt on whether News Corp meets the "fit and proper" test required to run a broadcaster in Britain. It emerged earlier this month that broadcasting regulator Ofcom has set up a unit called Project Apple to establish whether BSkyB, 39.1% owned by News Corp, meets the test.

Panorama's emails appear to state that ONdigital's secret codes were first cracked by NDS, and then subsequently publicised by the pirate website, called The House of Ill Compute – THOIC for short. According to the programme, the codes were passed to NDS's head of UK security, Ray Adams, a former police officer. NDS made smart cards for Sky. NDS was jointly funded by Sky, which says it never ran NDS.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/mar/26/news-corp-ondigital-paytv-panorama?newsfeed=true

caduceus111

(132 posts)

3. BBC Panorama expose

Reply to caduceus111 (Original post)

Wed Mar 28, 2012, 05:02 AM

Mar 2012

Just found this:

Published Monday. Sums up the story well (28 minute video).

nenagh

(1,925 posts)

6. Thank you so much...

Reply to caduceus111 (Reply #3)

Wed Mar 28, 2012, 07:07 AM

Mar 2012

The scope of their operation.... Without cable here, Thanks again.

ChairmanAgnostic

(28,017 posts)

4. Does anyone believe that this criminal org stopped its nefarious ways at our border?

Reply to caduceus111 (Original post)

Wed Mar 28, 2012, 06:43 AM

Mar 2012

Me neither.

But the spinelessness in the DOJ is simply astounding. I regret more and more Holder's appointment. Wall street? War crimes? Whistle blowers? Murdock?

Uben

(7,719 posts)

5. Put the Murdochs in prison anfd strip them of their wealth

Reply to caduceus111 (Original post)

Wed Mar 28, 2012, 06:50 AM

Mar 2012

...every friggin dime! Make them pauper prisoners and let them die in a dirty moist cell full of disease. They deserve nothing less.
When you get so much money you think you are above the law, this should be the answer. It would certainly be a wake-up call to all the billionaires to stay out of other people's business and to quit trying to get ahead by cheating.

SoCalDem

(103,856 posts)

7. Why work and investigate when you can just eavesdrop and get all the juicy details?

Reply to caduceus111 (Original post)

Wed Mar 28, 2012, 10:27 AM

Mar 2012

Hiring people who ask for salaries & benefits costs more than hiring computer people who set a system up and then "go away"....and who are probably sworn to secrecy too.

snagglepuss

(12,704 posts)

8. k & r

Reply to caduceus111 (Original post)

Wed Mar 28, 2012, 11:21 AM

Mar 2012

wilsonbooks

(972 posts)

9. I suspect that the murdocks will be forced out of newscorp.

Reply to caduceus111 (Original post)

Wed Mar 28, 2012, 01:00 PM

Mar 2012

The lawsuits will be crippling. What a crook.

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