Pop culture caricatures give the impression that hacking is solely the realm of young men with an abundance of time, tech savvy and angst who take down multinational corporations and drain bank accounts from the comfort of their parents' basements.
But with one of the most affluent and prominent media organizations in the world now tied to hacking the phones of a murdered teenage girl and 9/11 widows, notions of who is breaching privacy and who is at risk to be hacked have been turned upside down.
Allegations that News of the World, a U.K. tabloid owned by New York international news conglomerate News Corp., paid private investigators to hack into the cell phones of news sources have led to the arrest of at least 11 people since July.
Rebekah Brooks, former CEO of News International -- the News Corp. subsidiary that carried News of the World -- was arrested on charges of corruption and hacking. During a hearing before British lawmakers, she denied knowledge of the hacks or that the company was paying for information obtained from hacked phones.
News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch made similar denials before lawmakers during a hearing where the 80-year-old answered questions elusively and was smacked by an onlooker with a pie made of foam. Officials as high as a former aide to Prime Minister David Cameron have come under fire for alleged actions related to the scandal.
As investigations uncover more about who was directly involved or complicit in the hacks, some say it will reveal how common the practice is within not only the organization, but in news outlets across the globe.
"Information has value, people need to recognize this. For media outlets, especially, information has an immense amount of power. It's not just Murdoch's [outlets]; a lot of news outlets are doing this," said security expert Michael Calce.
The former hacker who, in 2000, halted operations of major corporate websites with denial of service attacks at age 15, said "hacker for hire" scandals weren't going away anytime soon. His hacking handle was "mafiaboy," though he had no ties to the crime syndicate.
Phone hacking, or "phreaking" as it is dubbed by hackers, is nothing new, said Mr. Calce, co-author of "Mafiaboy: A Portrait of the Hacker as a Young Man." Before the days of cell phones, hackers used a whistle found as a prize in Cap'n Crunch cereal to emulate the 2600 hertz electronic tone that telephone providers once used to allow long distance calls.
Today, smartphones that provide Internet access and Bluetooth connectivity often serve as open doors and windows into a user's personal information, he said.
A technique called "spoofing" allows hackers to use a target's name and phone information when making calls from their personal devices. The target's information will show up on the caller ID of anyone that the hacker calls. A more invasive technique called "snarfing" uses software that allows hackers to sift through contact lists, check voice messages and control functions such as erasing messages.
Messages allegedly erased from the phone of 13-year-old British teenager Millie Dowling by people involved in the News of the World scandal interfered with police investigations and gave false hope to her parents that the girl was still alive.
Mr. Calce said people could help secure their devices simply by shutting off Bluetooth when it's not in use and by making sure phones are password protected.
"A lot of people keep Bluetooth on when they're not using it. You've got to be aware of the risks out there and turn off the Bluetooth when you're not in the car. Use a carrier that requires a password to check messages even if you're calling from your phone."
He said he added "The Mafiaboy Guide to Protecting Yourself Online" to the book to help individuals secure personal computers, but that much of the information could also be applied to smartphone use.
Simple ideas such as disconnecting broadband Internet connections, updating software, using firewalls and avoiding crackable passwords such as "12345" will give users less of a chance of seeing their phones or computers hacked.
However, he said no user will ever be 100 percent safe, since the Internet was never intended for widespread public use when it was created.
"The Internet itself was never designed to be a tool of commerce as it is today. It was meant to be a private network for the government; and since only government employees were using it, it was considered secure," he explained.
"The question is, how do you go back in time to install security into its foundation if that's not the makeup of the Internet?"
With risks associated with barcode scanning technology on smartphones and cloud computing increasing the probability of hacks, Mr. Calce said users should protect their devices and tread lightly with the new innovations.
"All I ask for is for people to be aware of what they're doing online," he said. "I don't say stop completely; but become conscious about what you're doing and try to stay up to date as possible."
For technology's innovators to increase safety on the Internet and within personal devices, Mr. Calce presented a different plan.
"Technology is advancing too fast," he said. "We're reselling new technology without fixing the preceding technology first. Why are we constantly moving so fast? So far we've advanced more in the last 30 years than we have the past 2,000 years.
"We need to slow down, take it easy and figure some things out."
First Published: August 5, 2011, 8:00 a.m.
