Post: #1

Software company NDS allegedly cracked smart card codes of ONdigital, according to evidence to be broadcast on Panorama

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.

Lee Gibling, operator of THOIC, says that behind the scenes, he was being paid up to £60,000 a year by Adams, and NDS handed over thousands more to supply him with computer equipment.

He says Adams sent him the ONdigital codes so that other pirates could use them to manufacture thousands of counterfeit smart cards, giving viewers illicit free access to ONdigital, then Sky's chief business rival.

Gibling says he and another NDS employee later destroyed much of the computer evidence with a sledgehammer. After that NDS continued to send him money, he says, until the end of 2008, when he was given a severance payment of £15,000 with a confidentiality clause attached. An expert hacker, Oliver Koermmerling, who cracked the codes in the first place, says on the programme that he, like Gibling, had been recruited on NDS's behalf by Adams.

The potentially seismic nature of these pay-TV allegations was underlined over the weekend, when News Corp's lawyers, Allen & Overy, sought to derail the programme in advance by sending round denials and legal threats to other media organisations. They said any forthcoming BBC allegations that NDS "has been involved in illegal activities designed to cause the collapse of a business rival" would be false and libellous, and demanded they not be repeated.

On the programme, former Labour minister Tom Watson, who has been prominent in pursuit of Murdoch over the separate News of the World phone-hacking scandals, predicts that Ofcom could not conceivably regard the Murdochs as "fit and proper" to take full control of Sky, if the allegations were correct.

James Murdoch, who is deputy chief operating officer of News Corp and chairman of BSkyB, was a non-executive director of NDS when ONdigital was hacked. There is no evidence, the BBC says, that he knew about the events alleged by Panorama.

Gibling told the programme: "There was a meeting that took place in a hotel and Mr Adams, myself and other NDS representatives were there … and it became very clear there was a hack going on."

He claimed: "They delivered the actual software to be able to do this, with prior instructions that it should go to the widest possible community … software [intended] to be able to activate ONdigital cards. So giving a full channel line-up without payment."

Gibling says that when fellow pirates found out in 2002 that he was being secretly funded by NDS, THOIC was hastily closed down and he was told by Adams's security unit to make himself scarce.

"We sledgehammered all the hard drives." He says he was told to go into hiding abroad.

Kommerling says he was recruited by Adams in 1996. "He looked at me and said 'Could you imagine working for us?'"

Kommerling was told the NDS marketing department were "looking into the competitors' products" and he cracked the codes for the system used by ONdigital, which came from the French broadcaster Canal Plus.

Later he recognised the codes cracked by his own NDS team, when they got out on to the internet. They appeared on a Canadian pirate site with an identical timestamp: "The timestamp was like a fingerprint," he says.

NDS published its own response to the programme's allegations before transmission, saying: "It is simply not true that NDS used the THOIC website to sabotage the commercial interests of ONdigital/ITV digital or indeed any rival."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/mar...CMP=twt_gu

Post: #2

"operator of a pirate website secretly controlled by a Murdoch company."





BBC allegations that NDS (News Corp) "has been involved in illegal activities designed to cause the collapse of a business rival"

Post: #3

•REC  Wrote:

"operator of a pirate website secretly controlled by a Murdoch company."



BBC allegations that NDS (News Corp) "has been involved in illegal activities designed to cause the collapse of a business rival"

Investigation will have made interesting viewing for Ofcom's News Corp team

Computer-hacking revelations come at a time when News Corp's relationship with BSkyB is already under scrutiny:

Panorama's computer-hacking revelations come at a time when News Corporation's relationship with the satellite broadcaster BSkyB is already under scrutiny from the broadcast regulator, Ofcom. It has a duty to ensure that all broadcasters are owned and run by companies and individuals who are deemed to be "fit and proper" – and in the months following the phone-hacking and corrupt payments allegations, it has set up a special team to look at the subject as regards Britain's largest broadcaster. Dubbed Project Apple, the exercise is focused on News Corporation, which owns a 39.1% stake in BSkyB, and on James Murdoch, who is chairman of BSkyB, and was executive chairman, from late 2007 until last month, of News International, which owns the Sun and owned the News of the World.

The questions raised in Monday'sprogramme, meanwhile, focus on alleged hacking of a different type, conducted by another News Corporation company – its pay-TV technology and security division NDS, a company borne out of Israeli encryption technology but whose headquarters is near Heathrow Airport.

NDS was almost wholly owned by News Corporation at the time ITV Digital was in operation, between 1998 and 2002, but in 2008 Rupert Murdoch sold 51% to the British venture capital firm Permira. Earlier this month, News Corp then announced the whole of NDS was to be sold to the US technology giant Cisco in a $5bn deal, although that transaction will not close. For the moment, though, James Murdoch sits on the board of NDS Group Ltd – a board he also sat on between 1998 and 2003. His brother Lachlan was also on the board between 2002 and 2005.

In theory, the fit and proper exercise already under way could lead to Ofcom withdrawing Sky's licence to broadcast, but in practice the regulator has invoked this power only rarely. In November 2010, adult chat broadcaster Bang Media, the company behind the Tease Me channels, lost its broadcasting licence for "repeatedly breached rules which protect children from inappropriate material and viewers from harmful and offensive material". No major media owner has ever fallen foul of a test where the bar is set intentionally high....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/mar...er-hacking



Cisco Buy NDS for $5 Billion to Add Digital TV Software
Mar 15, 2012

Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), the largest maker of equipment for computer networks, agreed to buy NDS Group Ltd. (NNDS) in a deal valued at about $5 billion to add software used in next-generation video services.

The purchase price includes debt and retention-based incentives, San Jose, California-based Cisco said today. The boards of both companies have approved the transaction, which is subject to regulatory review and will be completed in the second half of 2012, it said....

...NDS had about $1.04 billion in debt as of September 2011, according to a regulatory filing....

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-15...-says.html

Post: #4

Allegations of corporate espionage in satellite broadcasting may attract unwanted attention from US authorities

Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has been dragged into allegations of corporate espionage in the lucrative satellite television market dominated by News Corp companies.

An Italian computer expert who is the prime suspect in a piracy ring on trial on Italy for the alleged targeting of pay-TV companies was working as a consultant for a News Corp subsidiary involved in the industry.

Documents obtained by The Independent show that Pasquale Caiazza was receiving regular payments from a bank account controlled by News International, Mr Murdoch’s British newspaper business.

The American Department of Justice is understood to be monitoring the Italian court proceedings as part of a wider review of evidence of potential wrongdoing within the News Corp empire.

The DoJ probe was triggered by Britain’s phone hacking scandal and could lead to Mr Murdoch and the News Corp board being formally investigated under US anti-corruption laws.

But problems facing Mr Murdoch’s vast conglomerate are now in danger of spreading beyond his UK newspaper interests to his vast television holdings....

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/...86250.html

Post: #5

Messier mire for Murdochs

Jamie Doward reports on the allegations that a News Corp company conspired to counterfeit the TV technology of a rival:

The Observer, Sunday 17 March 2002

At the time it was seen as trivial, of interest only to cyberspace geeks who spent too much time discussing the latest episode of Buffy or esoteric aspects of hacking.

Twelve months on, the implosion of a small cell of sophisticated computer hackers is hugely significant. The cell's demise is one twist in a complex tale linking one of Rupert Murdoch's companies to deeply damaging allegations that it counterfeited a rival's technology, a move which may also have helped put ITVDigital on the critical list.

To add insult to potentially serious financial injury, it is Murdoch's arch rival, Jean Marie Messier, chief executive of French media giant Vivendi, who is behind the incendiary allegations.

Canal Plus Technologies, a division of Vivendi's struggling French television company, accuses Middlesex-based NDS of using a team of scientists to break its smart card code with a view to disseminating it over the internet. If the allegation is true, the move effectively allowed hundreds of thousands of people to watch subscription TV free.

According to Canal Plus's lawsuit filed before the Northern District Court of California, the code first appeared in March 1999 on a website called DR7.com. It was used to great effect by counterfeiters in the Italian market and in several other countries in Eastern Europe. Canal Plus started its investigations shortly afterwards.

The claims are extremely serious and come at a difficult time for NDS. The firm, 80 per cent owned by News Corp, supplies smart card technology to US media giant DirecTV which is attempting a merger with a competitor called Echostar.

The contract is responsible for about 40 per cent of NDS's revenues. If the merger goes ahead the newly combined company will use an alternative system. NDS cannot afford to have its name tarnished as it looks for new clients to compensate for the potential loss of DirecTV.

Canal Plus, which claims that NDS's actions have cost it more than $1billion, is suing NDS under everything from the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act to the Copyright Act....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2002/...rbusiness9

Post: #6

MP urges News Corp TV hacking claims probe

An MP is to demand that the TV watchdog probes new hacking claims against News Corp, piling more pressure on BSkyB chairman James Murdoch whose fitness to own a broadcast licence is already under scrutiny.

A BBC documentary broadcast late on Monday alleged that NDS, a pay-TV smartcard maker recently sold by News Corp, hired a consultant to post the encryption codes of ITV Digital, a key rival of BSkyB, on his website.

The online publication of the codes contributed to the 2002 collapse of ITV Digital, which had been set up by ITV, Britain's leading free-to-air commercial broadcaster, in 1998.

BSkyB, Britain's dominant pay-TV broadcaster, is 39 percent owned by News Corp.

NDS said in a statement: "As part of the fight against pay-TV piracy, all companies in the conditional access industry and many law enforcement agencies come to possess codes that could enable hackers to access services for free. It is wrong to claim that NDS has ever been in the possession of any codes for the purpose of promoting hacking or piracy."

News Corp said: "NDS has consistently denied any wrongdoing to (BBC programme) Panorama and we fully accept their assurances."

Regulator Ofcom is already investigating both Murdoch and News Corp in the light of new evidence emerging from probes into phone and computer hacking and bribery at the News of the World tabloid, which News Corp shut down last July.

"These allegations, if true, are the most serious yet and I am referring the matter to Ofcom, who have a duty to investigate as part of their fit and proper test," member of parliament Tom Watson said of the claims made in the BBC's Panorama programme.

"If what Panorama says is true it suggests a global conspiracy to undermine a great British company, ITV Digital," he told Reuters on Tuesday.

An Ofcom spokesman declined to comment on the specific allegations but said the regulator would consider "all relevant evidence" as part of its ongoing duty to be satisfied that the owner of the licence was fit and proper.....

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/03/27...vrit=59196

Post: #7

Murdoch Firm Accused of Sabotage
Apr 21 2008

....NDS didn't hire only hackers, however. According to EchoStar/NagraStar, it also hired a handful of other people with colorful pasts who they say had a role in hacking and pirating EchoStar/NagraStar. There was Reuven Hazak, who had been deputy head of Israel's Shin Bet during the notorious Bus 300 incident (when two Palestinian terrorists who hijacked an Israeli bus were killed in custody by a Shin Bet agent. Hazak eventually blew the whistle on the subsequent cover-up).

NDS also hired a former U.S. Navy intelligence officer named John Norris and a former Scotland Yard commander named Ray Adams. Finally, it hired a former would-be terrorist, Yossi Tsuria, who became chief technical officer of its lab in Israel. Tsuria was part of a radical group of Jewish Israelis in the 1980s that plotted to bomb the Dome of the Rock -- a shrine that sits on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a holy site for both Jews and Muslims.

NDS has maintained in public statements that Hazak, Norris and its other security officers were hired to help it track down hackers and pirates and get them arrested. But EchoStar and NagraStar allege that Hazak and Norris played central roles in committing hacking and piracy as well.....


....It was around this time, however, that a German hacker in Berlin known as Boris Floricic, aka Tron, disappeared while walking home from his parents' home one day. He was found several days later hanging from a belt in a park.

Among his possessions, authorities found correspondence from NDS. NDS later said it had offered Boris a job, which he had rejected. Prior to his death, Boris had obtained source code and information about hacking access cards that were being used in a German satellite TV system. His friends in the German hacker group, Chaos Computer Club, were convinced that he'd met with foul play.

Although his death was officially ruled a suicide, there were enough details around it to create suspicion. Floricic's feet were on the ground when he was found hanging, for example, and other evidence suggested that his body might have been placed in the park after he died....

http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/to...index.html



Chaos Computer Club

BERLIN -- Tempers flared at Sunday's Chaos Communication Congress session, and the death of a famous Chaos Computer Club member was the flashpoint.

The conference assembles computer enthusiasts from around the world for three days of hacking, discussions, and workshops on topics ranging from alternative operating systems to TCP/IP penetration to the state of the hacker ethic.

This year, the mysterious disappearance of German hacker Boris Floricic -- also known as Tron -- on 17 October and the discovery of his body in a Berlin park five days later has been Topic A.

CCC spokesman Andy Mueller-Maguhn presented a timeline of events surrounding Floricic's death. A heated discussion centered on two points that continue to rile CCC members.

First was a refusal by the Berlin police to waive the 48-hour waiting period before referring the case to the Bureau of Missing Persons. Second was the decision by the police to file charges against Tron.

By 20 October, the 26-year-old hacker was not only officially missing, but also under suspicion of committing computer fraud. Tron's computer, laptop, and all his equipment and files were confiscated.

Two police officers unofficially addressed the issues Sunday. They said that the missing-person investigation was not compromised by the criminal case, since they were being handled separately.

Responding to emotional outbursts from Tron's friends calling suicide out of the question, officer Klaus Ruckschnat reminded the crowd that the official line was still "apparent suicide." That is, the police have not yet ruled out the possibility that Tron was murdered.

Padeluun, a longstanding member of the CCC, gently suggested that "sometimes things are what they seem." In other words, just as the police weren't ruling out murder, the CCC should not rule out suicide.

Mueller-Maguhn outlined the areas of Tron's work that may have got him in trouble with any number of parties. The young hacker cracked phone cards and digital set-top boxes for pay TV, and his university dissertation was on ISDN-related cryptography.

"Tron may have underestimated the financial value of the information he uncovered," said Mueller-Maguhn. "He was always direct and honest, but also naive."

The CCC settled on no unified position regarding Tron's fate, but some audience members agreed that if a lesson is to be learned from his death, it is to publish valuable information widely as soon as it's discovered. Or risk life and limb.

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/n...8/12/17050

Post: #8

Australia:Pay TV piracy hits News

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. These targets each had other commercial weaknesses quite apart from piracy.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is still deliberating on final details before approving Foxtel’s $1.9 billion takeover bid for Austar, which will cement Foxtel’s position as the dominant pay TV provider in Australia.

http://www.afr.com/p/business/marketing_...gosSzi52MM

Post: #9

LoP Guest  Wrote:

Australia:Pay TV piracy hits News

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.

http://www.afr.com/p/business/marketing_...gosSzi52MM

Thanks for updating.

Post: #10

•REC  Wrote:

LoP Guest  Wrote:

Australia:Pay TV piracy hits News

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.

http://www.afr.com/p/business/marketing_...gosSzi52MM

Thanks for updating.

just following the REC code



News Corp faces new rash of hacking allegations on a global scale

Murdoch's media empire denies fresh wave of claims that his firms undermined rivals through code cracking and piracy:

Rupert Murdoch's troubles over the ongoing phone hacking scandal have become the subject of a renewed flurry of media attention this week, with broadcasters and websites across the world releasing the results of months of investigative digging.

What's striking about this week's rash of material is its truly global nature. What began as a largely internal UK affair has now spread its tentacles across national US television, prompted forensic delving into a News Corp company with roots in Israel, and inspired probing questions about some of Murdoch's Australian holdings.

Here's a guide to what's being claimed – and the News Corp responses.

PBS Frontline

Murdoch's Scandal, the PBS documentary aired in the US on Tuesday and in the UK on Wednesday, is significant not so much for what it says as where it says it. America is Murdoch's adopted home; it is where his empire is headquartered in an imposing skyscraper on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan; and it is where he planned to lay his legacy.

So when 50 minutes of prime time television are set aside to unpick the influence of the Murdoch school of media ownership in forensic and critical detail, that is felt at the very core.

The film looks back on the cosy relationship between Murdoch and a succession of British prime ministers, starting with Margaret Thatcher in 1979. Former Tory cabinet minister Norman Fowler recalls that Thatcher once berated someone critical of the media tycoon, saying "Why are you being so nasty about Rupert Murdoch, he's going to win the election for us."

You can't accuse Murdoch of limiting his political influences to one party. His relationship with Tony Blair, Thatcher's Labour successor, was equally fruitful: Murdoch's papers swung behind Blair in his bid for power, and once in Downing Street, the victor relaxed media laws which allowed Murdoch to gain a greater stake of BskyB.

John Prescott, the former Labour deputy leader, tells Frontline's Lowell Bergman: "Tony always took the view that it's better to fight an election with the media on your side, and I can understand the argument. But you pay one hell of a price on it. [Murdoch] buys influence, doesn't he?"

BBC Panorama

If Frontline gives a wide-angled narrative of the phone hacking scandal and Murdoch's political influences, the BBC's Panorama in the UK has gone for a much more tightly focused take on the alleged wrongdoings of his empire. On Monday night in the UK it broadcast a 30-minute investigation of NDS, a News Corp company that produced the smartcards used to manage the subscriptions of digital TV customers.

NDS – which was sold only last week by News Corp and its investment partner – has been the subject of repeated allegations that it engaged in computer hacking to undermine ONdigital, a provider of digital channels in Britain that stood as a rival to Sky TV, the jewel in Murdoch's British media crown. NDS has always denied any allegations of illegality and none has ever been upheld in court.....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/mar...CMP=twt_fd


PBS

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/...s-scandal/

PANORAMA

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01...the_Spell/

Post: #11

Rupert Murdoch blasts 'lies and libels' against News Corp

Mogul hits out on Twitter, attacking 'old toffs and rightwingers who still want last century's status quo with their monopolies':

Rupert Murdoch has launched a fightback on Twitter against what he described as "lies and libels" against News Corporation, attacking "enemies" including "old toffs and rightwingers".

The media mogul tweeted three times in the early hours of Thursday morning London time attacking his critics.

In his first tweet he said:

Seems every competitor and enemy piling on with lies and libels. So bad, easy to hit back hard, which preparing.


Murdoch's outburst dovetailed with a statement from Chase Carey, his right-hand man and News Corp's chief operating officer, who accused the BBC of "gross misrepresentation" over a Panorama documentary which alleged that its former subsidiary NDS was involved in helping computer hackers to undermine ONdigital (later rebranded as ITV Digital).


Murdoch followed up with another tweet in which he categorised the different types of "enemies" News Corporation faces.

He added:

Enemies many different agendas, but worst old toffs and right wingers who still want last century's status quo with their monoplies.


Murdoch ended his barrage with a tweet exclaiming:

Seems every competitor and enemy piling on with lies and libels. So bad, easy to hit back hard, which preparing.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/mar...rp-critics

Post: #12

Murdoch Slams Old Toffs Who Want Monopolies: So Here's News Corp's Assets In Full

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is facing waves of fresh negative publicity over alleged hacking, this time at his Australian paper conglomerate News Limited.

Murdoch struck back this morning via Twitter, rejecting the claims as "every competitor and enemy piling on with lies and libel", criticising the "old toffs and right wingers who still want last century's status quo with their monopolies."

We're not sure exactly what monopolies Murdoch was referring to, but we though it was a good opportunity to take a look at News Corp's holdings around the world.


Newspapers

United States:
Dow Jones
National Geographic
New York Post
The Daily
The Wall Street Journal
Community Newspaper Group of five small newspapers

United Kingdom:
The Sun
The Sun on Sunday
The Times
The Sunday Times
The Times Literary Supplement

Australia:
The Australian
Australian Associated Press (45%)
The Daily Telegraph
The Sunday Telegraph
The Sportsman
Herald Sun
Sunday Herald Sun
The Courier-Mail
mX
The Advertiser
The Sunday Times
The Mercury
The Sunday Tasmanian
Northern Territory News
The Sunday Territorian
Geelong Advertiser
Geelong News
Gold Coast Bulletin
Big League
GQ Australia
Vogue Australia
Cumberland-Courier Community Newspapers (3 papers)
Leader Newspapers group (33)
Quest Newspapers group (22)
Messenger Newspapers group (11)

Broadcast Channels

USA:
Fox News
Fox Sports
Fox Business
Fox Movies
National Geographic Channel
Nat Geo Wild
Fuel TV
FX
Speed
Stats, Inc.

UK:
Sky News
Sky Sports
Sky Sports News
National Geographic Channel UK

Television/Production:

USA:
FOX Broadcasting
FOX Sports
20th Century Fox Television
Fox Television Studios
Shine America
MyNetworkTV
Fox Television Stations

UK:
BSkyB (30%)
Shine Group (12 companies)

Australia:
Fox Sports Australia
FOXTEL
Fox Studios Australia
Shine Australia

France:
Shine France

Germany:
Shine Germany

Italy:
Sky Italia

Spain:
Shine Iberia

Scandinavia:
Shine Group companies across Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden (11)

Film Production

20th Century Fox
Fox Searchlight
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Fox Studios LA
Blue Sky Studios

Publishing Companies

Harper Collins US
Harper Collins Children's Books
News America
Zondervan
Harper Collins UK
Harper Collins Canada
Harper Collins Australia
Harper Collins India
Harper Collins New Zealand

And, finally, the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/03/...tml?ref=tw



Met Police press chief Dick Fedorcio resigns

The communications chief at the Metropolitan Police, Dick Fedorcio, has resigned after proceedings for gross misconduct were started against him.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission launched an inquiry last year after it emerged he had given work to a PR firm run by ex-News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis.

Last week it ruled Mr Fedorcio should face a hearing for gross misconduct.

But the IPCC said his resignation meant this could not now take place.
Report to follow

The IPCC said it planned to publish the findings of its report into the relationship between Mr Fedorcio and Mr Wallis "in the next few days".

It was revelations about a former senior News of the World journalist having such a role at Scotland Yard which prompted the force's then commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson to resign in July last year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17548876

Post: #13

James Murdoch to step down as BSkyB chairman

James Murdoch will step down as chairman of BSkyB shortly, after the man who had been thought of as Rupert Murdoch's corporate heir concluded it was no longer worth hanging on and risking a critical verdict from MPs inquiring into phone hacking.

The 39-year-old, who has been chief executive and then chairman since 2003, is understood to have made up his mind to resign the post, although BSkyB has not yet made a formal announcement to the stock exchange. By stepping down, it will mean that no Murdoch occupies a top position at the satellite broadcaster for the first time in years.



Ex-Met police boss John Yates attended News of the World reporter's wedding

Paper's former crime editor tells Leveson inquiry that senior officer who reviewed phone-hacking case was among guests

The Scotland Yard officer who decided against reopening the investigation into News of the World phone hacking attended the wedding of the paper's crime editor, the Leveson inquiry heard.

John Yates, then an assistant commissioner, was at the wedding of Lucy Panton, who married Scotland Yard officer Daniel Beck in 2009.

However, Panton told the inquiry into press ethics that she did not classify Yates as a good friend and it was the only time she had socialised with him outside of work.

"There were quite a few people at my wedding who I would class as working friends, who I did not socialise with outside of work and Mr Yates fell into that category," she said adding, "There were a lot of people at my wedding."

The counsel for the inquiry, Robert Jay QC, was pursuing a line of questioning that flowed from evidence to the inquiry last month suggesting that both Yates and another former Met assistant commissioner, Andy Hayman, had enjoyed fine dining and drinks with News of the World figures including Panton and Neil Wallis, the paper's former deputy editor.

The Scotland Yard gifts and hospitality register showed that Hayman had spent £47 on a bottle of champagne at Oriel restaurant from someone he recalls was from the paper, and was possibly female. "I am confident this was not me," Panton told the inquiry, pointing out her preferred drink was a "dry white wine" or a soft drink as she was pregnant during the period in question.

The inquiry had previously heard how James Mellor, one of her bosses at the paper had fired off an email telling her it was "time to call in all those bottles of champagne … really need an exclusive splash line … John Yates could be crucial". However, the reference to champagne was "banter mixed with pressure" to get a story, said Panton today....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr...CMP=twt_fd

Post: #14

Sky News has admitted senior executives authorised a journalist to hack into the emails of John Darwin, the "canoe man" accused of faking his own death in 2002.

The broadcaster revealed a member of staff was cleared to carry out the hacking, a breach of the Computer Misuse Act, on two separate occasions that it believed were "in the public interest".

Gerard Tubb, the broadcaster's northern England correspondent, accessed the emails when Darwin’s wife, Anne, was due to stand trial for deception in July 2008.

He also accessed the email accounts of a suspected paedeophile in an investigation that did not lead to any material being published or broadcast, it has been reported.

Both instances of hacking were approved by Simon Cole, the managing editor of Sky News, it was reported.

Sky is part-owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. The broadcaster's parent company, BSkyB, is currently being investigated by the communications regulator, Ofcom, in the wake of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/p...um=twitter

Post: #15

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp breaches US foreign investor law

Rupert Murdoch’s cast iron grip of News Corporation appeared to weaken a little on Wednesday, after a breach of US law effectively forced the media giant to halve the powers of some of his biggest allies.

News Corp, which has spent most of the last year battling the fallout from the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, inadvertently allowed foreign investors to hold 36pc of Class B voting stock – well past the 25pc limit enshrined in American 1934 Communications Act.

In order to fix the problem, on Wednesday it suspended 50pc of the Class B voting rights of its investors outside the US, effectively halving the power of certain foreign investors.

Those affected include the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, News Corp’s second biggest shareholder with around 7pc of voting rights. The Saudi investor has long been one of the Murdoch family’s staunchest supporters, telling reporters last summer that his “confidence in News Corp, in Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch [was] unshaken completely” and that he was “standing by” his friends.

Wednesday’s share suspension will remain in place until the amount of Class B shares held by foreign investors has returned below the 25pc threshold – something that News Corp has no control over. In practical terms, the change is indefinite.

Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch and the Murdoch Family Trust have agreed to cap their own voting powers at 39.7pc - pre-suspension levels - in order to fend off criticism that they are seeking to increase their own influence via the back door...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsb...r-law.html