The latest irritant is the expression ‘phone-hacking’ in connection with the activities of some Private Investigators engaged on behalf of ‘News of the World’ reporters. So if you’re sitting comfortably I’ll explain why ‘phone-hacking’ is sloppy and misleading.
As I understand it, the Private Investigators are accessing the voice mailboxes of mobile phones. The diversion of mobile phone calls to voice mail is normally under the direction of the mobile phone user; typically diversion is used when the mobile handset is switched off, busy or out of coverage range. Usually the mobile phone user accesses voicemail via the mobile handset following a SMS message prompt. However, there is a facility for accessing the voicemail from any other phone or network. Simply dial the mobile number and press the * key to interrupt the divert greeting. The system then invites the caller to enter the voicemail PIN which is typically a four digit code. Now this is where people often leave themselves vulnerable. The default voice mail PIN is typically ‘0000’ or ‘1234’ so it doesn’t take a keen criminal mind to ‘hack’ into a voicemail if the mobile phone number is known and the user has left the PIN on the default setting.
I don’t suggest for one moment that mobile phone users are to blame or that the ‘hacking’ activities are excusable but I am concerned that the use of ‘phone-hacking’ tends to suggest more than accessing voice mail and indeed I heard Jeremy Vine speculating that a fixed line with an ex-directory number could have had conversations monitored by ‘phone hackers’ – not likely!!
An additional observation, most answering machines connected to fixed telephone lines have a 'remote interrogation' capability which is used in much the same way as the network embedded 'voice mail' used by mobile operators. These machines also come with the default PIN preset though many only have a three digit PIN.
An additional observation, most answering machines connected to fixed telephone lines have a 'remote interrogation' capability which is used in much the same way as the network embedded 'voice mail' used by mobile operators. These machines also come with the default PIN preset though many only have a three digit PIN.
A final point on this topic – no one has mentioned that the mobile network operators have any culpability for this issue - so I will. The operators could simply set the default as 'inactive voice mail' so voice mail could only being activated by the user and that user could only do so by creating their own PIN. Simples!
