master
1
2<!DOCTYPE HTML>
3<html>
4<head>
5 <meta charset="utf-8">
6 <title>On Hacking: Larsson's Folly - BryFry</title>
7 <meta name="author" content="bryfry">
8
9 <meta name="description" content="This post is a tangent that I was thinking about this past week when I was listening to NPR’s On The Media. The specific segment, The Chiquita …">
10
11 <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1">
12
13 <link href="/atom.xml" rel="alternate" title="BryFry" type="application/atom+xml">
14 <link rel="canonical" href="">
15 <link href="/favicon.ico" rel="shortcut icon">
16 <link href="/stylesheets/screen.css" media="screen, projection" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
17
18<!-- Fonts -->
19 <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Slackey' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
20 <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Fjalla+One' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
21 <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Amethysta' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
22 <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Exo' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
23 <script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
24 <!--[if lt IE 9]><script src="//html5shiv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script><![endif]-->
25
26 <script type="text/javascript" src="/javascripts/jquery-tapir.js"></script>
27
28 <!-- remove or comment it to disable ajaxification -->
29 <script src="/javascripts/ajaxify.js"></script>
30
31
32</head>
33
34
35<body>
36 <div id="wrapper">
37 <header id="header" class="inner"><!-- for more effects see _animate.scss -->
38<h1>
39 <a href="">
40 <div id="headerbg">
41 BryFry
42 </div>
43 </a>
44</h1>
45
46<!-- use full url including 'index.html' for navigation bar if you are using ajax -->
47<ul id="nav">
48 <li id="ajax"><a href="/index.html">Home</a></li>
49 <li id="ajax"><a href="/blog/archives/index.html">Archives</a></li>
50 <li><a href="/atom.xml">RSS</a></li>
51
52</ul>
53
54
55
56
57</header>
58
59<div id="toload">
60<!-- begin toload -->
61 <div id="content" class="inner">
62 <article class="post">
63 <h2 class="title">On Hacking: Larsson's Folly</h2>
64 <div class="meta">
65 <div class="date">Published on:
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77<time datetime="2011-12-07T00:00:00-05:00" pubdate data-updated="true">Dec 7<span>th</span>, 2011</time></div>
78 <div class="tags">Tags:
79
80
81 <a class='category' href='/blog/categories/books/'>Books</a>, <a class='category' href='/blog/categories/ethics/'>Ethics</a>, <a class='category' href='/blog/categories/hacking/'>Hacking</a>, <a class='category' href='/blog/categories/journalism/'>Journalism</a>, <a class='category' href='/blog/categories/larsson/'>Larsson</a>, <a class='category' href='/blog/categories/stieg/'>Stieg</a>
82
83
84</div>
85 </div>
86 <div class="entry-content"><p><img class="right" src="http://i.imgur.com/a7jUo.jpg"></p>
87
88<p>This post is a tangent that I was thinking about this past week when I was listening to <a href="http://www.npr.org/">NPR’s</a> <a href="http://www.onthemedia.org/">On The Media</a>. The specific segment, <a href="http://www.onthemedia.org/2011/nov/25/chiquita-phone-hacking-scandal/">The Chiquita Phone Hacking Scandal</a>, examines the current News of the World phone ‘hacking’ case and illegal and unethical journalistic practices in the light of the historic “Chiquita Phone Hacking Scandal”. The segment is worth while and I highly recommend listening to it if you have a few minutes (or you can read the transcript <a href="http://www.onthemedia.org/2011/nov/25/chiquita-phone-hacking-scandal/transcript/">here</a>).</p>
89
90<p>At any rate here is a nice little synopses: Chiquita was doing bad things and the Enquirer published the findings of reporter Mike Gallagher. Unbeknownst to the Enquirer, Gallagher had ‘hacked’ Chiquita’s phone systems and this fact was revealed after the publication. The result, “The Enquirer fired Gallagher, relocated its editor, agreed to pay Chiquita millions of dollars, apologized repeatedly and recanted the stories.”</p>
91
92<p>The take away nugget is this, summarized by Kelly McBride of The Poynter Institute:</p>
93
94<blockquote><p>The lesson is when your methods for gathering information are dishonest, the information you gather is suspect. And that case is the perfect lesson in that. No one has challenged the findings of the newspaper. Yet, nobody talks about that as a great investigative piece. They talk about it as an ethical scandal.</p></blockquote>
95
96
97<p>Okay, so that all makes sense. But then I had a secondary thought and which gave me flashbacks to Steig Larssons Milenium Trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest): In each book, the main character hacks into the antagonists machines and the information she gathers almost becomes a deus ex machina saving her and the rest of the journalist protagonists. This is great for a fictional story and it draws attention to the ease and power of information gathering. However, I do not think Mr. Larsson addressed the seriousness of how screwed they all would be if their ‘informant’ was actually revealed to be a hacker, illegally gaining access to the information.</p>
98
99<p>If there were one take away it would be this: All fiction aside, hacking will never save your ass, it will burn it.</p>
100</div>
101
102<div class="meta">
103
104</div>
105</article>
106
107 <div class="share">
108 <div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style ">
109
110
111 <a class="addthis_button_tweet"></a>
112
113
114 <a class="addthis_button_google_plusone" g:plusone:size="medium"></a>
115
116 <a class="addthis_counter addthis_pill_style"></a>
117 </div>
118 <script type="text/javascript" src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/250/addthis_widget.js#pubid="></script>
119</div>
120
121
122
123 </div>
124 <footer id="footer">
125 <div style="display:inline">
126 Copyright © 2013
127
128 bryfry
129. Powered by <a href="http://octopress.org">Octopress</a> |
130 Theme adapted from <a href="http://github.com/panks/fabric">fabric</a> by <a href="http://panks.me">Pankaj Kumar</a>
131</div>
132
133
134 </footer>
135 <script src="/javascripts/fabric.js"></script>
136<script src="/javascripts/jquery.fancybox.pack.js"></script>
137<script type="text/javascript">
138(function($){
139 $('.fancybox').fancybox();
140})(jQuery);
141</script> <!-- Delete or comment this line to disable Fancybox -->
142
143
144<script type="text/javascript">
145 var disqus_shortname = 'bryfry';
146
147
148 var disqus_script = 'count.js';
149
150 (function () {
151 var dsq = document.createElement('script'); dsq.type = 'text/javascript'; dsq.async = true;
152 dsq.src = 'http://' + disqus_shortname + '.disqus.com/' + disqus_script;
153 (document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(dsq);
154 }());
155</script>
156
157
158
159 <script type="text/javascript">
160 var _gaq = _gaq || [];
161 _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-31317111-1']);
162 _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
163
164 (function() {
165 var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
166 ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
167 var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
168 })();
169 </script>
170
171
172
173
174
175<!-- end toload -->
176</div>
177</div>
178<script src="/javascripts/jquery.ui.totop.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
179<script type="text/javascript">
180/*<![CDATA[*/
181;(function($){$().UItoTop({easingType:'easeOutCirc'});})(jQuery);
182/*]]>*/
183</script><!-- remove it to remove the scroll to top button -->
184</body>
185</html>