Let’s’ face it; we are addicted to scandalizing news while constantly searching for the next story that will fill our need for knowing and reveling in the innermost secrets of celebrities, public figures, those thrust into the spotlight by accident, or someone who does outlandish or criminal things. It’s just our nature, as we feed on anything tantalizing through lenses made available through new technologies. And a few respected organizations, maybe more than we imagined, have stooped to criminality in feeding our insatiable appetite for the bizarre.

Trustable, not Trustworthy

News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS), part of a world-wide news organization operating under the guise of respectability and influence has come crashing down due to mismanaged oversight that defies anyone’s sensibilities. How could the historical British tabloid, News of the World, come to shut its doors over allegations of hacking Smartphone through alleged criminality and bribery? It seems that an ingenious investigation by Guardian reporter Nick Davies was able to topple the News Corp. subsidiary quite handedly. It looks as though if your company is making good profits, a blind-eye could be the order of the day.

Inevitably, it goes to suggest that none of us are safe from piracy of private information as we communicate through the latest technology, leaving the land-line phone behind in rapid fashion to use communication devices, ones that are woefully inadequate in securing our conversations, e-mail, whereabouts, and voice-mails. However, there are some steps to take in helping to secure our communications. See (News Corp. Scandal Rocks British Politics, Media)

Secure Your Privacy

• Make sure your cell-phone account has a password, maybe 12 characters instead of 8, since the later can be hacked in about 2 hours
• Be careful what you download onto your phone. With a myriad of applications available for download by anyone with a Smartphone, doing so, can add malicious software which could be hacking your voice-mail.
• Look for additional fees on your cell-phone bill, ones that you did not authorize; these could be due to someone hacking your account disguised as you adding additional services. It is easy to do.

Privacy Rules will Change

Without question News Corp. has some explaining to do. The liability associated with criminal acts perpetrated on innocent citizens in Britain, possibly the United States, and conceivably other countries could be enormous. Rupert Murdoch most assuredly knows this and will amass an army of lawyers to contend with the civil lawsuits to follow. Others associated with these acts will possibly end up in jail as the scandal continues to unfold and charges begin to pile up. See (Senator Wants News Corp. investigated Over Phone Hacking)

Privacy will begin to take on a new meaning as governments work to enact laws to protect us, not only from each other, but those trusted establishments which we thought were playing by the rules, but obviously were playing by different rules; (If we can get away with it; its okay!)