I don't know when it all started but one thing I do know is....I tried to stop it when many other's didn't want it exposing.
To get an idea what I was up against please follow the links below and read my witness statement submitted to Lord Justice Leveson in 2011 or follow the story below for a more detailed description
Full transcript. http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Transcript-of-Morning-Hearing-6-December-2011.pdf
Witness statement. http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Witness-Statement-of-Steven-Nott.pdf
LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: "Thank you, Mr Nott. It's quite clear this was a problem you identified in the late 1990s and it's now come home for us all to think about."
I have had a few mentions at the Leveson Inquiry and will be adding them all to this site in due course. That will be when the Inquiry has completed and LJ Leveson has made recomendations to the Prime Minister, David Cameron.
Vodafone appeared at the Leveson inquiry along with other network operators and the video link to that morning's testimony is below where you can hear Mark Hughes, Head of Security at Vodafone saying "they don't know why they didn't do anything" after my warnings 13 years ago.
http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/hearing/2012-02-02am/
My
name is Steven Nott, I am a 44 year old family man and delivery driver.
Below is an article from the South Wales Argus dated 13th October 1999
which shows how I tried to raise the alarm to the British authorites
about the possible interception of voicemail otherwise known as phone
hacking. The article came out after a long campaign to make everyone
aware of the insecure Voicemail system on the Vodafone Recall service.
Because of Vodafone's lack of care towards customer safety, I took my
story to the Daily Mirror, when Piers Morgan was Editor, to name and
shame them.
Things didn't go quite to plan because The Daily Mirror, after much
excitement, decided not to print the story even though they said it was
going to be the biggest that decade. I then went to their rival
newspaper The Sun, in Wapping at the News International HQ and asked for
help to expose Vodafone and also The Daily Mirror. It was a
catastrophic decision to show the newspapers about phone hacking but the
public needed warning.
I informed New Scotland Yard, Security Services, Home Office, The DTI
and my MP about my concerns and never had any help from them. What was I
supposed to do ?. This was all in 1999 and my full story is documented
below. Please bear in mind when reading this, I was trying to raise the
alarm to the serious implications about voicemail interception back then
and if Vodafone hadn't tried to wriggle out of it saying 'change your
PIN' every time, then perhaps we wouldn't be where we are today. What
would you do if you discovered a security risk that was a national
threat ? I had to do something. It was my civic duty.
Mobile Minus : Sales boss reveals security problem.
By Rob Skellon
A Cwmbran sales manager says he has discovered a major security problem with one of the country's largest mobile phone networks.Horrified Vodafone subscriber Steve Nott, 32, found the ANYONE can access his answer phone service and listen to his private messages....helped by the giant network's own operators. He explained " Some time ago, the Vodafone network went down because of a technical fault. I had some important messages coming in, so I rang Vodafone to access them. "I was asked by an operator if I had programmed a PIN number into my answer service. When I said hadn't, I was told it didn't matter, that I all I had to do was key in the default number. "I followed the instructions and was able to hear my messages. It was easy and had taken just seconds." Mr Nott added " Afterwards I thought that anyone with my phone number could get into my messages just as easily as I had."Mr Nott, whose marketing work in London is so sensitive that he doesn't want his full Cwmbran address to be published, complained to Vodafone bosses. The angry marketing man even contacted the British Intelligence Service Mi5. He said: "Vodafone has millions of users, and many of them will be MPs and High ranking government officials, people with highly sensitive information at thier fingertips.
"I thought it important that the intelligence service should know about this. Unauthorised accessing of someone's message service is on par with tampering with their mail". The Argus put Mr Nott's claims to the test and by following his instructions we were able to access a Vodafone user's personal message service. In this case, it was with the subscriber's permission. But it proved the point. Anyone can do it. A Vodafone spokesman also conceded it was possible.
But he added: "Subscriber's have the facility to change the default number and set up their own PIN number.
"If they don't, I suppose they are risking the security of their message service".
As the events unfolded....
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I discovered a risk in Vodafone Recall Service ( voicemail ) in early 1999.
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I attempted to get Vodafone to change their system because the security implications were enormous.
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Because Vodafone didn't see the risk I called The Daily Mirror and was put through to a Oonagh Blackman and explained the story and the problem I had with Vodafone and explained the serious implications of voicemail interception. I gave her the instructions over the phone, how to access Vodafone's Recall service using the default PIN.
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Oonagh Blackman from the Daily Mirror saw the potential for a big story and followed up with investigations by telling me they were accessing the voicemail of publicly profiled people and then calling them afterwards explaining how they'd accessed their voicemail and wanted to know what they thought, so they could run the story with lots of mobile user reaction. I was told by Oonagh, because of the amount of telephone numbers they had, it was a massive task and was taking longer than expected. I was told everyone in the office was on the story and were ringing everyone.
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After 12 days, Oonagh Blackman, said the The Daily Mirror wasn't interested anymore. I couldn't understand why seeing as I was told that most of the newsdesks resources were being used to cover the story. We had an argument over the issue of not going to print. A payment of £100 was sent to me for the story which was never published. I received remmitance advice with the cheque dated 30th September 1999, titled 'Mobile Phone Scandal'. See below for scanned image of invoice.
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I went to The Sun newspaper in Wapping and met with Paul Crosbie Consumer affairs. Told him the issue, and told him about the Daily Mirror. Paul Crosbie said they would go to print as it was a big story and couldn't believe The Daily Mirror hadn't run with it. Nothing was ever published.
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I called and wrote to New Scotland Yard expressing my concerns and telling them I may have inadvertently giving 2 tabloids an easy way to get news scoops. I never had a reply.
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I called and wrote to the DTI in Victoria and the Home Office explaining the same. No replies.
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I started to call every National newspaper to explain what I had done. No stories printed. Until May 2000 Mail on Sunday. See below.
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I called The BBC and they got me on Radio 5 to talk about the security issue with Vodafone. Mike Caldwell from Vodafone was the spokesperson from Vodafone's Newbury HQ. It was was Fi Glovers show and aired on 22nd October 1999 at approx 1345 hrs and the interviewer was Adam Kirtley.
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Vodafone didn't want a fuss - They were going through a takeover at the time with Mannessman, the German Mobile group. I guess any bad press at the time wouldn't have been good for the deal.
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BBC also filmed me in their Blue Peter garden for when the news broke as they said there's no way it would be kept quiet. Too important. Nothing happened after that. I kept in touch with Nicola Carslaw at the BBC for some weeks afterwards.
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I called ITN spoke to Chris Choi, who was very excited. A news crew was sent to film me at my house. Chris Choi said it could possibly be in the evening news that day. Nothing happened. Called Chris Choi, he wasn't interested anymore.
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The South Wales Argus ran a story about me and what I'd discovered. This was October 13th 1999. They ran a story based on the security loophole at vodafone. Article above.
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I called my MP Paul Murphy. He didn't want to know and said it had nothing to do with him. This was in early 2000.
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I wrote to the DTI again for fear that the The Daily Mirror who had problems with insider trader dealing with James Hipwell and Anil Bhoyrul ( The City Slickers story ) I thought there could be a link with share trading and the phone hacking method. This has not been proved.
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In 2005/6 two people were arrested and imprisoned , Glenn Mulcaire and Clive Goodman. I thought that was the end of it and decided not to get back involved for fear of another breakdown.
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In late 2010 problems in the news again with News of the World and Andy Coulson and newspapers and TV companies saying phone hacking started in 2005 etc. I decided to call Operation Weeting and explain the information and evidence I had.
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I proceded to call newspapers etc and tell them my story. None of them seemed interested even though phone hacking was becoming the top news agenda quite often.
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I then started to call solicitors of those people apparently been phonehacked so they could know about my efforts to raise the alarm in 1999.
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I was invited down to Mayfair in London and made a statement to a solicitor for one of the civil cases sueing Newsgroup newspapers ( Murdoch ) and Glenn Mulcaire. George Galloway was the civil case who recently won settlement from news group newspapers.
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Operation Weeting interviewed me on 18th July 2011. I told them my story. Operation Weeting explained my information may be important in the investigation.
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Because the newspapers weren't interested but social media were, I set up a website/blog in mid July 2011. I had a lot of interest on twitter but also a lot of non believers.
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Lord Justice Leveson asked people to come forward before 31st August 2011 on national television.So I emailed them with my information. This was for the public inquiry due to start in september 2011.
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I have had various online publicity from the BBC news website www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14431473 , Daily Mail Online http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023125/Phone-hacking-scandals-fault-Steve-Nott-told-Sun-Mirror-access-voicemails.html?ito=feeds-newsxml , The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/aug/07/phone-hacking-daily-mirror, The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/this-scandal-is-all-my-fault-says-salesman-2332669.html and Private Eye magazine. Thanks to them my story has finally received widespread global interest.
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I then found more information in my attic, ie Mirror Group Newspapers Ltd remittance advice and contact names and numbers for the 2 tabloid contacts Paul Crosbie and Oonagh Blackman. Paul Crosbie has confirmed my meeting with him however I am unable to contact Oonagh Blackman from The Daily Mirror.
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I have sent these extra details on to Operation Weeting to help them further in their investigation.
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I have been in touch with many people involved in the phone hacking scandal including Chris Bryant MP, Tom Watson MP, Therese Coffey MP, Rt Hon Lord Prescott,l Alastair Campbell and countless other people in the public eye.
- I appeared at Leveson Inquiry 6th December 2011 at 10am and finally got someone to listen.
My story in much more detail :
In 1998 I worked as a Salesman for a food manufacturer that delivered it's products all over the UK and my main target area was central London and the city. I was very productive and had a lot of success with the company and on a daily basis received up to 10 new orders per day from customers I'd previously seen. These orders needed to be progressed quickly, phoned in to the office, and delivered to the customer within a 3 day turn around so it was imperative I got the orders in on time each day.
During early 1999 the Vodafone network had a problem and 'went down' for a few hours. I was driving along the M4 at the time and couldn't get a signal as there was no network available.After the situation hadn't changed for some hours, I stopped at a service station and decided to make a call to the Network operator Vodafone. I explained my circumstances and the need to get to my voicemail asap to further my customers' orders. They explained to me that it wasn't a problem and explained to me that I could access my voicemail messages from any other phone, landline or mobile. They explained to me that once you've called your own mobile number, once you hear. " Please leave a message after the tone", the operator said to press 9 and then key in my PIN number. I said the PIN number for my phone, and she said "No ,you have a PIN number for your voicemail and as you don't know about it then your's will still be the default 3333" Ok. I said to the operator, that it all seems a bit 'easy' to access and mentioned the fact that I could do it with anyones phone then. She said " yes i could, but I wasn't supposed to" and that's only if the PIN number was set on default.
At
the time, it was not common knowledge to anyone about PIN numbers for
voicemails. Most people then didn't have a clue. As long as the mobile
phone you were calling was switched off or 'busy' then you would be able
to access email immediately. If you pestered the person with enough
calls, they would switch it off anyway so making the hacking so easy.
Ok, so you've heard it all before, voicemail phone hacking news stories
going on for some years now and still currently causing a nuisance to
celebrities and politicians alike and now Scotland Yard are having to
backtrack and invest more time into something that seems like it won't
go away. I was
gobsmacked by the way, that it was so easy to be able to do this and
spent the next couple of months having fun and games with my mates
phones, work colleagues phones and so on. Yes, I was hacking phones too
... but not for the reasons the press were.
I
realised that this issue of easily being able to intercept voicemail,
change welcome greetings, delete messages and change the voicemail PIN
was too serious to play about with and decided to make some noise about
the risks to National Security I'd stumbled across.
I called Vodafone and told them of my worry. They weren't helpful. I
called them on various occasions explaining my concerns and still no
joy. Vodafone told me each time, that the instructions for the voicemail
PIN security number were in the handbook that came with each phone. I
could not find any handbook anywhere that this was the case. All of the
instruction manuals for Vodafone mobiles had the basics but nothing
about voicemail security and changing a default number. ( I have
recently asked them for more information relating to this matter for the
year 1999 ). The mobiles that we were using in our company were all
company phones and there were loads of them. The phones were just handed
out and used and often moved from one person to another as staff
started and left the company. I made a point of investigating what
Vodafone had told me at the time and found out that no-one knew about
voicemail PIN security because no-one had a handbook or instruction
manual that explained this.
Now
I was chomping at the bit and decided that I wasn't getting anywhere
with Vodafone and took matters into my own hands and changed my plan of
action. I wasn't going to let this go. Just to note, Vodafone were in
the process of a takeover bid with Mannessmann, the german mobile giant.
I don't think they wanted anyone causing a fuss. I was also speaking to
the Orange press office at the time regarding voicemail interception
and ruled them out of the security issue.
I made a list of how it could affect the public and also the security
implications on important people ie the Royals, Politicians etc. The
fact that people could be tracked by monitoring their movements through
listening to their messages. Not only could you intercept voicemail in
the UK from any mobile network or landline, it didn't have to be from
this country. In fact, it could be done in any other country providing
the mobile number was on the Vodafone network because Orange had a
completely more secure system.
I was in London and made a phone call to the Daily Mirror and was put through to the newsdesk. I explained to a lady at the newsdesk that I had a story. This lady called herself Oonagh Blackman. She was very interested and after giving her the instructions to listen into voicemails she said it's possibly going to be one of the biggest stories that decade and would make front page and couldn't believe how easy it was to do and the fact that nobody knew about it. She said they were going to try it out for themselves and see how it all works. I called Oonagh Blackman, at the Daily Mirror a few times and she kept saying they were working on it and to be patient as it was going to be a massive story. They told me that they had 'everybody' onto it as they had a massive bank of phone numbers and were ringing everyone to get their reactions that their mobile's voicemail had been tampered with. They said it was a massive story and was taking a long time to get through the numbers. I had almost daily contact with Oonagh Blackman at the Daily Mirror's newsdesk. Blackman, at the time, was Piers Morgan's Special projects Editor and went on to become Deputy Whitehall Editor and eventuaklly Political Editor for the Mirror.
Twelve
days went by, still waiting for front page headlines as promised, I
rang Oonagh Blackman up and she said they weren't interested anymore. I
was amazed, one minute, massive news story promises and excitement then
'nothing'. We had an argument over the phone and was threatened by
Oonagh Blackman, with lawyers and court action because I had accused her
and The Daily Mirror of using the voicemail interception method for
themselves.
The smoking gun : Daily Mirror remmitance advice 'Mobile Phone Scandal'
Piers Morgan said " £100 for the biggest story of the decade, sounds pretty cheap to me" See video below
It didn't take me long to realise 'What I had done ?' I couldn't believe I was so stupid to tell a national newspaper how to get hot news for free just by hacking into someones phone. I was on a campaign to raise public awareness and it was backfiring.
I then
contacted Paul Crosbie - Consumer Affairs correspondent at The Sun
newspaper and explained to him about the story but didn't tell him how
to do it. He was very curious and called me in for an appointment in
Wapping, News International.
I met Paul there and explained to him the whole story and the fact that I
had told the Mirror newspaper and he was astonished with the whole
thing. firstly, he was gobsmacked and very excited at how it could be
done and also shocked that the Daily Mirror had the information from
me 12 days earlier and said "I can't believe the Mirror would keep
something so quiet being such a massive story of national importance". Paul
asked me to demonstrate how anyone's voicemail system was accessed and
called some colleagues in the office, asked them to not answer the next
call so I could call them and show him.
Paul Crosbie explained to me that it was a great story and thanked me
for coming to see him and expect the story to be in the paper within 48
hours on the front page. He said I was going to be a public hero because
of the risk to National Security which I had brought to the media's
attention. Guess what.....no news story, not a dickie bird. I couldn't get hold of Paul Crosbie again after the first meeting.
I've had communication with Paul Crosbie recently and he says I never spoke to him again after that but he was always available. Maybe, I was just unlucky at the time and just couldn't catch him in. I only tried a few times as I thought to myself at the time....'Oh no, what had I done.....I've told another newspaper now and I was making it worse'. Paul Crosbie confirms everything in my story and agrees that something should have been done about the problem and that he'd never heard of 'voicemail hacking' before.
Bear in mind during all of this I had a very busy day job to do and was trying relentlessly to think of ways of making the public aware. I started to spread the word. I knew that the information I had important and took it upon myself to make sure everyone knew
I contacted as many newspapers as possible informing them of the problem and hoping that one of them would do something with the story. This never happened. ( The Daily Mail did run an article about listening to voicemail in May 2000 - it was covered well and had input from David Blunkett MP,Tessa Jowell MP and Gerald Kaufman MP
I called Security Services. They thanked me for the information. I never heard from then since. I spoke to New Scotland Yard and also wrote them a detailed letter explaining my issues, my findings and the problem that was a National Security risk. I never had a reply from them. I wrote to the DTI in Victoria. I never received a reply. (I wrote to the DTI again some years later when there was news about two city traders from the Daily Mirror were involved in some fraudulent activity.)
I was on a campaign to undo what I hade done. I was on a mission to head up a public awareness campaign and even moreso now seeing as I'd told two newspapers how to intercept voicemail on anyone's mobile phone.
I then contacted the BBC. I was invited into an interview, was filmed on Percy Throwers bench in the Blue Peter Garden and also ended up on Radio5 Live on a Friday afternoon with a communications spokesperson from Vodafone in Newbury.The radio show aired at approx 1345 hrs october 22nd 1999 and the presenter was Adam Kirtley. Vodafone's Mike Caldwell, in the interview, said they didn't know why I was making such a fuss as it never has and never will cause a problem. How wrong could they have been ? The transcript is available from the radio show on request.
I also spoke to Chris Choi from ITN and he was very excited also about the implications and massive security flaw. I had an ITN newscrew at my house the same day and was filmed in my back garden about the story. Chris Choi said it was going to be breaking headlines. Guess what.....nothing happened. No broadcast, nothing.
I also got into trouble from work as I contacted 'David Ford' who was CEO of Gardner Merchant at the time. I had his details because the company I worked for had recently entertained him on a specail sports day out at the Cardiff Millenium Stadium in one of those corporate boxes. I rang him to tell him that there could be a security flaw within his company regarding mobile phones and just wanted him to be aware.
I was pulling my hair out with frustration. Everyone I spoke, everywhere I went, I got the same reaction, yes, good story, we'll run with it. So everyday I was expecting to see the news break into the public domain. Everyday I waited for this for nearly months and months.
My last resort was to contact The South Wales Argus, my local newspaper. I called them and had a half page spread about Vodafone security and voicemail interception. This was 13th October 1999 and is shown further at the top of the page. This was some time after I first discovered the security risk that my local paper got involved and ran a story. I had a massive sigh of relief when this came out because I thought I was literally 'going mad'.
At the time, I was working full time as a sales rep for a local food company and was getting deeply engrossed in trying to 'save the world' and eventually it took it's toll and ended up having a breakdown. Ok, perhaps not a good idea to bring all of this back up again, but life goes on, we grow stronger and we get older and wiser. My father also died in April 2000, I lost my driving licence due to speeding, I lost my job and my £15000 sales bonus which I'd already earned but my bosses wouldn't pay and everything I think, finally made me 'breakdown'.
I
do think that with everything happening all at once caused me to have
that breakdown. I didn't even fight my employer for my sales bonus come
April 2000 because I didn't have it in me to take part in another
battle. I just couldn't do it, I was worn out. In fact due to the stress
I was suffering from and taking my dying father's advice, I consulted
my doctor and a psychiatrist. Here below, is a diagnosis of my mental
state at the time and take note of the 'delusional beliefs' remarks.
Basically, the psychiatrist didn't believe a word of what I'd got myself
involved in.
I
always wanted the public to know from the very outset, I tried my
hardest to get the press to take the story and failed. I'm now making it
my mission to make sure everyone knows that I tried and nobody helped
apart from the BBC. What the others did with the information beggars
belief. Nobody seems to be interested how it all started. We will never
know, but one thing I'm sure of, I did tried to stop it.
What worries me most now, is that whilst the newsflash broke about 911 and the towers being hit by planes and had not yet collapsed.....how many journalists or private investigators/reporters thought..... 'I can hack into their voicemail and see what messages are being left'. It wouldn't have been difficult, in fact would have taken seconds. All you would need to know, would be the names of the companies in the two buildings, and some members of staff and their numbers.They may have already had that sort of information at their fingertips anyway by then.
Also, Vodafone are a big problem in all of this as they didn't, and wouldnt change their voicemail systems from default until 2003.
More -https://web.archive.org/web/20130318175639/http://hackergate.co.uk/
