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GCHQ 'intervened' over Harry Potter leak
- sevenfive_ 11y ago"There was [an instance] where a child was going to die of an awful childhood condition before the book came out," he said. "So we did the only thing we could do and referred it to the author to decide how to handle it because it's her story, not ours. "History doesn't tell the outcome of that sad story, but I'm sure it was a happy one." Ouch.
- Normal_gaussian 11y agoAn interesting quote. I know I wouldn't publicise it - it is rather vulgar to use the death of a child to improve ones public images; publicly granting such a request will also bring the problem of more being made in the future. There is also the risk to the book to consider. I can completely understand if an author chose not to give anybody special consideration. It is an unfortunate fact that it is impossible to guarantee the security of such a reading. Not an easy decision, and I think the publisher is speaking out of turn by mentioning that such events have been considered.
- nsgi 11y agoI also wonder if some of the requests this statement inspires will be less genuine.
- ceejayoz 11y ago> Not an easy decision, and I think the publisher is speaking out of turn by mentioning that such events have been considered. Such events have already been publicly confirmed. Here's two: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1417303/J.-K.-Rowling-read-unfinished-book-to-dying-girl.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1... http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Natalie_McDonald http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Natalie_McDonald
- cmrdporcupine 11y agohttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1417303/J.-K.-Rowling-read-unfinished-book-to-dying-girl.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...
- fit2rule 11y agoThis is doublespeak at its absolute finest. A child died at the end of this (article) story, so that'll be your last thought about GCHQ/Harry Potter: children die, and we have to have an exclusive, secret society with self-granted powers in order to stop this, or else. Or else, children will die, unhappy.
- mtgx 11y agoSo is this what the doubling of GCHQ's budget is going to be used for? Protecting against the piracy of various novels and movies? I thought it was to stop terrorism or something like that. Silly me.
- alfiedotwtf 11y agoWith the money that the series has generated, it's probably gone over some threshold to consider it a "national security" issue.
- chris_wot 11y agoI think that's highly unlikely.
- alfiedotwtf 11y agoThe NSA intervened during an Airbus tender worth $6 Billion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#Concerns Harry Potter generated revenue: over $24 Billion: http://www.statisticbrain.com/total-harry-potter-franchise-revenue/ "National security" is money.
- chris_wot 11y agoIn that case, I stand corrected.
- NamTaf 11y ago"A spokesperson for GCHQ told the Sunday Times: "We don't comment on our defence against the dark arts." I don't care about anything else, I'm just so glad that someone at GCHQ maintains their sense of humour whilst being a spook.
- abrodersen 11y agoWe should start calling intelligence analysts "Dementors"
- delinka 11y agoI think they'd call themselves Aurors.
- jessaustin 11y agoThe best deception is self-deception.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jMyles 11y ago> I'm just so glad that someone at GCHQ maintains their sense of humour whilst being a spook. > I don't care about anything else I suspect that's exactly the intention of this sort of PR.
- NamTaf 11y agoI should have clarified, my statement was with tongue planted firmly in cheek. A sibling post described it best when they said it was flippant. It's up there with the Google wiretap post-it note smileys.
- fit2rule 11y agoYeah, this is clearly a fluff piece to associate two nice, fluffy British institutions - Harry Potter, and GCHQ - in a way that reminds people its not all about death, destruction, prejudice, using arcane methods to control people against their will, killing those not of your own race/culture, stealing their resources and covering it up so that an ignorant 'sub-class' of people can continue to live their pathetic, un-magical lives, etc. Oh wait. It actually still is all about that. Just warmer and fluffier.
- whoopdedo 11y agoAnd how many times did they discover stolen credit cards, or evidence of identity theft, and helpfully notified the banks and account holders?
- Normal_gaussian 11y agoBanks have made many decisions about the acceptable level of credit card and identity theft. These essentially come down to - quite a bit is ok. For all you know GCHQ does report such evidence, but if they don't I would expect it to be because nothing will realistically be done about it. When something unusual, or of a large magnitude, comes along these organisations will talk with each other to help mitigate the damage. GCHQ does a lot of good work alongside invading our privacy.
- ZanyProgrammer 11y agoI know anecdotal evidence and all that, but I've never received a genuine report from a bank saying that a card has been stolen, but I've gotten a lot of annoying false positives saying my card has been declined because I've traveled more than a 2 hour drive away from home and had the nerve to use it.
- Normal_gaussian 11y agoThat is consistent with a good detector for a rare event - the false positives will outnumber the true positives. This is known as the false positive paradox [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_positive_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_positive_paradox
- tjohns 11y agoOver the years, I've definitely gotten a fair share of calls from my bank asking about genuinely fraudulent charges, and calls notifying me that my card number was reported by law enforcement as compromised and they're replacing it proactively. So yes, it does happen. (Of course, in the second case, they never tell you how they came to that conclusion, just that "something" was found.) Once I even had a card start reporting fraudulent transactions before I even had a chance to activate it, which was bizarre. It's also worth noting that different banks use different fraud detection algorithms, with different levels of sensitivity. Some card companies will call you at the drop of a pin, others are much more relaxed.
- nxzero 11y agoAlmost sounds like an attempt by someone at GCHQ to get a copy of the book before it was released. Given how popular the book was, this would have been a great asset for "trading" with sources.
- nicky0 11y agoWith logic like this you probably think the moon landings were faked too.
- awetyq345y345r 11y agoIt's telling that they forgot to mention that their 'interventions' ultimately failed and that the book was leaked online anyway.
- partycoder 11y agoBook sales for Harry Potter are $7.7 billion dollars. They are just protecting domestic business. To put things in perspective BAE systems revenue was $25 billion some years ago.
- mtgx 11y agoSo spy agencies' purpose is to help domestic business now?
- extra88 11y agoTo protect domestic business, yes. As stated in the article, "GCHQ, based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, is a secret intelligence agency which monitors electronic communication to prevent terrorism and tackle serious and organised crime." Spy agencies should not help domestic businesses by engaging in serious crime, i.e. industrial espionage, though some nations' intelligence agencies, including France's have done so.
- DanBC 11y agoIncluding the US, who misused ECHELON to help their aerospace industry.
- extra88 11y agoIf you're referring to the Airbus example, the NSA exposing Airbus's crimes which benefited a U.S. competitor, I'm okay with that. There's a big difference between exposing crimes, even if only selectively, and sharing non-criminal information. The claims about the CIA spying on Japanese government officials and car manufacturers to benefit the U.S. in trade deals is very different, and wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#Concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#Concerns
- partycoder 11y agoNature follows the path of least resistance. If the easiest way to make money is to spy then it will happen. Whoever does it successfully once will be rewarded, and that reward will reshape their behavior.
- taneq 11y ago"There was [an instance] where a child was going to die of an awful childhood condition before the book came out," he said. "So we did the only thing we could do and referred it to the author to decide how to handle it because it's her story, not ours. "History doesn't tell the outcome of that sad story, but I'm sure it was a happy one." Poor turn of phrase when talking about "a child about to die of an awful childhood condition". O.o
- raverbashing 11y ago> Bloomsbury's Nigel Newton said GCHQ contacted him in 2005 after it apparently discovered an early copy of The Half Blood-Prince on the internet. > However, after a page was read to an editor, it was determined to be fake. This is hilarious There was a lot of crap being put online being named for an upcoming book, usually fanfic (especially at the time of Book 5 and 6) But it was easy to tell
- stuaxo 11y ago> However, after a page was read to an editor, it was determined to be fake. So someone at GCHQ finds a story someone has wrote pretending to be new Harry Potter, and that warrants them ringing them up ??
- DanBC 11y agoYou, and most people in the thread, are assuming that GCHQ did call the publisher. Maybe the publisher is lying. Maybe someone called but lied when they saidthey were from GCHQ. I'm pretty sure the story didn't happen as the publisher claims.
- nicky0 11y agoYou make it sound like an employee making one short phone call is a huge waste of the agency's resources.
- nicky0 11y agoYou make it sound like making one short phone call is a drastic, unwarranted step. Come on, it's just a phone call.
- pieter_mj 11y agoAs a Belgian, i can't wait until the British vote themselves out of the European Union. GCHQ is the prime reason. They and other organizations like them are the cancer of a modern democratic society.
- arethuza 11y agoWhy do you think that whether the UK is in or out of the EU has any impact on who GCHQ and SIS/MI6 spies on?
- ianpurton 11y agoPerhaps he thinks the British will physically re-locate.
- hackerboos 11y agoIf anything I would imagine they would be able to violate EU law even more without the accountability to Brussels.
- throw7 11y agoHalf-blood Prince Spoiler Alert. GCHQ notified. Of National Security Import.
- ddp 11y agoThat's not a world I want to live in.