Michael hacked, son

Yesterday's Sunday Times had a story about Michael Jackson's entire recorded history being lifted from Sony's secure systems. In a spirit of puckish wit, today the NME has liberated the story from behind News International's secure paywall:

A source told the paper: "Everything Sony purchased from the Michael Jackson estate was compromised. It caused them to check their systems and they found the breach. There was a degree of sophistication. Sony identified the weakness and plugged the gap."

Ah, yes, they plugged the gap that created a weakness which - with a degree of sophistication - allowed compromising of the system.

I don't know who the "source" was, but I suspect he or she came from Sony's movie division, where they generally write scripts featuring hackers and big screens flasging "ACCESS DENIED".

It's obviously that Sony was unwittingly involved in making these files available to the internet - they didn't realise when they put them on their system that other people could download them. But when individuals used that line as a filesharing defence - they didn't realise other people could access the files on their hard drive - Sony and the RIAA weren't impressed. I hope Sony do the right thing, and pursue themselves to the fullest extent of the law.