do you believe Heather Mills?

[chirpychirpy]

Ms Mills says she told the Daily Mirror journalist in 2001: "You've obviously hacked my phone..." Did the expression 'hacking' with regard to phones exist 10 years ago? I can't recall hearing it before 2010, maybe even not til this year.

[Gromit]

The Mirror should just stump up a payout. Otherwise they might find themselves out on a limb.

[pink-kittens]

who cares? Heather Mills was and still is a gold digger
She'll jump onto any wagon in an effort to have people feel sympathy for her

[ummmm]

Yes...I do believe her.

Not sure what she wants to gain from it though. I think she's a bit of a fantasist....

[DTCwordfan]

Jem - I think she Camilla has passed the menopause, so no......

[flip_flop]

My favourite joke about Mills and Mcartney was that when he proposed he went down on one knee.

This was on The News Quiz!

[Quizmonster]

As Chuck says - and I suggested in the opening response to this thread - we're just looking at a semantic or technological quibble rather than a lie. A quote from heather Mills in today's Independent says the Mirror couldn't have got the information, "unless they had GONE INTO my voice messages." I can think of no reason for her not to use 'hacked' in today's vocabulary.

[DTCwordfan]

Did I read that "Heather was Macked, that he got in there?"

[rov1100]

Dame Elize Bullington once head of MI5 says the word hacking is the wrong word when it comes to phone messages being listened to. Computer hacking is completely different.

[conewood]

The problem is her previous statements in court resulting in a judge suggesting what she says is unreliable. She does not seem to realise she has shot herself in the foot.

[vodkancoke]

I don't believe her, she is trying to cash in on it like the leech (sp?) she always was. Daft moo!

[DTCwordfan]

She probably doesn't care coneweood - there's a fifty per cent chance that she would not feel it.

[annie0000]

as has already been said - Piers morgan has said in the past (I think it may be in his book) that he listened to a taped message intended for Heather Mills but that they did not use it. He does not elaborate on how he came to be listening to it or whether he asked where it had come from which is more the issue. The fact that Heather has been known to fabricate/embellish or whatever doesn't mean to say that she never tells the truth (maybe by accident?).

[Old_Geezer]

"Did the expression 'hacking' with regard to phones exist 10 years ago?"

Can't say for sure, but the misuse of the words 'hacking' and 'hacker' has been around for a long time now. Originally it referred to expertise with computer code. One aspired to be known as a 'hacker' as it meant you were extremely skilled at programming and suchlike. It is only when the know-nothing media hacks started using it to describe those who circumnavigate the security measures on someone else's servers, that the misuse started. It still annoys me now, this change from an accolade to that of a badge of shame. If language has to evolve it should at least be by use of new words and falling out of use of old. Not from mistakes that become accepted mainstream.

[youngmafbog]

No.

[Gromit]

Old_Geezer
Phones used to be tapped, taking a connection from the wire feed near to your home or exchange. When calls became wireless with mobiles, calls were scanned for and eavesdropped on. When mobiles began to incorporate digital recording and became mini-computers, then they could be hacked into.

But I think you are right, 10 years ago, the term 'phone hacking' would not have been used.

[Quizmonster]

Chambers Dictionary (published 2008) defines hack in the sense here as "gain unauthorised access to other computers". It can scarcely have escaped anyone in Britain's notice recently that the word is now applied - whether we like it or not - to phones as well.
As the phone interpretation is not mentioned in Chambers, it is reasonable to suppose that 2008 was the earliest possible such usage.