
GCHQ 'intervened' over Harry Potter leak - jackgavigan
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36010426
======
NamTaf
"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.

~~~
jMyles
> 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.

~~~
madaxe_again
That is indeed the purpose of this PR, and PR it absolutely is, as they did
_not_ prevent the leak of the book - I for one read it as a PDF several days
before it was published.

This is up there with the piece they ran a few days ago about how they saved
us from shitty smart meters, which were instituted and approved by another
department of government (ofgem). They're playing themselves off against
themselves in order to make you think of them as GCHQ as better, when the
whole is still just as rotten as it ever was.

------
awetyq345y345r
It's telling that they forgot to mention that their 'interventions' ultimately
failed and that the book was leaked online anyway.

------
partycoder
Book 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
So spy agencies' purpose is to help domestic business now?

~~~
extra88
To _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
Including the US, who misused ECHELON to help their aerospace industry.

~~~
extra88
If 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)

------
taneq

        "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

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sevenfive_
"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
An 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.

~~~
ceejayoz
> 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/1...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1417303/J.-K.-Rowling-
read-unfinished-book-to-dying-girl.html)

[http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Natalie_McDonald](http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Natalie_McDonald)

------
pieter_mj
As 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
Why 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?

~~~
hackerboos
If anything I would imagine they would be able to violate EU law even more
without the accountability to Brussels.

------
whoopdedo
And how many times did they discover stolen credit cards, or evidence of
identity theft, and helpfully notified the banks and account holders?

~~~
Normal_gaussian
Banks 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
I 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
That 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)

------
stuaxo
> 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 ??

~~~
nicky0
You make it sound like making one short phone call is a drastic, unwarranted
step. Come on, it's just a phone call.

------
raverbashing
> 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

------
throw7
Half-blood Prince Spoiler Alert. GCHQ notified. Of National Security Import.

------
nxzero
Almost 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
With logic like this you probably think the moon landings were faked too.

------
ddp
That's not a world I want to live in.

------
mtgx
So 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
With the money that the series has generated, it's probably gone over some
threshold to consider it a "national security" issue.

~~~
chris_wot
I think that's highly unlikely.

~~~
alfiedotwtf
The 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
In that case, I stand corrected.

