GCHQ 'intervened' over Harry Potter leak

[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.

[nsgi]

I'm not. I think questions about the actions of GCHQ merit a serious response.

[mistercow]

I think there's something super creepy about a secretive government agency flippantly exhibiting power creep.

[abrodersen]

We should start calling intelligence analysts "Dementors"

[branchless]

Yeah great guys. This after the other GCHQ feel good on smart metres. No thanks GCHQ.

PR on a dodgy govt agency that thinks the rules don't apply to them delivered via state web site.

[tempodox]

GCHQ may be good for nothing else, but defence against the dark arts is obviously very important.

[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?

[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

[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.

[fit2rule]

This 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.

[cmrdporcupine]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...

[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?

[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.

[mikeash]

I don't think we have enough information to even speculate about what the answer to that question would be. Is there a particular answer that would make you happy?

[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.

[nicky0]

You make it sound like an employee making one short phone call is a huge waste of the agency's resources.

[DanBC]

You, 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.

[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.