To be fair not much actual information has come out from this case, but does this set the precedent for vendors being responsible for security breaches?

Will we see Microsoft, Oracle et al being sued/fined when their products are compromised?

I admit information on PLEX isn't easy to come by, but it's a long stretch to go from "Ericcson invented the language" to "Ericsson must have been involved". Plenty of people work with the language (there are jobs advertised asking for PLEX experience) and frankly there must be plenty of state intelligence services familiar with the workings of it, especially given how widepsread its use has been over the last 30 years.

I can fully understand Vodaphone being fined so heavily, but I fail to see what warrants Ericsson being hit too.

... did they reveal any information about the *customers* of these crooked providers, the buyers of the hijacked info - or, being realistic, the *agencies* who paid for this operation...?

"Vodafone's Greek head of network design supposedly killed himself two days after the phone tapping was publicly revealed."

Oh, yeaaah, I'm suuure he was sooo ashamed he rather just killed himself... what a BS. :o

What did his bank account etc show? I'm sure Greek authorities investigated his connections - where did his orders or payments come?

Let me guess... a Potemkin company/personality in the forefront, operated through other shills by either FSB or CIA, perhaps The Mossad - which of these have most interests or cui bono? I'm afraid it's just another case where truth will never come out, or only after we passed away; the latter two would not comment anyway (the Russians would simply outright deny it, heh) but that's it, Greeks are in the NATO so they will have to swallow it silently as loyal allies... or am I missing something here...?

On the other hand I can already hear those folks with their tin-foil hat on saying this crazy, amddening fire came just in time to divert attention from the details of these verdicts... ;)

Good for Greece, now refuse to cooperate with the UK on the Schengen visa Information Sharing system.

Here's why:

UK requires Visas for spouses of EU citizens that originate from visa countries. This is a violation of 2004/38/EC 5(2), which requires they accept EU residence cards as the equivalent of a visa. They refuse to accept Greece residence cards as valid.

You accept their residence cards under 2004/38/EC, they do not accept yours.

It gives the UK an unfair advantage. If a company sets up in the UK, it's staff that originate from a visa country, can travel throughout Europe with their UK residence permit. The same facility is not offered to those staff if they are based in Greece, each trip to the UK requires this lengthy visa process.

You want fairness in Europe? Then start pushing the UK to abide by the stuff they've signed up for.

Then there's the VIS system for recording visa applications. This was intended to record *external* visa applications into Europe, but since the UK is doing this visa trick, it will now record internal travel too. They should not be given access to VIS if they refuse to comply with 2004/38/EC.

Surely any and all innovative technology or methodology is, by natural default, a foreign intelligence service.

QuITe whose is rather dependent upon who develops IT best, although even that may always be a red herring, for it will be defined by the quality of those working with the product.

Hey ho

But how much is that in sterling?

Here are the details of the whole affair:

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/5280

How did these 'hackers' gain access to the internal telecoms network??

Most of the network elements on this network DO NOT have IP interfaces, that being, the majority of spackers out there wouldn't know what the operating system is (highly bespoke OS, or Solaris depending on how much Vodaponie paid Ericsson), what the interfaces are or how to access them - certainly not from an IP network.

SS7 networks are the usual core network make up so I fail to see how hackers were able to access this network given these networks are all closed networks.

Corporate espionage??