Angelina Jolie's stunt double sues News Corp. for alleged hacking

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Published on Wednesday, 19 June 2013 04:36

Written by Cnet News

            Eunice Huthart, Jolie's body double in "Tomb Raider 2," claims that News Corp. hacked her phone and wrote stories based on information gleaned from her voice mails. This is the first U.S. claim in the hacking saga.There has long been a tendency for some media to publish all the news that's fit to be found out through any means possible.One of those means is the hacking of voice mails. Indeed, News Corp. has settled hundreds of claims from famous people and those temporarily in the news for reasons that might be as sad as they might be trifling.Now a woman who stood in for Angelina Jolie in dangerous times (but not in sex scenes with Brad Pitt in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith") says that her voice mails were allegedly hacked too.Eunice Huthart, who performed as La Jolie's body double in movies such as "Tomb Raider 2" and "Salt," is suing News Corp., as she believes that information from her voice mails was gleaned and polished into sensational news stories.As The Wrap reports, these included the mere notion that Jolie would stop making movies, as well as the even more controversial idea that she wanted to master off-road biking with Brad Pitt.Reuters reports that this is the first hacking action (and one imagines that Huthart can perform a very powerful hacking action) against News Corp. in the U.S.One common method for intercepting voice mails was simply to guess the passcode (some people simply left theirs with very standard combinations) and then change it for their own nefarious benefit.Huthart claims that her family and friends began to frequently complain that their messages weren't being returned.Moreover, says the lawsuit: "During one period when the plaintiff was in Los Angeles working on the film Mr & Mrs Smith, her daughter called several times to report that she was being bullied in school in Liverpool, England. Although plaintiff's daughter left messages asking her mother to call her back, plaintiff did not receive those messages and could not console her daughter."There was even allegedly an occasion, says the Guardian, when Jolie had left a voice mail saying that she had checked into a hotel as "Pocahontas." Huthart had no idea whom to ask for.
           Huthart says she discovered this all might have been because her passcode had mysteriously -- and allegedly -- changed. The legal papers claim that "illegal activities were undertaken ... principally through the two newspapers, the Sun and the News of the World." It is extremely difficult to imagine that these fine papers -- only one of which is now defunct -- would stoop to such behavior.Still, Huthart is not to be trifled with. She is a former winner of "Gladiators," which would suggest she might be at least as fearsome an opponent as Wendi Deng.Those of an extremely twisted nature might wonder whether greater ingenuity might have been used to gain information to excite the British masses.Would anyone have thought of hacking into, say, George Clooney's aftershave supplier? How about Simon Cowell's T-shirt manufacturer?Surely, surely someone might have considered listening to the voice mails of Vladimir Putin's personal trainer, Kim Kardashian's acting coach, or Zach Galifianakis' barber?As Edward Snowden recently intimated, the possibilities are endless.Especially when our need for the minutest details of famous lives is completely insatiable

source : Cnet News