New York Times Hacked?*

I just got an email from the New York Times, telling me they were sorry I had cancelled my subscription.  That is pretty funny, because I don't even have a subscription.  I get my endless 20 free articles a month by simply cleaning out my browser cache every time my quota runs out.  So at first I thought they had outed me as a cookie cleaning kook and were demanding payment.  After all, the Gray Lady is in a big financial hole.  She just sold a bunch of regional papers out from under the poor slobs who worked for them, and froze the pensions of foreign correspondents at the same time the CEO is leaving with a multimillion-dollar buyout.  Reporters and other staffers are apparently getting ready to storm the office of Publisher Pinch Sulzberger. You can read their open letter here.


Well, it seems that The Times email database of commenters and subscribers has been hacked, and that the emails about subscriptions are pure bogus spam. Or maybe even an inside job from a disgruntled past or present Times worker bee. No word yet if the hacktivist group Anonymous is behind the spoof, although this is the week they had vowed to hack websites of various and sundry oligarchs.  Here's the "Times" email:

Dear Home Delivery Subscriber, Our records indicate that you recently requested to cancel your home delivery subscription. Please keep in mind when your delivery service ends, you will no longer have unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps.
We do hope you’ll reconsider.
As a valued Times reader we invite you to continue your current subscription at an exclusive rate of 50% off for 16 weeks. This is a limited-time offer and will no longer be valid once your current subscription ends.*
Continue your subscription and you’ll keep your free, unlimited digital access, a benefit available only for our home delivery subscribers. You’ll receive unlimited access to NYTimes.com on any device, full access to our smartphone and iPad® apps, plus you can now share your unlimited access with a family member.†
To continue your subscription call 1-877-698-0025 and mention code 38H9H (Monday–Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. E.D.T.).

Here's more.  The frantic Tweets of panic-stricken Times people are hilarious. And the Times Media Decoder section is running a front-page item online. It's a slow news week matched by a slow response from the newspaper. Here is my favorite reader comment, from Dawn of Princeton:

As a home delivery subscriber who received that e-mail I would like the Times to promptly let me and others know how this happened and most important if our personal information, such as credit card information on file for automated monthly payments, has been compromised. The fact that the Times has responded so slowly to this makes me want to actually cancel my subscription.

* Update, 4:30 pm: The Times now says a disgruntled worker sent out the mass email to 8 million people.  No spam, no hack, no credit card info stolen, no problem.  Martin Weiss of Mexico, MO ain't buying it: 

Keep moving. There's nothing to see here. Fatherland Security was just checking addresses of intellectuals and leftists. (Don't mention the news blackout on Obama signing the NDAA which eliminates the need for jury trials, allows the Army to hold Americans suspected of supporting insurgencies incommunicado indefinitely, and funds internment camps with a capacity of two million.) After all, NY Times staff are above the law and needn't worry about the hoi polloi. Just because the Argentine Junta disappeared over twenty thousand professors, journalists and labor leaders doesn't mean a right-wing fascist coup is in progress here. We don't need the Posse Comitatus or the Bill of Rights anymore, anyway, as government has become an impediment to profits. Are your papers in order?

Bravo, Martin!