That inevitably leads to the second question: Who and how many among those in the know will find reason to blab under pressure from authorities?

The answers to those questions often tell us how nasty things are going to get.

Indeed, there are two kinds of corporation scandals: Those involving just a few key figures and few paper trails of their misdeeds and those with lots of players and lots of papers tying all those players together, right up to the top.

The scandal at Rupert Murdoch's London operations involving phone hacking at the News of the World is clearly of the latter sort, a big, sloppy enterprise in which everyone knew they were doing wrong and spent little energy worrying if it might all blow up one day, as it did.

It's already very messy, having led to 13 arrests, including that of Rebekah Brooks, head of Murdoch's UK newspaper operations. It's bound to get lots messier still as present and future arrestees are pressured by prosecutors to turn on one another.

It's already caused Murdoch one huge loss, his ambition to gain full control of BSkyB, the UK's largest TV provider. That went out the window within days of the scandal breaking.

Murdoch's big worry now is whether the scandal will also claim son James, for so long the heir apparent to head News Corp.

It would be a huge loss for the aging media mogul. If James should be forced to exit, Murdoch would still maintain control of News Corp, controlling as he does nearly 40 percent of the voting  stock. But his greatest hope for years was to have one of his children succeed him, and that dream would most likely be ended.

At this point, all the evidence suggests that James Murdoch had plenty of reason to know of the hacking, despite his denials.

Early on in the scandal, two former NOTW executives claimed they advised the younger Murdoch, then News Corp's head of Europe and Asia operations, of evidence suggesting that hacking was not limited to one reporter and no longer being done, as Murdoch claims he believed, but likely involved others.

While some have scoffed at Murdoch's claims, he's been able to maintain his deniability.

The problem for the younger Murdoch would come if more people emerge to assert that the executive had been directly advised of the extent of the hacking, or worse, having been so advised that he then engaged in a coverup. That could well lead to criminal charges.

What's the risk of that sort of information coming out?

If in fact Murdoch knew more than he's saying, or if he did become involved in a coverup, it most assuredly would come out as prosecutors put the squeeze on others involved in the scandal in exchange for leniency before the courts. You can be sure prosecutors are actively looking for that evidence if it does exist.

But even if that never comes about—if the younger Murdoch is cleared of any criminal behavior—it’s still likely he will be forced to step down from News Corp.

For one his reputation has been severely tarnished simply by the fact that he’s admitted to being ignorant of a scandal of such proportions going on during his watch.

But on a more practical level, the aftermath of the scandal is likely to play out for years in the form of civil suits by damaged parties, yet more hearings before Parliament and great lathering over the need to clean up the British media.

James will remain in the midst of it, never able to extricate himself sufficiently to create a new life beyond the misdeeds of the now-defunct News of the World.