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A FORMER HACKER turned online security advisor has avoided a jail term for interfering with The Sun Newspaper website to mislead readers into thinking that media mogul Rupert Murdoch had killed himself.
Donncha O’Cearbhaill (24) was just 18 when he inserted a “Trojan horse” into a News International website, which redirected visitors to a hoax story about Murdoch.
O’Cearbhaill, from The Ring, Crinkle, Birr, in County Offaly, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to two counts of criminal damage to data on the The Sun newspaper website, thesun.co.uk, which is owned by News International.
He was described as a person of “rare intelligence” in a letter handed in to court from Web Summit founder, Paddy Cosgrave.
The first hack, on 12 July, 2011, redirected all visitors to the site to a hoax story that suggested Murdoch had ingested a large quantity of palladium, a rare earth mineral, before “stumbling into his famous topiary garden late last night”.
The second hack, on 18 July, 2011, redirected visitors to the Twitter feed of Lulzsec, a computer hacking group.
The hacked servers were property of News International, the parent company for The Times, The Sun and The Sunday Times.
The websites were shut down for two hours on the night after the second hack and the servers later had to be rebuilt from scratch over a period of three weeks.
O’Cearbhaill said that he carried out the hack on News International in retaliation for the phone hacking scandal, but that he was sorry for his “reckless” actions.
Judge Martin Nolan said that as far as he knew, “Mr Murdoch is still happily living.”
Young
The judge said that he accepted O’Cearbhaill was young at the time of the offence. But he noted he was extremely intelligent for his age and knowingly committed the damaging acts.
“You thought it would be fun to inflict damage on the websites of this company and put a Trojan horse into one of the gaps that you saw,” Judge Nolan said.
He handed down a nine month sentence but suspended it on a number of conditions.
The court heard no incoming IP addresses were captured as O’Cearbhaill had been using the Tor browser which conceals a person’s location. However, confidential information given to gardaí suggested that two people were involved.
O’Cearbhaill was arrested in September 2011 and his home was searched. Forensic analysis of items taken from the home, including a Dell laptop and a Samsung notebook, found a saved image that matched the one on the site that that people were redirected to when they tried to access thesun.co.uk.
Garda Marion Brennan told the court she examined emails and internet history files that demonstrated someone using O’Cearbhaill’s computer had an interest in hacking and in learning about The Sun.
An analysis of chat logs from Babytech and Sunnydays, two internet discussion forums, found the username “Palladium” referred to multiple times and O’Cearbhaill admitted that he had used that online name since January 2011.
Gain
Garda Brennan said that he cooperated in interview, and that he said he did not carry out the hack for financial gain.
She said that he claimed to have targeted News International after the publicity came out about the phone hacking scandal, which included tapping into the voicemail of a dead school girl.
He said he wanted to do something humorous to make fun of their security. He also said that somebody else in one of the chat rooms had written the story about Rupert Murdoch’s death, and it was formatted to look like text from The Sun.
Giollaíosa O’Lideadha SC, defending, requested that his client be dealt with through the Probation Act, meaning he wouldn’t have a criminal record.
He submitted O’Cearbhaill was extremely young when he committed the hacks and that he was very sorry for his actions.
O’Cearbhaill was now an online security advisor devoted himself to preventing the type of attacks he carried out, including offering his assistance to journalists, financial institutions, and human rights groups, the court heard.
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It has since become a profitable source of income of certain NGOs who focus on unaffected children born decades after the disaster rather than adults, who were children at the time, who carry a burden of an increased risk of thyroid cancer.
Though it should be pointed out that thyroid cancer his highly treatable, it has >99% survival rate. It is Ironically that it is often cured with the help of Iodine-131 (the same isotope responsible for thyroid cancer in the first place).
“By 2005, 5,127 cases of thyroid cancer were reported among those exposed in 1986 under the age of 14 years; 6,848 cases have been reported for those who had been under the age of 18 years; 15 cases had proved fatal.”
And a study just published found no increase in mutations in children where one or both parents had either helped clean up the accident site or had to evacuate because they lived close by.
“Study finds no excess germline mutations in children of Chernobyl survivors”
Ref.:
Yeager, M., Machiela, M.J., et al. 2021. Lack of transgenerational effects of ionizing radiation exposure from the Chernobyl accident. Science, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abg2365.
Weiss, W., 2018. Chernobyl thyroid cancer: 30 years of follow-up overview. Radiation protection dosimetry, 182(1), pp.58-61.
@David Jordan: a real eye opener. Thanks for that
@David Jordan: Excellent insight into how the charities around Chernobyl work.
Eye opening stuff
@Marie Mc: sounds like the modus operandi of alot of charities
@David Jordan: Would that be the charity that still claims on their website…
“Scientists feared that a further explosion could occur, producing a force of three to five megatons, and exposing the whole of Europe to enormous radioactive contamination.”
“700,000 men, known as liquidators, risked their lives and exposed themselves to dangerous levels of radiation to contain the situation. At east 40,000 of these men have died and a further 70,000 are disabled”
@Gavin Tobin: “700,000 men, known as liquidators, risked their lives and exposed themselves to dangerous levels of radiation to contain the situation. At east 40,000 of these men have died and a further 70,000 are disabled”
Well they are 35 years older. This is expected for an aging population that was also affected by the collapse of the Soviet Union, that resulted in increased in poverty rates, worsening diet, alcoholism and smoking.
But what about comparing them to others who were not involved in the cleanup, don’t they have relatively higher rates of ill health?
Well, there’s a plausible suggestion that Chernobyl Liquidators’ increased concern for their health resulted in a higher rate of diagnosed medical conditions. They were also offered yearly medical check-ups. Medical care in the Former Soviet Union collapsed, so diagnosis and treatment all too often relied on a patient’s own initiative. There was also a problem with medical record going missing.
So this may give a false impression that Chernobyl Liquidators have higher rates of ill health.
Similar happened in reverse in Iraq, harsh sanctions caused medical care to collapse under Saddam’s rule, as a result cancer and birth defects went undiagnosed, untreated and unrecorded. After 2003, medical care improved and they they started diagnosing cancer again and a reliable record of birth defects was kept. This gives a false impression of an explosion in cancer cases and birth defects.
@David Jordan: the 2021 study you cite has a sample of 130 children. A quantitative study with a sample of 130 born between 1987-2002. Is neither rigorous nor generalisable so I would not take such findings at face value. Further to this, the study does not offer much information on the methodology of the study which also raises questions regarding the validity of the findings
I visited the site 2 yrs ago. Would recommend it to any adult (for safety reasons). Great place for reflection on the human, ecological and historical scale of the sote as mentioned in the article.
Humans: F-up the environment for themselves
Nature: Thanks and dont let the door hit you on the way out
No mention of the horrific effects on children born to people affected by radiation fallout from Chernobel, abandoned and rejected left in orphenenages to be cared for by the state.
@Richard Mccarthy: A study just published found no increase in mutations (abnormalities) in children born to parents who had either helped clean up the accident site or had to evacuate because they lived close by.
“Study finds no excess germline mutations in children of Chernobyl survivors
The study investigated the long-standing question of whether radiation exposure results in genetic changes that can be passed from parent to offspring.
In fact, the number of de novo mutations in these children was similar to those in the general population.
These findings suggest that the ionizing radiation exposure from the accident had a minimal, if any, impact on the health of the subsequent generation.”
Ref.:
Yeager, M., Machiela, M.J., et al. 2021. Lack of transgenerational effects of ionizing radiation exposure from the Chernobyl accident. Science, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abg2365.
@Richard Mccarthy: Because it a myth.
And not one superhero…….
Tragedy disaster Chernobyl power plant melt to blow to everywhere place land radioactive won’t gone next 2,000 years. Should banned power plants all world
@Brian Flavin: An estimated 2,000,000 lives have been saved by nuclear power.
@Brian Flavin: what?
@Brian Flavin: in English?
I believe he said “Tragedy disaster Chernobyl power plant melt to blow to everywhere place land radioactive won’t gone next 2,000 years. Should banned power plants all world”
@Darragh Lynch: I believe he uses some type of speech to text converter due to a disability.
What’s your excuse for being ignorant?
@Darragh Lynch: Brian said that the Chernobyl plant meltdown was a tragedy and a disaster. He said that radiation was blown everywhere and that the land became radioactive. He added that the radiation won’t be gone for the next 2,000 years. He said that power plants (nuclear) should be banned worldwide.
@Gavin Tobin: They’re not worth the risk.
@Ken Loughman: right, there’s about 440 active reactors in the world currently, producing around 10% of all power. What do you replace them with?
@Michal Rozanski: Dirty great big coal fired power stations or giant hydroelectric dams that can flood rain forest, displace towns and villages, and can collapse ,killing thousands.
1975 Banqiao Dam failure
“The dam failure created the third-deadliest flood in history which affected a total population of 10.15 million and inundated around 30 cities and counties of 12,000 square kilometers (or 3 million acres), with an estimated death toll ranging from 85,600 to 240,000 (26,000 according to the Chinese government).”
“Property damage:
62 dams collapsed
30 cities and counties (3 million acres) inundated
6.8 million houses collapsed
10.75 million people affected
Fantastic psvr game
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