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Updated, 12:32
A HACKER from the Anonymous ‘hacktivist’ movement has accessed website passwords of a number of government employees and officials, and posted them online this evening.
A user posted the details in an online chat room used by the collective for its ‘#OpIreland’ campaign, which targets the websites of Irish governmental agencies in protest at government plans to introduce new legislation reinforcing the rights of copyright holders in the sharing of online materials.
The passwords were then widely disseminated on Twitter through an account used by the Swedish arm of the international movement.
Subsequent tweets from the Swedish account specifically referenced Seán Sherlock, the junior minister behind the plans for the new legislation, urging him to “hear the good people of Ireland or expect us!”
The distributed data showed what appeared to be the passwords for 19 user accounts, 17 of which belong to the Department of Foreign Affairs, used by staff in the Department to edit the website for Irish Aid, the government’s overseas development programme.
The other two accounts appeared to belong to staff at Arekibo, a digital media company credited as having designed the site.
The chat room used by Anonymous later identified the website of the Labour party, of which Sherlock is a member, as another target. It is understood that access to the site was disrupted for periods overnight as a result of that attack, though the site itself was not compromised.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said there had been “some unusual activity” on the Irish Aid site, which has since between taken offline by the Department and remains inaccessible this lunchtime.
“We are aware of website user login information being posted online,” the spokeswoman said. “The website server has been taken offline as a precautionary measure and the matter is being investigated by our IT specialists.
“This is an external service and is separate to the internal Department servers; these have not been affected.”
The attack follows earlier activity by Anonymous, which had previously engineered attacks on Sherlock’s own personal website, as well as those of the Departments of Finance and Justice.
Those websites were the subject of DDoS attacks, where websites are deliberately flooded with traffic in order to make them inaccessible, almost exactly a week ago. On that occasion, however, no sensitive data was thought to have been compromised.
Sherlock yesterday told a Dáil discussion on his plans that he would not be changing the proposed wording of his statutory instrument, despite the fears of opposition TDs and businesses that its current format could allow the courts to grant injunctions blocking access to major websites like YouTube or Facebook.
An online petition against the legislation, launched nine days ago, had attracted just under 80,000 signatures at the time of publication.
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Great article
Funny when you see the figures involved:
This could cost the taxpayer €250million:
The amounts involved:
40,000
15,000
30,000
Blah blah blah – its simply jobs for the boys, the solicitors, barristers who are are in the pockets of fianna fail.
Will anyone be sent to jail on foot of this reports conclusions? No. And I’ll gladly put money on that.
Will we get value for money ?
Will we f*** !
Around €1.25million per week this has cost, I hope it’s not a complete waste of money.
Hi Peter you’ve a typo there – you typed “I hope it’s not” by mistake
A state rotten to the core
I wonder will the law society or the Law profession in general be embarrassed by the obscene amounts they charged for their services… Like the Bondholders, is there an option to “Burn” the lawyers??
“won it on the horses” this man sits on the council of state and receives a massive pension from the state when he should be in jail. . .what an absolute joke.
The Irish people let this happen, they let anglo bankers get away with lying to our government to get billions, with puttung us in so much debt itll take the next 30 to 40 years to pay back, and then they all but gave away billions of oil and gas for free to foreign companies and yet we still do nothing.
Nothing will happen, nothing will change, nothing ever does. This country is a s**thole and I am beyond caring at this point. FG/Labour will have a field day with this one and they will conveniently ignore the fact that they were in government when the Michael Lowry/Esat debacle happened. and what happened there? Sweet FA. The sad realisation is that they are all crooks, every last bloody one of them. Sorry for the rant but it just seems to be one disgrace after another and I am frustrated at the inaction.
While I was never an admirer of bob geldof one thing he was right with was banana rupublic it turns my stomach to still see Bertie Ahern sit at the table of the council of state he has no shame!
Keep in mind the Irish people kept voting in Ahern throughout all this.
You get what you vote for so it’s little surprise where we’ve ended up. To think that Fianna Fail are second in current opinion polls is mind blowing.
Brilliant article! Bring back public executions……watch how the politicians will hound the ordinary Irish person for non-payment of the 100 Euro housing tax! The claim by THIS Government that there’s not enough money in the coffers and therefore more has to be raised. Bleedin’ cheats!
Now lets see some justice enough has been swept under the carpet,
Great article…. However, the time and resources are a waste. It is a waste because the tribunal lacks the power to do anything. Any findings are sent to the Gardai so they can complete their investigation… Usually duplicating the work of a tribunal. How can a waste of such money be rationalized?
Load of shite ….sure did ya know the court room there in was done as a nixer
Because I tiled it with slate . Builder at time didn’t pay the tax on it
Vincent Browne grilling Bertie is so good. It was a lovely nod to history when VinB went off on PJ Mara.
Very good article though…
Great summary. Thanks!
B B B Bertie….Ya B B B Bollix!!!!
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