Boards Hacking Court Case resolved.

DeVore

Hello there!

Just wanted to update people on this piece of news.

The hacker who broke into boards several years ago (about 5 years now if I recall), pleaded guilty and was today handed a 1 year suspended sentence along with time served.

Newstalk did a piece on it here: http://www.newstalk.com/Boardsie-hacker-avoids-jail but there are some things about that piece we should clarify.

1. There was no trial, the man in question pleaded guilty and was sentenced today.

2. There was no twitter password. The admin's password which was taken was unique as are all our admin passwords. Its our belief that it was snatched during an unencrypted transmission at some time. Since then our logins are encrypted.

3. This piece is sold as "poor lad was just messing about"... in our opinion that's not true however since there was no trial we have not been able to go into it in depth. The piece seems to have been sourced from his barrister.

4. He DID serve time, several months, in Cloverhill which apparently was not in the slightest to his liking.

5. We bear him no ill will and hope that he puts his skills to better use from now on.


This took a long time and a lot of our energy. We take your security seriously and we pressed this case all the way including Europol extradition warrants in multiple jurisdictions.

I'm very glad that's all over now.

GLaDOS

Where did they get the twitter password stuff from so? The journal are reporting that as well and it gives a bad impression tbh.

Slydice

Isn't Journal.ie and boards.ie all the same company now?

Why does journal say it was a twitter password?
http://www.thejournal.ie/boards-ie-hack-no-jail-2101363-May2015/?utm_source=shortlink

The then teenager told investigators that he gained access to internet forum boards.ie by using the Twitter password of the website’s administrator.

Edit: Don't mean to be critical. It's reassuring that you're looking after our data

2nd Edit (DeVs Answer, thanks DeV!):

DeVore wrote: »

The Journal and Boards share majority directors but not all (for example, neither Gerry Shanahan nor I are directors of the Journal). We're part of the same corporate group but in different buildings and share no staff. What they do is their concern, we don't tell them what to do and we don't expect them to tell us what to do either! They are really nice folk, if that makes any difference to ye

Darkglasses

He said the then teenager believed he had been “playing a game rather than causing damage” and hadn’t intended the problems caused to boards.ie.

Load of cobblers from the Judge there.

zeffabelli

Wasn't he underage when he commited the crime? Can you be convicted as an adult....

hots

Good to see, seems rare that these cases ever get resolved!

Penny Tration

Any 17 year old intelligent enough to do what he did, isn't thick enough to think it's "just a game."

randylonghorn

The intelligence and ability to hack, though, doesn't necessarily go hand-in-hand with any highly developed sense of moral responsibility about how one uses those skills, even in people a lot older than 17; history has shown that.

I agree though that he's old enough to know it wasn't some kind of game, and at least be aware that others would find his actions wrong, even if he didn't have much of a sense of wrongness himself.

Det Gda Gallagher agreed with Paul Greene SC, defending, that his client initially didn’t take the case “particularly seriously” but the “penny dropped” following his extradition and jail time in two different jurisdictions.

That comment might not be that far off the mark for the typical 17 year old nerd tbh; we can't really judge accurately for this kid without knowing him or having much more detail about the case.

Slydice wrote: »

Isn't Journal.ie and boards.ie all the same company now?

Why does journal say it was a twitter password?
http://www.thejournal.ie/boards-ie-hack-no-jail-2101363-May2015/?utm_source=shortlink

Looks like journal.ie have simply taken the newstalk story and added a line, or perhaps someone wrote it up and submitted it to both?

Tombi!

At 17 I think you can actually be sent to jail.
DeVore, do you have any idea why he was in prison? What was the reasoning for it since the judge today gave him a year suspended.

IRLConor

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

DeVore, do you have any idea why he was in prison?

He would have been on remand awaiting trial.

zeffabelli

Jenny Thalia wrote: »

Any 17 year old intelligent enough to do what he did, isn't thick enough to think it's "just a game."

We don't know how much intelligence it takes to have done something like that, not does cognitive intelligence mean maturity or awareness of consequence.

DeVore

The twitter stuff is from his submission to the court which, since there wasn't a trial, we cant really contest. It is wrong.

The judge imprisoned him because he was on remand awaiting bail. He had left Latvia and was resident in the UK when the Europol warrant was served. He spent some time in Wormwood Scrubs too we believe, awaiting extradition.

I corrected the OP, it seems it was Cloverhill rather than Mountjoy he was in, here.

The Journal and Boards share majority directors but not all (for example, neither Gerry Shanahan nor I are directors of the Journal). We're part of the same corporate group but in different buildings and share no staff. What they do is their concern, we don't tell them what to do and we don't expect them to tell us what to do either! They are really nice folk, if that makes any difference to ye

He was 4 days off his 18th birthday he claims when he committed the crime but again, as he has pleaded guilty there is no contest and it goes straight to sentencing.

Gatling

Took longer enough to resolve imo ,out of your hands that we already know .
But Glad we're safe and sound now .

Taltos

Thanks for the update - was wondering about this on and off for the last while.

randylonghorn

DeVore wrote: »

3. This piece is sold as "poor lad was just messing about"... in our opinion that's not true however since there was no trial we have not been able to go into it in depth. The piece seems to have been sourced from his barrister.

Without going into any detail that might be inappropriate, DeV, was there any indication that he had tried to sell the information on or in some other way gain financially, or is it your opinion that that was his ultimate intent, even if he hadn't succeeded?

DeVore wrote: »

4. He DID serve time, several months, in Cloverhill which apparently was not in the slightest to his liking.

Hopefully will serve as a wake-up call.

Slydice wrote: »

Edit: Don't mean to be critical. It's reassuring that you're looking after our data

The response from the Boards team at the time was both fast and impressive. Also good to see that it was followed through all the way.

I can well imagine that everyone is, as DeV said, very glad to see the end of it.

DeVore

We're pretty clear that it wasn't a hack that was just for giggles. I don't want to go into details in order to avoid another court case

randylonghorn

Understood, DeV; why I framed my question as I did.

Tombi!

Just one more thing: he stated he got the password. But because he pleaded guilty, you can't argue against that statement. So technically speaking the newspaper is just saying what the official statement is and you can do nowt to actually prove what really happened? I'm just trying to make sure I understand it all.

IRLConor

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

Just one more thing: he stated he got the password. But because he pleaded guilty, you can't argue against that statement. So technically speaking the newspaper is just saying what the official statement is and you can do nowt to actually prove what really happened? I'm just trying to make sure I understand it all.

He got a password which he was able to leverage into further access.

The details as reported are not accurate. Who knows what was lost in translation along the path from defendant to barrister to reporter to story.

Overheal

...so he's sitebanned, right? :pac:

DeVore

He got a higher-authority password which he used to reset an admins password (something they can no longer do btw). He didn't get it from Twitter. Today was the first time we heard mention of twitter in 5 years of this case. Our only representative was our (quite brilliant) Garda Colm O'Gallagher. Today was for his plea hearing, his barrister had been saying he would plead innocent (a ploy imho) but he suddenly switched to guilty and what you see on Newstalk and Journal is pretty much his uncontested plea for clemency from the Judge, after he pleaded guilty.

Suffice it to say, we would have contested several elements of it but, the case is closed and we all move on.

Overheal

Yeah I had not ever heard of twitter being involved; the only part twitter played is it was where we all hung out while the website was shut down

osarusan

Let the AH death penalty hard cases at him. There won't be much left of him after that.

spurious

Is this the reason for the country-ban on Latvia?

zeffabelli

spurious wrote: »

Is this the reason for the country-ban on Latvia?

Isn't Latvia IT/techie paradise?

IRLConor

spurious wrote: »

Is this the reason for the country-ban on Latvia?

I don't know about now, but at the time there was no country ban for Latvia.

Canis Lupus

Must have been a bit of a wake up alright. Probably thought no one will bother me living in Latvia after I just hacked an 'unimportant' site in Ireland. A pic of his face when the police arrived on his door would have been nice

TouchingVirus

IRLConor wrote: »

I don't know about now, but at the time there was no country ban for Latvia.

Tor exit nodes were given the boot over this I believe? I laughed at the press release because unless I was fed a line back in 2011 this was no guy doing it for giggles because he was bored in his bedroom one day. Nice to see the end of the case and fair play for following it through to the end.

IRLConor

TouchingVirus wrote: »

Tor exit nodes were given the boot over this I believe?

No, the Tor exit nodes were blocked for other reasons. (Later too, I think at least 6-12 months after?)

TouchingVirus wrote: »

I laughed at the press release because unless I was fed a line back in 2011 this was no guy doing it for giggles because he was bored in his bedroom one day.

As I said above: Who knows what was lost in translation along the path from defendant to barrister to reporter to story.

TouchingVirus wrote: »

Nice to see the end of the case and fair play for following it through to the end.

I'm glad it's over, tbh. The Gardai were great all the way through. They put all the real effort in. My work in the matter was pretty much done within a week of it happening.

Fathom

DeVore wrote: »

He got a higher-authority password

Hack? Or social engineering?

hmmm

Congratulations on taking this through to a conclusion, I can only imagine how much effort was involved.