Boards Hacking Court Case resolved.

DeVore · 13-05-2015 5:31pm #1

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 · 13-05-2015 5:37pm

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 · 13-05-2015 5:41pm

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 · 13-05-2015 5:41pm

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 · 13-05-2015 5:57pm

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

hots · 13-05-2015 6:15pm

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

Penny Tration · 13-05-2015 6:21pm

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

randylonghorn · 13-05-2015 6:26pm

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! · 13-05-2015 6:29pm

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 · 13-05-2015 6:32pm

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

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

He would have been on remand awaiting trial.

zeffabelli · 13-05-2015 6:39pm

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 · 13-05-2015 6:39pm

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 · 13-05-2015 6:46pm

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

Taltos · 13-05-2015 6:51pm

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

randylonghorn · 13-05-2015 6:53pm

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 · 13-05-2015 6:58pm

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 · 13-05-2015 7:01pm

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

Tombi! · 13-05-2015 7:04pm

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 · 13-05-2015 7:06pm

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 · 13-05-2015 7:35pm

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

DeVore · 13-05-2015 7:36pm

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 · 13-05-2015 7:43pm

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 · 13-05-2015 8:57pm

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

spurious · 13-05-2015 9:32pm

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

zeffabelli · 13-05-2015 10:12pm

spurious wrote: »

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

Isn't Latvia IT/techie paradise?

IRLConor · 13-05-2015 10:49pm

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 · 13-05-2015 11:34pm

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 · 13-05-2015 11:37pm

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 · 13-05-2015 11:54pm

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 · 14-05-2015 12:13am

DeVore wrote: »

He got a higher-authority password

Hack? Or social engineering?

hmmm · 14-05-2015 9:28am

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

El Weirdo · 14-05-2015 9:52am

I remember being in the bomb shelter for what seemed like days when it was happening.

I think a moment's silence for those we lost in the great hack of 2010 is in order.

..............

Boards.ie: Chris · 14-05-2015 10:06am

IRLConor wrote: »

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

TouchingVirus wrote: »

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.

Every morning I put on the Father Ted episode 'Are You Right There, Father Ted?', wait for the bit where Colin says "I hear you're a racist now Father" and spin a globe. Wherever my finger lands is todays country to be blocked. Our last "outage" was because I managed to land on Ireland

vicwatson · 14-05-2015 11:29am

He'll be on the CIA watchlist now so that should keep him quiet !

IRLConor · 14-05-2015 11:50am

Fathom wrote: »

Hack? Or social engineering?

I didn't figure it out at the time, but perhaps the Gardai found out in the course of their investigation.

cython · 14-05-2015 2:04pm

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

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.

zeffabelli wrote: »

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

Lads, I wouldn't put too much stock in the ages in that article, as the details of same just don't add up, IMHO:

...
The court heard it was Aleksejs Ivanvos’s (23) hobby at the time, that he didn’t gain financially and he just wanted the satisfaction of a successful hacking.
...
Ivanvos of Saldus, Latvia, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to criminal damage of data at boards.ie based in Blanchardstown, Dublin on December 21, 2010. He was aged 17 at the time.

Right, so he's 23 now based off that first paragraph, meaning that in May 2010 he was 18, right? But by the second paragraph there, he was obviously only 17 or maybe even 16 in May 2010 (his name's not Benjamin Button, after all), so either the reporting there is outright wrong, or someone got away with significant porkies and simple maths weren't checked. I suspect (hope!) it is just the former though, and he's actually only 22 or 21 now.......

Kudos to the folks in boards.ie for pursuing it to a conclusion though.

EDIT: never mind, article confusingly suggests he was 17 at the time of the court appearance in December 2010, which may not be the case. Very poor phrasing on their part, IMHO

IRLConor · 14-05-2015 3:00pm

cython wrote: »

Kudos to the folks in boards.ie for pursuing it to a conclusion though.

The majority of the praise needs to go to the Gardai & the DPP for that. Once a complaint has been made to them all decisions about whether or not to pursue a criminal case are down to them. If they had decided to drop it at any stage there wouldn't have been much we could have done about it, but they stuck at it.

seamus · 14-05-2015 3:41pm

I wasn't aware that once a guilty plea was entered, there was no further evidence entered, as surely the circumstances and evidence are relevant to the sentencing...

Any road, knowing what I've been told about this case the sentence is too lenient, but hopefully the stint spent in actual prison has injected a dose of cop on.

hullaballoo · 14-05-2015 4:15pm

That's not strictly speaking true. After a guilty plea, a precis of the evidence is offered to the court usually by the Garda Court Presenter before some cross-examination by defence counsel, then a plea in mitigation. (The plea in mitigation is the bit where you usually hear all the cliché, "opportunistic crime", "early guilty plea", "changed wo/man"..."undergone rehabilitation", "once-off"..."out-of-character" etc.)

The plea in mitigation is not generally challenged unless there is something that is absolutely and provably untrue contained in it.

DeVore · 14-05-2015 10:52pm

That's pretty much exactly what happened Hulla...

Victor · 14-05-2015 11:43pm

I found these posts from about 10 years ago. Strangely relevant.

Victor wrote: »

DeV has gone to the Garda at one stage, but I don't know if that was a boards.ie thing or not.

philologos wrote: »

Damn.... going to the gardaí over forums. What are the cops going to care about a forum :eek:

DeVore · 15-05-2015 9:52am

We regularly interact with the gardai now

Btw, Chris... John Cloud Breslin once banned the entire IP range for Cork in order to ban a persistent muppet.

Beasty · 15-05-2015 10:03am

DeVore wrote: »

Btw, Chris... John Cloud Breslin once banned the entire IP range for Cork in order to ban a persistent muppet.

So who do we blame for the unbanning?:P

IRLConor · 15-05-2015 10:23am

Beasty wrote: »

So who do we blame for the unbanning?:P

CuLT.

Always blame CuLT.

Dav · 15-05-2015 11:30am

Or that D'Arcy fella.... Ooooooh yes....

DeVore · 15-05-2015 11:53am

Or Regi.

Orion · 15-05-2015 3:02pm

It was amp. It had to be amp. Final parting shot before he quit was to let the langers back in.

CuLT · 15-05-2015 3:10pm

IRLConor wrote: »

CuLT.

Always blame CuLT.

Listen here just because I've moved to Cork doesn't mean I've gone native.

...bai! :pac:

Good to have this over and done with, though I did enjoy the "HELLO THIS IS THE COMPUTER CRIME UNIT" calls every time I'd almost forgotten about it...

helimachoptor · 15-05-2015 3:24pm

DeVore wrote: »

We regularly interact with the gardai now

Btw, Chris... John Cloud Breslin once banned the entire IP range for Cork in order to ban a persistent muppet.

Give him an award :pac:

Really good to see these closed off

Calhoun · 15-05-2015 10:57pm

So when does Gordon get his hands on him? I assume the lads at clover hill extending jurisdictional courtesy to a fellow warden.

Unknown Soldier · 20-05-2015 9:01pm

I always thought it was due to an Admin whose password was compromised while on holiday.

Not that the Admin was to blame.

Boards Hacking Court Case resolved.

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