Politics.ie shutdown after Data Protection questions

ballooba

Not sure if anyone saw the debate that was going on in the run up to the site closure. I'm not suggesting that the two events were linked but at least now the data is secure.

One poster makes a legal threat of defamation against another poster only to find themselves in a sticky situation under Data Protection Act.

egan007

ballooba wrote: »

Not sure if anyone saw the debate that was going on in the run up to the site closure. I'm not suggesting that the two events were linked but at least now the data is secure.

One poster makes a legal threat of defamation against another poster only to find themselves in a sticky situation under Data Protection Act.

Restore yesterdays backup...it never happened

ballooba

Lots of witnesses. Over 1,000.

mike65

Sorry Politics.ie is experiencing a problem, please come back in a few minutes. There are a few reasons why this might occur: lots of people are visiting the site, a search engine is trying to download too much at once, or a backup is happening (it occurs at about 4am GMT). If you see this message for more than 10 minutes (during working hours) you should email webmaster@politics.ie and let us know about it.

Mike.

ballooba

Obviously purely coincidence.

Pure theater nonetheless.

seamus

Care to enlighten us as to the contents of this debate or the suggestions that were made?

ballooba

One poster made potentially libellous remarks about another.

The injured party addressed the original poster by their real name.

A third poster question the morality of posting the OPs real name.

The second poster then addressed the third poster using their real name and said he didn't care about the moraility of the naming.

mike65

Was the real name a familair one? (bearing in mind councilers and Tds are known to post there).

Mike.

ballooba

mike65 wrote: »

Was the real name a familair one? (bearing in mind councilers and Tds are known to post there).

Mike.

No, although a similar issue arose recently with another poster who was a general election candidate in 2007 and also the son of a sitting TD. I believe that poster chose to reveal their identity than be 'outed'. There had been threats.

The names posted today would likely only be familiar to those within the Fine Gael party.

lostexpectation

those guys still squabbling, who is this ex-yfg el33t hackor

anyway data protection only applies to the admins and mods, there noting stopping a user naming a person if they happen to know it, its not illegal just bad form.

Sully

So I assume the breach is that Politics have been providing users information on some of their members that would previously have only been known to staff?

Sully

Googled it and found this interesting article in the Indo.

Techie terror mystery deepens
Sunday March 23 2008

IS it safe? That's the question political anoraks have been asking themselves since their online community, Politics.ie, came under siege three weeks ago.

The discussion board was forced to shut temporarily when the user account details of its founder and chief administrator David Cochrane fell into the wrong hands.

The saboteurs set about changing the passwords of website contributors, allowing them to post malicious messages under other people's user names.

Once he was alerted to the techie terror, Mr Cochrane investigated its source.

So who managed to get the details, and use them for such a dastardly purpose?

Writing last Tuesday on his investigation Mr Cochrane offered Politics.ie an intriguing piece of information.

He wrote: "It has been established that the users targeted were all from one political party (Fine Gael), and from the youth wing ".

Not that this narrows the list of suspects down any. However, Fifth Column patiently awaits the outcome of his inquiries.

Ronald Quinlan

Source: http://www.independent.ie/national-news/techie-terror-mystery-deepens-1325426.html

ballooba

lostexpectation wrote: »

anyway data protection only applies to the admins and mods, there noting stopping a user naming a person if they happen to know it, its not illegal just bad form.

It is if they have hacked into the data. I don't know how he got the names. I doubt he hacked in though.

ballooba

Sully wrote: »

So I assume the breach is that Politics have been providing users information on some of their members that would previously have only been known to staff?

Not necessarily at all. He could have got the information any number of ways, including educated guesses.

That article you posted refers to a previous incident. Connected or otherwise.

Sully

That article was published only 3 days ago..

So I assume the problem was fixed and another one arrose today?

ballooba

Sully wrote: »

That article was published only 3 days ago..

So I assume the problem was fixed and another one arrose today?

Yep. 3 days is a lifetime in politics.:D