Archive News
Galway hacker faces up to 20 years if convicted
Date Published: 07-Mar-2012
A Claregalway man is facing the prospect of up to 20 years in a US prison after he was named this week by the FBI as a founder member of an international internet hacking group.
Darren Martyn from Cloonbiggeen, Claregalway, is charged with two counts of computer hacking conspiracy – each conspiracy count carries a maximum sentence of ten years in prison.
Mr Martyn is alleged by the FBI to be a member of ‘LulzSec’, a group of internet hackers that is a spin-off of the Anonymous hacking group. Both groups have launched numerous cyber attacks on high profile websites around the world.
Mr Martyn, a biopharmaceutical chemistry student at NUI Galway and a past pupil of Calasanctius College, Oranmore, is listed in the FBI’s court papers as being 25, however, it is understood he is only 19 or 20.
He along with four others, including one Offaly teenager Donncha O’Cearbhail (19), and three others in the UK and US, were charged this week in New York for computer hacking and other crimes.
The FBI claims that Mr Martyn (also known as ‘pwnsauce’, ‘‘raepsauce’ and ‘networkkitten’) and the other defendants named in court papers, “launched cyber attacks on, and gained unauthorised access to,” the websites and computers of Fine Gael, Sony, internet security firm HBGary and Fox broadcasting.
When contacted by the Connacht Tribune, his mother Lisa pleaded for privacy and said: “It is a very upsetting time for the family”.
The FBI issued a statement saying the 24-page indictment against My Martyn and the other defendants are “merely accusations” and they remain “innocent unless and until proven guilty”.
People who know Mr Martyn describe him as a quiet, shy, highly intelligent man who has always had an interest in computers. He has been honoured with awards in the past for his science and technology skills at Calasanctius College, where he completed his Leaving Certificate two years ago. His mother Lisa works in the Claregalway Naíonra and his father, Anthony, is a mechanic. They were described by locals yesterday as a “lovely, decent family”.
All posts were deleted from Mr Martyn’s ‘wall’ on social networking site Facebook on Tuesday night but his lists of activities remain, including ‘Hacking Computers’, ‘Ethical Hacking’ and ‘Lock Picking’. He lists as his employers, ‘Resident Pirate’ at Nyan Cat. There are also pictures uploaded on his Facebook page, apparently showing how to intercept emails and hack websites.
He is reported to have taken to the internet Tuesday night to say he was a “reformed hacker” and that he was “bloody frightened” by the FBI investigation.
The Irish Examiner also quoted Mr Martyn as saying he “knew it would come out eventually” and that being involved in illegal hacking was “probably the most stupid thing you could do”.
He was referenced by his username, pwnsauce, in a confidential conference call between the Metropolitan Police in London and the FBI, which was intercepted by hackers and posted onto the internet recently. During that phone call, the FBI said they had an extensive file on his activities.
Mr Martyn was this week charged in the Southern District of New York District Court.
The 24-page FBI indictment states that Mr Martyn is a leading member of LulzSec. The FBI has linked him to the online break-in of the Fine Gael website in 2011.
Last year Gardaí from the Dublin based Computer Crime Investigation Unit arrested him and Mr O’Cearbhail and they were questioned separately for a day at Tullamore and Galway Garda Stations. They were detained under Section 4 of the 1984 Criminal Justice Act and Gardaí confirmed at the time that computer and other media equipment had been seized. He was subsequently released without charge.
In the FBI indictment, it is claimed that Mr Martyn was one of the members of the Anonymous organisation, which took responsibility for hacking Visa, Mastercard and PayPal websites, who formed the splinter hacking group LulzSec.
See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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