ONE OF two Irish students charged with computer hacking by the FBI was yesterday released from Garda custody without charge having been arrested for questioning a day earlier.
Donncha O’Cearbhaill (19), Birr, Co Offaly, was charged in US court documents on Tuesday with one count of computer hacking conspiracy.
The Trinity College Dublin student is also accused of hacking into a garda’s personal email and sourcing information on a conference call between US authorities and gardaí in which the hacking group Anonymous was discussed. He is alleged to have recorded the call and distributed the recording to others.
A Garda spokesman confirmed last night that a person in his late teens had been released without charge yesterday morning having been arrested a day earlier. A file is being prepared for the DPP.
A second Irish student, Darren Martyn of Galway, is cited in the US court documents as being 25 years old, although this is disputed on a Twitter feed linked to him, saying this is “six years off the mark”, making him 19.
Mr Martyn has been charged in the US with two counts of computer hacking conspiracy.
Under the Twitter alias info_dox, Mr Martyn posted a tweet on Tuesday reading: “ . . . beem [sic] waiting to hear word for months from them. Still waiting. Bloody frightned [sic] so I am . . .”
He later retweeted a post from another user which referred to him and Mr O’Cearbhaill, adding “innocent til proven guilty in a court of law, or had that small fact of democracy escaped people?”
Commenting on his retweet, Mr Martyn said the tweet had sounded so ironic he had to repost it. “Sense of humor: Fatalistic but keep on smiling while I am still walking around . . . ”
The FBI has alleged that the two Irish men, along with three others, were aligned with Anonymous and other related groups. The other individuals were named as UK residents Ryan Ackroyd and Jake Davis, and US resident Jeremy Hammond.
It said Hector Xavier Monsegur (28), from New York, had pleaded guilty on August 15th, 2011, to a series of computer hacking charges and admitted to being a member of the Anonymous group and affiliated groups Internet Feds and LulzSec. The guilty plea was kept secret until Tuesday.
It is alleged that between December 2010 and June 2011 the groups deliberately overwhelmed websites, including Visa, MasterCard and PayPal, in retaliation for the companies’ refusal to process donations to WikiLeaks. An attack on the Fine Gael website is also included in the indictment papers unsealed in New York on Tuesday.
Efforts to contact Mr O’Cearbhaill and Mr Martyn yesterday were unsuccessful. Mr O’Cearbhaill’s father, Birr Independent councillor John Carroll, said he had no comment to make.
Further details of the indictment papers filed in New York this week can be read at irishtimes.com