Church and State blog: Declan’s data is deleted

Monday, August 04, 2008

Declan’s data is deleted

It seems bad luck keeps bumping into Declan and me: at 5.10am on Saturday I was urinated on while I slept in my sleeping bag in the porch we have been sleeping in since 3 November 2006 (see previous blog); and yesterday afternoon both our booked computers in the local Council's Idea Store Whitechapel library contained a virus which infected each of the two USB drives we were using – Declan lost his database of over 3,000 scientists and academics from around the world (although he had an up-to-date copy of it in Google Mail), as well as a Word document of a categorised list of British signatories of his petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning.

It is not the first time that our data has been deleted through no fault of our own: on 26 January all emails sent to Declan after 12 August 2007 were moved to Trash and 300 draft documents, which included the names and email addresses of over 2,500 scientists and academics, were deleted for good (see blog “Declan’s Google Mail is raided”).

Perhaps it is unfortunate that the Idea Store is situated in Tower Hamlets, one of the poorest boroughs in London: for instance, the Methodist Church Whitechapel Mission, a day centre for homeless people, is just across the road (on 18 June 2007 we were barred by the minister's wife due to concerns about our safety). Still, the library is a modern building and the computers are up-to-date and well-equipped: a firewall, virus program, and filter software are installed across the network; moreover, all computers are programmed to automatically restore custom settings (and delete all activity by prior users), if you re-start them.

I was under the impression that all these things are supposed to be covert – but apparently not. The Independent ran a piece on 10 July entitled: “J'accuse! Ségolène Royal links Sarkozy 'clan' with break-in at apartment”. On France 2’s nightly news programme, the defeated French presidential candidate, Ségolène Royal, said she believed that there was a “link” between a break-in at her apartment on 27 June and her accusation the previous day that the President's wealthy friends were mounting a "take-over" of France. This followed a decision by Sarkozy to ban advertising from state-owned television – potentially increasing by €450m (£350m) annually the revenue of commercial television channels owned, or controlled, by his close friends. "I observe that on the day after I said that it was time to halt the Sarkozy clan's take-over of France, my home was ransacked," Royal told astonished viewers. "I make a link between the two events." Her comments were immediately dismissed by politicians close to Sarkozy who said they were the result of a "martyr complex". However, senior opposition figures sprang to Royal's defence. Jean-Marc Ayrault, the leader of the Socialist group in the lower house of parliament, said that President Sarkozy's 14 months in power had created a "climate" which "recalled the most unpleasant periods of French political history". Once such a climate is created, he said, "anything can happen".

For the record, this is Declan's email yesterday to the manager of Idea Store Whitechapel:

Subject: Idea Store Whitechapel

Dear Mr Abidin

Previous correspondence refers.

Yesterday evening my wife and I booked two computers for today - computer 16 from 1.00pm to 4.45pm and computer 15 from 2pm to 4pm. For security reasons, and as usual, we both re-started our computers prior to log in so as to automatically delete all prior activity. Nonetheless, we were both greeted by an announcement: "Tazebama.dll". Shortly after my wife then put her USB drive into her computer, she discovered that most of the portable programs contained in her USB drive were now inoperable. In my case, after I then put my USB drive into my computer, I was unable to open a database (containing the names and email addresses of over 3,000 scientists and academics from around the world) through Microsoft Excel due to "an error trying to open", and a related Word document entitled "List-Breakdown UK" was "corrupt and unreadable" (see attachment).

According to information derived from the internet, Tazebama.dll is W32.Mabezat.B, which is "a backdoor worm that spreads through network shares and allows attackers to access and gives full control over infected computer". In respect of Tazebama.dll, the Symantec website advises to "perform a forensic analysis and restore the computers using trusted media".

If I am in any way mistaken, please so advise at your earliest convenience.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey
Card no. D000355837

Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

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Monday, August 04, 2008

Declan’s data is deleted

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