Cristina Odone. Ouch.
Now, I have no idea how Cristina Odone fits into the demonology or iconostasis of your average member of the Raccoon Arms clientele.
But … ouch … an admitted non-techie going for an easy and dramatic answer when her website goes wrong:
Last Friday, a sophisticated hacker embedded a malicious code in my FTP access, and disabled FreeFaith.com. I’m not pointing any fingers, but a review of the Tweets my appearance onQuestion Time prompted, reveals that my faith earns me some vicious enemies. The programme did not raise any religious questions; nor was I introduced as a Christian or even as the ex-editor of the Catholic Herald; yet the tweets are all about my being a “theocrat” and a “Christian apologist”. As such, I must be condemned – and silenced. So much for tolerance. So much for an easy life.
I think not, at least without some cast-iron proof.
When Occupy tell us that Ed Milliband is only talking about regulation of Lobbyists because they are making a fuss about it, without noticing that it was in all three Manifestos of the parties at the last election. And Naomi Colvin, listed delightfully as Freelance Press/Publishing Person at Occupy London Stock Exchange on Linked-In, did make that claim on Sky.
When British bloggers wondered whether they were being individually targeted during the Chinese Olympic protests.
When the Green Party imagines that being the only Far Left party to obtain 0.8% of the vote at the last General Election constitutes an entry into a position of importance in UK politics.
And, indeed, when Cristina says that her Free Faith campaign site has been hacked by militant campaigners, and that it ‘shows the intolerance of religions enemies’.
Then the Monster we imagine ourselves to be in our Head, or imagine ourselves to be in somebody else’s Head, or They represent in our Head, has probably become bigger than the reality.
I’d make a comparison with an Able Seaman (or in Christina’s case, a Lieutenant – the rest of us are just bloggers) on the 3-musket HMS Gruntfuttock at Trafalgar who wonders whether he has been singled out by Napoleon for individual attention when the ‘Futtock sinks.
The Gruntfuttock is far more likely to have hit a rock, a reef, or a bit that fell off another ship, or somebody opened the seacocks by mistake.
And any blogger is far more likely to have been autohacked by another autohacked website through a hole in WordPress security or the webhost server software, than to have been singled out for attention by a hacking atheist – even if they are an ex-denizen of both the New Statesman and the Catholic Herald.
Militant – indeed. Contemptuous – probably. Reflective – occasionally.
Hacking a website? Unlikely.
As one of the commenters nails it, with evidence:
Freefaith.com loads fine on my iPhone but gives a malware warning in Chrome on the desktop.
Ms Odone has presented absolutely zero evidence that the malware attack was anything to do with the religious content of the site.
As such, her whole pitch about religious persecution comes across as paranoia. The most likely explanation for the issues with her site is that it was simply insecure and got hit as a vulnerable target just like thousands of websites every day.
Personally I have quite a lot of time for some of what she says sometimes, particularly – and as an Anglican – on anti-RC prejudice.
But this time?
They are more likely to be down the pub with a pint of Top Totty.
[Updated: Unity confirms in the comments that while this was a hack, as I suggest, it looks like a normal criminal hack.
i.e. Cristina is essentially making a piccolo fool of herself on this occasion by over-reacting with a slight conspiracy theory.]
-
1
February 27, 2012 at 19:50 -
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.
-
2
February 27, 2012 at 22:02 -
As has been previously noted in these blogpages, some of the secularists are even more fanatical than the worst religious bigots, in their blog comments at least. As Cristina makes no secret of her faith – indeed, rather plugs it for all it’s worth – she does come in for more stick from those who follow the religion of antireligionism than most. So far as hacking goes, who knows? I wouldn’t put it past some of ‘em.
-
3
February 27, 2012 at 22:21 -
4
February 28, 2012 at 05:53 -
It’s not that she’s religious that bothers me. It is that she chooses to express her faith by way of views and language that are deliberately provocative and nasty. She displays little love of her neighbour, nor turns any cheek, which are supposed to be central to her faith.
She needs to check her sin sheet – pride and envy, which she displays prominently, won’t get her into the holy playground she believes in.
And Mr Engineer, to be clear, to be secular, is not to be anti=religion.
-
5
February 28, 2012 at 07:34
-
-
6
February 28, 2012 at 14:18 -
You clearly haven’t meet any members of http://www.christianvoice.org.uk/ online yet.
I think you’ve confused secularists with atheists. There are a lot of Christians, including some rather famous ones that are strong believers of secularism.
The core of secularism is a clear separation of religion and state, that religion should have no involvement in politics and everyone has the right to follow a religion (or not) of their own choice.
Secularism is the friend of religion. Without it one religion would be in power to the detriment of all other religions. And worse still when an individual branch of a religion gains power it is to the detriment of all others.
-
7
February 28, 2012 at 15:28 -
Thanks for the comment Alan.
Was that for me?
Oh yes – pretty familiar with CV.
Our main campaigning secularist organisation has been *explicitly* anti-religious for 150 years in its constitutional obectives, despite putting itself forward as ‘wanting neutrality’.
There’s a current rebranding going on, but I’ll need to see some spots change.
So I say it comes back to definitions and which version of secularism is meant, out of the half-dozen different definitions.
-
8
February 29, 2012 at 01:08 -
My comment was mainly directed at Engineer, but thanks for the reply.
There are only two definitions that are important. Secularism which respects religion Vs not respecting religion.
Religious leaders, and everyone of faith, needs to understand secularism is for their own protection, but they are rejecting the secularist argument either out of naivety or malice and framing the debate as anti-religious.
Its not up to that secular organization to re-brand itself. Its upto UK religious groups to become pro-secularist. The temptation for religious leaders to abuse power is, perhaps, the ultimate test of faith. If they fail that test, unlike Adam, God doesn’t intervene. A tolerant secular democracy is the best way we know of to protect us all, regardless of faith, from the frailty of mankind.
-
9
February 29, 2012 at 08:44
-
-
-
-
-
10
February 27, 2012 at 22:41 -
“a sophisticated hacker embedded a malicious code in my FTP access, and disabled FreeFaith.com.”
What does this utter arse-wibble even mean? Is she just plucking random computer related nouns and acronyms out of thin air and padding them out with verbs?
“I woz haxored” would make more sense. And probably means a lot more to those not as au-fait with the inner workings of servers as those of us who know that her sentence makes no sense whatsoever.
“ I’m not pointing any fingers”
Then immediately goes to point fingers, no?
Whatever.
-
12
February 28, 2012 at 02:08 -
Matt:
I’ve dug a bit further and it appears that Odone’s site was actually hacked about three weeks ago using a copy of the Blackhole Exploit Kit, so she may well have been busily dispensing banking trojans to her visitors since early February. The earliest trace on her site dates to 7 Feb 2012.
Its a simple case of online criminality and quite where her guff about FTP came from I’ve no idea as the exploit kit uses PHP injection to infect website, not FTP. Utter arse-wibble is about right.
-
13
February 28, 2012 at 10:17 -
Wow – that all sounds horrible and I am very glad I don’t visit her website. I suppose that means I am going to a very hot place in a small rickety wheeled contraption.
-
-
15
February 28, 2012 at 17:32 -
This is where you people are going wrong. You are getting caught up in the technical facts and using your computer expertise to discredit this religious persons theory on how her site came to be infected. Remember you are delaing with a woman who believes in Creationism not scientific facts. She is probably using the power of Prayer as a Firewall and Abstinence as an Antivirus.
There are two possible scenarios I have considered as equally valid.
1. A highly skilled webmaster like Cristina Odone has been singled out by Anon’s, Lords of Dharmaraja, in order bring down the Catholic Faith as part of the global internet campaign run by militant Athiests.
2. Google has been possessed by Satan and is being used to cover up malicious hacking by trying to make this look like a shit website with no security has been hijacked in order to run exploits on visitors computers.
In all seriousness this may be the beginning of targeted phishing. Why send out millions of scam emails when you can just target the obviously gullible on religion sites like Free Faith.
Ironic name. When has any faith been Free? If money does not change hands it is not a religion.
-
16
February 28, 2012 at 17:56 -
Why should anyone be surprised when a Catholic claims to have been maliciously penetrated through the backdoor.
Maybe the police should check whether her priest has a PC.
.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }