My radiocarbon dating hacker theory mentioned in Joe Marino's "The Politics of Radiocarbon Dating"!

This is my comment on Joe Marino's mention of my radiocarbon dating hacker theory, three times in his "The Politics of Radiocarbon Dating III," 19 September 2016. I am grateful to Joe (and "Harry" - see below) for taking my hacker theory seriously.

As noted in my September Shroud of Turin News "Editorial," my radiocarbon dating hacker theory was mentioned in Joe Marino's "The Politics of Radiocarbon Dating III" of 19 September 2016. Marino's words are between horizontal lines and my comments are under them. Emphases are mine unless otherwise indicated.

---

1988 December. ... Australian blogger Stephen Jones has made some interesting observations regarding the spread of the measurements. See http://theshroudofturin.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/the-1260-1390-radiocarbon-date-of-turin.html [...]

---

This, the first of Marino's three mentions of my hacker theory should have been under the heading "1989 February" as it relates to the 16 February 1989 Nature paper. As I pointed out in my post cited by Joe, "The 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Turin Shroud was the result of a computer hacking #4," [18Nov15], and had been pointing out since June 2014 [13Jun14, 11Feb15, etc], the 1989 Nature paper itself contains a fatal admission that:

"... the agreement among the three laboratories for samples 2, 3 and 4 [non-Shroud control samples] is exceptionally good. The spread of the measurements for sample 1 [the Shroud] is somewhat greater than would be expected from the errors quoted."[2]

[Above (enlarge): Scanned quote from page 613 of the 16 February 1989 Nature paper, admitting that while "the agreement among the three laboratories for samples 2, 3 and 4 [non-Shroud control samples] is exceptionally good," yet "The spread of the measurements [across the three laboratories] for sample 1 [the Shroud] is somewhat greater than would be expected ..."! But this is impossible (see below) and alone should have invalidated the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud!]

This is inexplicable if the Shroud sample dates were real, given that: 1) the three laboratories' `postage stamp' size Shroud samples[3] were all sub-divided from the same 81 x 16 mm (~3.2 x 0.6 in.)[4] sample cut from the Shroud[5] (see below); and 2) at each laboratory, Shroud and

[Above (enlarge): Drawing of the approximately 1.6 cm x 8.1 cm (not 1.2 cm x 8 cm) Shroud sample, which was subdivided into sub-samples from right to left: "A" (Arizona), "Z" (Zurich), "O" (Oxford), "A1" (Arizona additional), and "R" (Reserve retained by Turin), with a photograph of the sample superimposed over the bottom right hand side[6]. There can be no significant differences in radiocarbon dates between sub-samples from such a tiny sample - but there was!]

control samples were each converted to pure carbon (graphite) and then compressed into 1 mm diameter carbon pellets inside the holder pits on the same ~26 mm (~1 inch) carousel[7] and irradiated together at the same time (see below):

"Next the sample became a target. The powdery graphite was ... loaded into tiny target holders, and thousands of pounds of pressure per square inch was applied with a drill press. The Shroud sample was now a target for the beam of caesium atoms which was to be fired at it"[8].

The carousel at each laboratory on which Shroud and control samples' graphite pellets were all together awaiting irradiation by a beam of caesium atoms was "a little larger than a [British] two pence coin" (~ 26 mm or ~1 inch in diameter)[9]:

"Like gunpowder packed into a bullet casing, the Shroud sample now reduced to graphite is compressed into metal pellets one millimetre in diameter. A drill press with thousands of pounds of pressure is used for this task. Ten pellets with graphite are loaded into holes in a small carousel that is a little larger than a two pence coin ... The carousel is loaded into the end of the accelerator, and under a vacuum, a beam of caesium atoms is fired at the graphite target"[10]

[Left (enlarge): carousel of the CEDAD (CEntro di DAtazione e Diagnostica) AMS radiocarbon dating facility at the University of Salento, Italy[11]. This carousel has 12 target holders and is of unknown diameter. Zurich's (and presumably Arizona's and Oxford's since all three were effectively clones)[12] carousel had ten holders and its diameter was about 26 mm or 1 inch (see above).]

Then the Shroud and control sample graphite pellets on the one ~26 mm or ~1 inch diameter carousel at each laboratory were irradiated together by the one beam of caesium atoms for a total of ten minutes:

"There were three or four members of the AMS team there when I [Harry Gove] arrived and they had almost finished the five minute per sample cesiation. This consisted of rotating each of the ten samples, located on the ion source wheel, into the cesium beam ensuring that the sample was coated with cesium ... The first sample run was OX1 [oxalic acid standard]. Then followed one of the controls. Each run consisted of a 10 second measurement of the carbon-13 current and a 50 second measurement of the carbon-14 counts. This is repeated nine more times and an average carbon-14/carbon-13 ratio calculated. All this was under computer control and the calculations produced by the computer were displayed on a cathode ray screen"[13].

The process was fully "under computer control" so human error cannot have intervened in the process, to cause the Shroud sample dates across the three laboratories to disagree widely (as they did-see graphs), while the control samples' dates across the three laboratories had "exceptionally good agreement. The AMS system must be designed so that if there was a problem with the dating process at one of the laboratories, then its Shroud and control sample dates would wrongly agree together, and disagree together with the Shroud and control sample dates of the other two laboratories. Therefore it is inexplicable and impossible that the control samples across the three laboratories had "exceptionally good" agreement, but the Shroud samples across the three laboratories had a "spread of ... measurements" that was "greater than would be expected."

But it is explicable and possible if the Shroud sample dates were not real but computer-generated by a hacker's (allegedly Timothy W. Linick's) program in this fully computerised process)!

The second of Marino's mentions of my hacker theory is the first (albeit not conclusive) direct evidence for that part of my theory which alleges that the self-confessed and convicted German hacker Karl Koch (1965-89) [Right (enlarge)[14] had installed Linick's program on Zurich and Oxford's AMS computers. See 21Jul14, 17May15 & 02Jun16, etc.

---

[...] 1989 Spring. A prominent Shroud researcher, who does not want to be identified, has told only a few other Shroud researchers, including myself, about a curious phone call he had received one day at about 1:30 in the morning. His recollection was that it was not long after the C-14 dating results were announced in October 1988 and sometime in the spring. I will call the researcher “Harry.” Harry indicated the (male) person, who did not apologize for calling so late, sounded distraught. The person told Harry he had been involved in falsifying the results of the 1988 dating. Harry thought the accent might have been German and thought the person was in his 40s but wasn't sure because of the accent and emotional nature of the call. The person would not reveal his name (the person claimed it wasn't important) or from where he was calling. He kept asking Harry if he would forgive him for having done a disservice to humanity. The person even mentioned the word "espionage" in relation to the event. The only detail he gave about the procedure was saying that the real Shroud sample was thrown in the trash. Harry tried repeatedly to get the man to identify himself and when he (Harry) tried to get more details, the man said he couldn’t say more as he could get in some real trouble. Harry said the person said he also planned to call other Shroud researchers, but as far as we know, no one ever did. Harry has wondered over the years whether the call itself could have been a fraud, but he is firm that the person sounded distraught to the point that Harry said he wouldn't have been surprised if the guy would have said "I've got a gun and I'm going to shoot myself." Even now, Harry just isn't sure what to think.

Source: Several personal communications, including May 13th, 2016.

Comments: “Harry” told me he didn’t want to be identified because he can’t prove anything. Harry is a person of high integrity and I have absolutely no doubt the call happened. I mention it because of the explosive nature of the content and also because of its possible relevance to a theory of Australian blogger Stephen Jones (see entry below for 2014) [...]

---

I blogged about this on 01Jun16 and 02Jun16. In the first of these I wrote:

"I regard this as highly significant, first because it shows that my hacker theory is starting to be taken seriously by leading Shroud pro-authenticists. Not only by Joe Marino, but also by AN ["Harry"], who (as indicated by "any of his books") is a well-known pro-authenticist author. For him to offer new evidence for my hacker theory is to me as good as it gets! Second, as I replied to Joe, "because of the unusual word `espionage,' I believe it was Koch":

"The caller being German does fit Karl Koch but him throwing the Shroud sample in the trash does not. There is no doubt that the Shroud sample was dated, because the dating was not blind and the Shroud has a distinctive weave. However, it could have been a metaphor for him having `trashed' the Shroud. The word `espionage' is very significant because that was what the hackers were charged with and were granted amnesty for under then West German law. That word has, as far as I know, never been used of the Shroud dating. I only found it in books about the West German hacker ring who were prosecuted in 1988 for selling computer secrets to the USSR. Koch became a Christian in late 1988 / early 1989, and could have obtained AN's name from his ... book `...'. It would have been more certainly Koch if he had mentioned hacking. But because of the unusual word `espionage,' I believe it was Koch."

See also my longer version of this the next day at 02Jun16.

Marino's third mention of my hacker theory is about how my theory began. I have bolded "hacker" twice below, which was in my email to Marino.

---

[...] 2014. Australian Shroud blogger Stephen Jones started a series in which he put forth the hypothesis that the labs results were the result of a computer hacking. He summarized his findings to me in an email of September 4th, 2016 as shown below. I have reproduced the original spacing and punctuation.

"My hacker theory began in 2007 when I read in David Sox's book, "The Shroud Unmasked" (1988), the account provided by an eyewitness Prof. Harry Gove, of very first radiocarbon dating of the Shroud at Arizona laboratory. That the "calculations were produced on the [AMS] computer, and displayed on the screen." Sox was not at that time told by Gove the date on the screen (except that the Shroud was closer to 1000 than 2000 years old) but Gove in his 1996 book "Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud," revealed that it was "1350 AD."

In the late 1980s/early 1990s I was the Systems Administrator of a wide area network of 7 Western Australian hospitals' UNIX computer systems. As part of my job interest in computer security, I read Clifford Stoll's book, "The Cuckoo's Egg" in which he recounted his part in discovering in 1986 the hacking of university and military computers by German hacker Markus Hess. Coincidentally Stoll had worked at Arizona University and Hess was in the same small German hacker ring as Karl Koch, whom I allege had installed Timothy W. Linick's program on Zurich and Oxford's AMS computers.

So I realised in 2007 that it was not the actual radiocarbon dating of the Shroud that those in Arizona's laboratory were seeing, but what the AMS computer was displaying. That between the actual carbon dating by the AMS system and those watching the computer screen, was a computer program! So one explanation of why the authentic first-century Shroud had a 1260-1390 radiocarbon date, is that a hacker had installed a program in the three laboratories' AMS computers which substituted the Shroud's actual radiocarbon date with bogus dates, which when combined and averaged made it appear the Shroud dated shortly before its first undisputed appearance at Lirey, France in ~1355.

However, it was not until 2014, when I read again page 264 of Gove's book, which stated of that first Arizona dating of the Shroud that: "All this was under computer control and the calculations produced by the computer were displayed on a cathode ray screen," that I posted my first blog post which asked, "Were the radiocarbon dating laboratories duped by a computer hacker?"

"I then in 2014 did a Google search on "1989" and "hacker" and discovered that a German hacker Karl Koch had been inexplicably murdered in May/June 1989, and his murder made to look like suicide. ...

According to my first post [which mentioned "hacker" in its text] of 22 February 2014, "Were the radiocarbon dating laboratories duped by a computer hacker? (3)," it was in 2007, after reading Sox's account of Arizona's first C14 dating run:

"At 9.50am what matters to the layman was available - the results of the measurements, the first carbon dating test on the Turin Shroud. ... The night before the test Damon told Gove he would not be surprised to see the analysis yield a date around the fifth-century, because after that time the crucifixion was banned and a forger would not have known of the details depicted so accurately on the Shroud. Timothy Linick, a University of Arizona research scientist, said: `If we show the material to be medieval that would definitely mean that it is not authentic. If we date it back 2000 years, of course, that still leaves room for argument. It would be the right age - but is it the real thing?' ... Shirley Brignall ... and Gove had a bet. Gove said 1000 years although he hoped for twice that age. Whoever lost was to buy the other a pair of cowboy boots. The calculations were produced on the computer, and displayed on the screen. Even the dendrochronological correction was immediately available. All eyes were on the screen. The date would be when the flax used for the linen relic was harvested. Gove would be taking cowboy boots back to Rochester." (Sox, H.D., 1988, "The Shroud Unmasked: Uncovering the Greatest Forgery of All Time," Lamp Press: Basingstoke UK, pp.146-147)

that I first realised that it was not the actual carbon dating results that those in Arizona's laboratory were seeing, but what the computer was displaying" and "I put two and two together back then in 2007 and realised that ... one explanation of its 1260-1390 radiocarbon date is that a hacker had ... substituted the Shroud's actual dates coming from the AMS machine for bogus dates ....."

Source: http://theshroudofturin.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/the-1260-1390-radiocarbon-date-of-turin_23.html

Comments: If you’ll recall the curious phone call [see above] that “Harry” had received from a seemingly troubled caller back in the spring of 1989, the person said he had thrown the sample in the trash, but Jones indicated to me in an email of September 1st, 2016 that the “German sounding distraught phone caller who said he had ‘trashed’ the Shroud is consistent with him being Koch.”

---

The first part of the above is self-explanatory and further comment on it by me would be superfluous. I have posted on this in my "How my radiocarbon dating hacker theory started" and am thinking of going over that in more detail in my final part #10 post in my current hacker series. But of the second part, "Comments," I will repeat what I wrote above that I regard as highly significant this evidence which supports that part of my theory which alleges that Koch, working for the KGB, installed Linick's program on Zurich and Oxford's AMS computers [see again 02Jun16]. This in turn supports my theory that both Koch and Linick were silenced permanently by the KGB to cover up their part in the KGB's hacking of the Shroud's radiocarbon dating [see 30Jul16].

Notes
1. This post is copyright. Permission is granted to quote from any part of this post (but not the whole post), provided it includes a reference citing my name, its subject heading, its date, and a hyperlink back to this post. [return]
2. Damon, P.E., et al., 1989, "Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin," Nature, Vol. 337, 16th February, pp.611-615, p.613. [return]
3. Scavone, D.C., 1989, "The Shroud of Turin: Opposing Viewpoints," Greenhaven Press: San Diego CA, p.104; Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., 2000, "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London, p.94; Tribbe, F.C., 2006, "Portrait of Jesus: The Illustrated Story of the Shroud of Turin," Paragon House Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second edition, p.170. [return]
4. Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., 1996, "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta, p.62; Garza-Valdes, L.A., 1998, "The DNA of God?," Hodder & Stoughton: London, p.179; Danin, A., Whanger, A.D., Baruch, U. & Whanger, M., 1999, "Flora of the Shroud of Turin," Missouri Botanical Garden Press: St. Louis MO, p.5. [return]
5. Wilson, 1991, p.6; Wilson, 1998, pp.6,191; Wilson, I., 2010, "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved," Bantam Press: London, pp.82A, 87, 93, 95, 146E. [return]
6. Wilson, 1998, p.189. [return]
7. Sox, H.D., 1988, "The Shroud Unmasked: Uncovering the Greatest Forgery of All Time," Lamp Press: Basingstoke UK, pp.142, 145; Damon, et al., 1989, p.613; Wilson, I., 1991, "Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True Likeness," Doubleday: London, pp.7-8; McCrone, W.C., 1999, "Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin," Prometheus Books: Amherst NY, p.246; Guerrera, V., 2001, "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL, p.130. [return]
8. Sox, 1988, p.142. [return]
9. "Two Pence Coin Designs and Specifications," The Royal Mint, 2016. [return]
10. Sox, 1988, p.145. [return]
11. "Accelerator Mass Spectrometry," CEDAD, University of Salento, Italy, 27 June 2006. [return]
12. Wilson, 1991, p.178; Wilson, 1998, p.192; Wilson, 2010, p.281. [return]
13. Gove, 1996, p.262. [return]
14. "WikiFreaks, Pt. 4 `The Nerds Who Played With Fire'," The Psychedelic Dungeon, 15 September 2010. [return]

Posted: 24 October 2016. Updated: 9 April 2021.