My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (4): Turin Shroud Encyclopedia

Copyright © Stephen E. Jones[1]

My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (4) #39

This is the thirty-fourth and final installment of "My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (4)," part #39 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia. See Part 1 for more information about this 6-part series. I will reluctantly insert a new part 5, "Evidence that the secondary hacker was German hacker, Karl Koch (1965-89) and `Suicides'." Although a reference date may be the same, e.g. "[18Feb14]," when clicked it will open at the correct place in the source.

[Above: I was interviewed via Zoom by Guy Powell on Friday 2 May. It was taped and will be shown later. Guy emailed me this graphic to replace my previous one. I will add the date and time that the interview will be aired when that is known. ]

This post also is very long, but again the alternative was multiple pages, so here are links to each maor topic in it: • Evidence that the primary hacker was Arizona laboratory physicist Timothy W. Linick; • Evidence that Timothy Linick was the leaker of Arizona's "1350" date, • Evidence that Timothy Linick was the primary hacker.

Newcomers start with: "The Turin Shroud in a nutshell"

[Index #1] [Previous: My Hacker Theory (3) #38] [Next: My Hacker Theory (5) #40].

■ Evidence that the primary hacker was Arizona laboratory physicist Timothy W. Linick (1946-89).

• The beginning of my Hacker Theory In the early 1990s I was the System Administrator of a wide area network of 7 Western Australian rural hospitals' UNIX computer systems[22Feb14; 05Jul14; 24Oct16; 23Jan17].

Clifford Stoll As part of my job interest in computer security, I read Clifford Stoll's 1989 book, "The Cuckoo's Egg" [Right]. Stoll is a former astronomer in Berkeley University's W.M. Keck Observatory, who in 1986 was redeployed to help manage a large computer network at Berkeley University's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL)(not Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)[22Feb14]. Stoll recounted how lax was the computer security at universities in the 1980s[22Feb14; 03Jun14]. He described how easy it was then to hack into university networked computer systems[22Feb14; 03Jun14]. Any of LBL's scientists could log into LBL's computer, and then, over ARPANET (a precursor to the Internet) connect to a distant computer[22Feb14; 03Jun14]. Once connected, they could log into the distant computer by entering an account name and password[22Feb14; 03Jun14]. The only thing protecting the networked computer was the password, since account names were easy then to figure out[22Feb14; 03Jun14]. And Stoll was amazed that on many of high-security sites the hacker could easily guess passwords, since many system administrators had never bothered to change the passwords from their factory defaults, even on military bases, a hacker was able to log in as "guest" with no password[TCW]! No physical security was needed at LBL and laboratory doors were seldom locked[22Feb14; 03Jun14]. In 1986 Stoll detected, and eventually caught, a hacker Markus Hess (1960-), who dialied into LBL's computer from Germany, and `piggybacked' from there to hack into government, business and military computers [22Feb14; 03Jun14]. Hess was a member of the same Chaos Computer Club that Karl Koch was a member of[03Jun14]. Both Hess and Koch sold their hacked information to the KGB[03Jun14]. But it was more than a decade later, in January 2005, that I discovered the Shroud[30Jun07].

David Sox's "The Shroud Unmasked" In June 2007 I read in shroudie turned sceptic David Sox (1936-2016)'s 1988 book, "The Shroud Unmasked," the account provided by an eyewitness, Prof. Harry Gove (1922-2009), of very first radiocarbon dating of the Shroud at Arizona laboratory[22Feb14]. That the "calculations were produced on the [AMS] computer, and displayed on the screen"[23Jan17].

[Above: Page 147 of David Sox's 1988 book, "The Shroud Unmasked," with "The calculations were produced on the computer ..." outlined in red and "Timothy Linick, a University of Arizona research scientist, said ..." (which I did not notice at the time) outlined in blue.]

All this was under computer control and the calculations produced by the computer were displayed" Later in 2007[10Dec07] I read Gove's own eyewitness account, which evidently is the original, since he gives the date "1350 AD", and Sox was not there:

"The first sample run was OX1. 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. The age of the control sample could have been calculated on a small pocket calculator but was not-everyone was waiting for the next sample-the Shroud of Turin! At 9:50 am 6 May 1988, Arizona time, the first of the ten measurements appeared on the screen. We all waited breathlessly. The ratio was compared with the OX sample and the radiocarbon time scale calibration was applied by Doug Donahue. His face became instantly drawn and pale. At the end of that one minute we knew the age of the Turin Shroud! The next nine numbers confirmed the first. It had taken me eleven years to arrange for a measurement that took only ten minutes to accomplish! Based on these 10 one minute runs, with the calibration correction applied, the year the flax had been harvested that formed its linen threads was 1350 AD-the shroud was only 640 years old! It was certainly not Christ's burial cloth but dated from the time its historic record began" (my emphasis)[22Febr14; 10Mar17].

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[24Oct16]! That an explanation of why the 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[24Oct16]!

However, I had only started this blog on 30 June 2007], and had a lot to learn about the Shroud, so didn't begin to post that the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud may have been hacked until 2014.

The following are the main items of evidence from all my "hacker" posts, grouped together, to save space, that the three radiocarbon dating laboratories, Arizona, Oxford and Zurich, were indeed duped by a computer hacker, Timothy Linick, aided by German hacker, Karl Koch.

■ Evidence that Timothy Linick was the leaker of Arizona's "1350" date[24Jun14; 30Dec15].
• Linick was quoted in Sox's 1988 book, "If we show the material to be medieval that would definitely mean that it is not authentic."

"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?'" (my emphasis)[05Mar15; 30Dec15; 19Jan16; 06Aug18].

• Linick had signed a confidentiality agreement This was despite Linick having signed a confidentiality agreement, "not to communicate the results to anyone":

"The next morning at about 8 am (6 May 1988) I arrived at the Arizona AMS facility ... I would be the only one present outside the Arizona AMS group. Doug immediately asked me to sign the following statement: `We the undersigned, understand that radiocarbon age results for the Shroud of Turin obtained from the University of Arizona AMS facility are confidential. We agree not to communicate the results to anyone- spouse, children, friends, press, etc., until that time when results are generally available to the public.' It had been signed by D J Donahue, Brad Gore, L J Toolin, P E Damon, Timothy Jull and Art Hatheway, all connected with the Arizona AMS facility, before I signed. My signature was followed by T W Linick and P J Sercel, also from the Arizona facility" (my emphasis)[GH96, 262; 31Mar14;19Jan16; 22Nov16; 23Jun18; 06Aug18]

When Linick's quote in Sox's book (above) was discovered by Arizona laboratory leaders, Linick might have argued that he didn't communicate the results to Sox. But, apart from it breaching the spirit of his signed confidentiality agreement by communicating with Sox, as we shall see, Linick did communicate Arizona's first run "1350" result to Sox.

Kenneth Rose leaked that the Shroud had carbon dated "mediaeval" On 3 July 1988, columnist Kenneth Rose (1924-2014), in the London Sunday Telegraph, reported on the ongoing radiocarbon dating of the Shroud that, "In spite of the intense secrecy surrounding the investigation I hear

[Left: Kenneth Rose, was the first to leak on 3 July 1988 that the carbon dating of the Shroud would be "mediaeval."]

signs that the linen cloth has been proved to be mediaeval"[05Mar15; 30Dec15; 15Aug17; 06Aug18]. The story was picked up by news media around the world[05Mar15; 30Dec15; 06Aug18]. Suspicion fell on Oxford laboratory having leaked the results, but Oxford's Prof. Edward Hall (1924-2001) and Robert Hedges (1944-) in a letter to The Times of 9 July, pointed out that Oxford had not then begun its dating of the Shroud[05Mar15; 30Dec15; 15Aug17; 06Aug18]. However, it was not Linick but Zurich's Willy Wolfli (1930-2014) who leaked to Sox that Zurich's first dating run supposedly revealed that the Shroud's radiocarbon date was "a good bit distant from the dawn of christianity [sic]" (i.e. medieval), according to Fr Peter Rinaldi (1910-93):

"On June 20 last [1988], David Sox stopped overnight in Turin on his way to some art convention in Tuscany somewhere. He insisted he had to see me. He almost broke down in tears as he embraced me and said: `It is all over, Peter. And I am. terribly sorry for you.' He went on to tell me he had been in Zurich a month or so before with TV (BBC) operator Cameron for the network's TIME WATCH program. It was then Wolfli told them he had made a first test on the Shroud sample shortly after his return from Turin's sample operation on April 21st, and that the result had been negative, in fact; a good bit distant from the dawn of christianity [sic]. Both he and Cameron had been told to keep it secret, and I, in turn, was asked to do the same by David. I kept my word until I heard he spilled it all out on a BBC program sometime later, as you well know"[RP88]

I have ordered part 2 of Rose's diary, "Who Loses, Who Wins: The Journals of Kenneth Rose: Volume Two 1979-2014," to see if it has anything on his leaking that the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud revealed that it was supposedly "mediaeval." Previously the book was too expensive but now it is only US$2.88!

• Richard Luckett leaked Arizona's "1350" date On 26 August 1988 the London Evening Standard ran a front-page story, "Shroud of Turin Really is a Fake," with an accompanying article by Cambridge librarian Richard Luckett (1945-2020), stating that a probable date of about

[Right: Richard Luckett, who had been the Pepys Librarian at Magdalene College, Cambridge from 1982 to 2012[05Mar15], so that was his position in August 1988 when he leaked, on behalf of Sox, who received it from Linick, Arizona's "1350" first run date of the Shroud to the London Evening Standard.]

1350 looks likely" and remarking that "laboratories are rather leaky institutions"[05Mar15; 30Dec15; 15Aug17; 15Aug17; 06Aug18; 25Aug24]. This generated another world-wide media frenzy, yet none of the laboratories, nor the British Museum, knew Luckett, or how he had obtained his information[05Mar15; 30Dec15; 08Dec22]. It was again assumed that the Oxford laboratory, which had completed its dating on 6 August, had leaked the "1350" date to Luckett, but not only was Oxford's mean date "several decades less than 1350 AD," in an Associated Press story of 9 September 1988, Luckett was quoted as saying: "I had an absolutely marvellous leak from one of the laboratories and it wasn't Oxford"[05Mar15; 30Dec15; 22Nov16; 15Aug17].

I had been told privately by a leading Shroudie who knew Sox, that a possible connection between Sox and Luckett was "pillow talk"[05Mar15; 03Aug19]. So, on discovering evidence that Sox was a homosexual (see next) and that both Luckett and Rose were not married, I proposed that the connection between Sox, Rose and Luckett was that they were part of an informal network of homosexuals [05Mar15; 30Dec15; 03Aug19]. This was supported when I later found that Rose and Luckett had wriiten sympathetically about homosexuality[03Aug19]. Also Luckett's birthday was 1 July and Rose's article above was on 3 July 1988, so presumably Luckett was told by Sox the result of Arizona's first "1350" date of the Shroud at Luckett's birthday party on 1 July 1988[03Aug19]! I was not interested in their homosexuality, only in solving the mystery of how Luckett, a Cambridge librarian with no connection to the laboratories, knew that Arizona's first date of the Shroud was "1350"[15Aug17].

• David Sox was the leaker of Arizona's "1350" date to Luckett [24Jun14; 19Jan16; 22Nov16; 15Aug17; 06Aug18; 03Aug19].

[Left (enlarge): David Sox (left) on his 80th birthday, 24 April 2016, with his partner of 45 years, Allan Offermann [15Aug17].

In September 1988, Ian Wilson (1941-) publicly concluded that Sox was the source of all the leaks in the media of the Shroud's "medieval" and "1350" radiocarbon date[05Mar15; 30Dec15; 19Jan16; 22Feb16; 22Nov16; 15Aug17; 06Aug18; 03Aug19]. Gove in his 1996 book[GH96, 281] had agreed with Wilson that Sox was the leaker[24Jun14; 05Mar15; 30Dec15; 22Nov16; 15Aug17; 06Aug18; 03Aug19]. Sox then publicly admitted in La Stampa that he was the leaker[24Jun14; 05Mar15; 30Dec15; 15Aug17; 06Aug18; 03Aug19] but claimed that he was not solely to blame (see below).

Sox quoted Linick in his 1988 book (see above) which proved that they were in communication with each other. But how would Sox, in England, know that Linick, in Arizona, existed? Linick was not an Arizona laboratory leader who might be more widely known, but merely an ordinary `back room' scientist, who outside of radiocarbon dating circles, would have been unknown[05Mar15; 31Mar15; 30Dec15; 22Feb14]. And before 1988 Sox had only published two obscure Shroud books: "File on the Shroud" (1978) and "The Image on the Shroud" (1981), so Linick would have been unlikely to have heard of Sox. Unless they had a go-between who knew them both (see next).

Anthony Linick was the go-between Timothy Linick and David Sox On 2 January 2016 I discovered that Timothy Linick had a half-brother Anthony Linick (1938-) who had written a biography of his (not

[Right: Anthony Linick (1938-). He evidently was the go-between his half-brother Timothy and Sox.]

Timothy's) stepfather, the composer and conductor (Ingolf Dahl (1912–70), titled, "The Lives of Ingolf Dahl" (2008)[30Dec15; 22Feb16]. Reading the book online, I found in it where Anthony wrote that, "Timmy ... sank deeper into what seems to have been the family's hereditary introversion" (p.250) and my "half-brother Timothy, took his own life at age 42 in 1989" (p.619)[30Dec15; 22Feb16]. That same day, 2 January 2016, I messaged Anthony through his website "A Walker's Journal":

"Your late half-brother Timothy W. Linick, who was a member of the team at Arizona Radiocarbon dating laboratory which radiocarbon dated the Shroud of Turin in 1988, was quoted by the Rev. David Sox as follows:

`... before the test ... Timothy Linick, a University of Arizona research scientist, said: `If we show the material [of the Shroud of Turin] 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?''[SH88, 147; 30Dec15; 22Feb16; 15Aug17].

Sox was in England at that time and he would be unlikely to know your brother even existed, so presumably Timothy had contacted Sox and volunteered that information. This was despite all those participating in Arizona laboratory's dating of the Shroud ... having signed an undertaking `not to communicate the results to anyone' ... It was later discovered that Sox was the secondary source of the leaks to the media that the Shroud's radiocarbon dating was `medieval' including the `1350' date ... So it seems inescapable that your late half-brother Timothy W. Linick was the original source of the leaks to David Sox in England, who in turn leaked it indirectly to the English media, that Arizona laboratory's first run date of the Shroud of Turin was `1350' ... If so, were there any repercussions of this on your brother's career? I would appreciate ... any further information you have on your half-brother's dating of the Shroud of Turin at Arizona laboratory in 1988"[JS16; 15Aug17].

Anthony replied on 3rd January, mentioning that "a few hours after receiving" my message he "also heard from Mr. Farey [Shroud sceptic Hugh Farey (1956-)] on the same topic"[30Dec15][22Feb16; Anthony's reply continued:

"Of course I have encountered materials on the controversies surrounding the Turin Shroud, including theories of conspiracy – including those on the death of my half-brother, Timothy Linick, in 1989. ... I never visited any member of this family after their move to Arizona nor did I have any direct contact with my half-brother while he was there. I knew, of course, that he was a specialist in carbon dating but I don't remember when I learned that he was part of the team charged with dating the shroud. When my step-mother, Del (Delphine) [Timothy Linick's mother] called to share the news of his passing she said only that he took his own life and that he had been suffering from depression ... she never alluded to any mysteries or controversies involving Tim's death or work" (my emphasis)

As can be seen, Anthony completely ignored the main part of my message, about Timothy having been quoted in Sox's book in breach of his confidentiality agreement, and being the leaker of Arizona's "1350" date to Sox[15Aug17. Nevertheless, I found this helpful in that, even though I did not mention hacking or suicide (so Farey must have mentioned those, to "poison the well" against me, which is his modus operandi - see 13Aug14), in that Anthony was aware of "theories of conspiracy – including those on the death of my half-brother, Timothy Linick, in 1989 ..." Anthony's "I don't remember when I learned that he was part of the team charged with dating the shroud" is evasive. It had to have been between 10 October 1987 when it was announced that Arizona laboratory was going to be one of the three laboratories to date the Shroud[22Oct17; 08Dec22], and 6 May 1988 when Arizona laboratory did begin dating the Shroud[23Jun18; 08Dec22].

On 22 February 2016, I discovered in Anthony Linick's Wikipedia entry, that he had worked as a teacher at the American School in London for 20 years from 1982 to 2002[22Feb16; 07Mar16; 15Aug17; 03Aug19; ALW]. And Sox, whose quote of Timothy Linick I had sent to Anthony in my email of 2 January (see above) had been a teacher at the American School in London for 19 years from 1974 to 1993[05Mar15; 30Dec15; 22Feb16; HS16; 15Aug17; 03Aug19: So Sox and Anthony Linick had worked together as teachers at the ASL for ~11 years, from 1982 to 1993, which included 1988[22Feb16; 07Mar16; 15Aug17; 03Aug19]! I emailed Anthony on 23 February, and asked him, "So did you know David Sox? And that he was deeply involved in seeking to discredit the Shroud of Turin? Including being the secondary source of leaks to the media of Arizona's first "AD 1350" date[22Feb16; 15Aug17; 03Aug19]. I concluded my email to Anthony with: "It seems an amazing coincidence that your half-brother Timothy was in contact with David Sox, who presumably you worked with? Did you put Timothy in touch with Sox or vice-versa?"[22Feb16; 03Aug19].

In his reply email the next day, 24 February, Anthony claimed that he only had "a suspicion" that the "David Sox" whom I and "others [plural] mentioned" was the same David Sox "who worked at the American School in London." That he "had wondered if this was the same chap who worked at the American School in London." He "did meet him once or twice and, indeed, my first long-term assignment at ASL was in the middle school, where he was a faculty member"[22Feb16; 07Mar16; 15Aug17; 03Aug19]. This is most implausible: 1) "David Sox" is an unusual name. 2) In my first message of 2 January to Anthony Linick, I wrote that in "1988 ... Sox was in England." 3) In my experience as a relief (substitute, supply) teacher for 6 years from 2009-15 at over a dozen different high schools, it would be highly unlikely (to put it mildly) that two teachers could work in the same school for 13 years and indeed in the same middle school faculty, and only "meet ... once or twice"[22Feb16; 15Aug17; 03Aug19]. See in 03Aug19 an extract from the Fall 2011 issue of Accents, the magazine of the American School in London, which records that "David Sox (1974-93)" was in the same room of an English pub with "Anthony Linick (1984-2002) [sic]" at a reunion of "ASL faculty and staff, past and present" only ~5 years before his 2016 reply email to me that he had only met Sox "once or twice" in 13 years!

Anthony's email continued: "I also knew that he [Sox] wrote on religious topics. However I do not recall his ever seeking me out (in spite of a rather uncommon last name) or putting any questions to me about Timothy Linick and I certainly did not know of his interest in the shroud nor did I have anything to do with putting him in contact with my half-brother"[22Feb16; 07Mar16; 03Aug19].The implausibilities continue: 4) how would Anthony Linick know that Sox wrote on "religious topics" and not know that most (if not all) of Sox's religious writings (including three books: "File on the Shroud" (1978), "The Image on the Shroud" (1981) and "The Shroud Unmasked" (1988), were on the topic of the Shroud? 5) Sox was well-known at ASL for "his interest in the shroud." In his first 1978 book on the Shroud, Sox wrote that his "associates (i.e. fellow teachers) and students at the American School in London have had to suffer through much of this project"[22Feb16; 03Aug19]. 6) In May 1988 the BBC filmed part of its Timewatch program about dating the Shroud, arranged by Sox, in an ASL science laboratory[22Feb16], which Anthony must surely have been aware of. 7) Linick's "I do not recall" again sounds evasive (see his "I don't remember" above) Sox's ever seeking him out. And 8) Since Sox was communicating in 1988 with an American Timothy Linick, with the same "uncommon last name," it is hard to believe that Sox would not have asked his work colleague, Anthony Linick, if he was related to a Timothy Linick who worked at the Arizona radiocarbon dating laboratory which had been chosen to date the Shroud? The above implausibilities by Anthony are so many, and some are so unbelievable, that Anthony can only be lying to cover up his part in putting his half-brother Timothy in touch with Sox, or vice-versa! On 24 September 1988, after Sox publicly admitted that he was the leaker of Arizona's "1350" date, he indicated that someone else should share the blame of the leak:, "May I be damned if I were to let the entire blame fall on myself"[05Mar15; 30Dec15; 15Aug17; 06Aug18]. On 7 October 1988, Sox had written to Rinaldi, "I will never say how I came to have an inkling about the results but I have had them a very long time ..."[30Dec15]. Since Sox had revealed in his 1988 book that Timothy Linick had communicated with him, Sox cannot have been covering for Timothy. But if Sox's former colleage Anthony Linick had passed Arizona's "1350" to Sox from Timothy Linick, then Sox would have covered for Anthony. So Anthony may have had an active role in being the go-between Timothy Linick and Sox, including passing the "1350" date from Timothy to Sox. If Anthony had nothing to hide, he would have anwered my email of 2 January 2016 above, along the lines that he and Sox had been teachers at the American School in London in the 1980s, and that he had told Sox that his half-brother Timothy was a physicist at Arizona radiocarbon dating laboratory. And he had left it up to Sox to contact Timothy. That would have been false, but at least it would have been believable!

■ Evidence that Timothy Linick was the primary hacker[05Jul14; 31Mar15]. • Linick was the leaker of Arizona laboratory's "1350" date As we saw above Arizona radiocarbon dating laboratory physicist, Timothy Weiler Linick (1946-89) (below), was the

[Above (enlarge): Arizona radiocarbon dating laboratory staff and Rochester radiocarbon dating laboratory's Prof. Harry Gove (second from right) around the AMS control console computer terminal after it had, on 6 May 1988 displayed the hacker's bogus radiocarbon age of the Shroud, "640 years", which was then calibrated to "1350 AD". The alleged hacker, Timothy W. Linick, is the one in a black shirt, standing the most prominently in the foreground[05Jul14; 02Dec14; 31Mar15; 19Jan16; 29Mar16; 22Nov16]. It is significant that Linick is standing in front of his Arizona laboratory leaders and colleagues in this historic group photograph of the very first "1350 AD" dating of the Shroud, because it is evidence that Linick was in charge of the AMS computerised dating process at Arizona laboratory, and those present were acknowledging that. See also my 22Nov16 where Gove realised that Linick was the leaker of Arizona's first "1350 AD" date to Sox, because Gove barely mentions Linick in his book but he couldn't take him out of this photograph[25Mar18]!]

leaker of Arizona laboratory's first run "1350" date to David Sox, possibly through Linick's half-brother Anthony.

• Linick needed to create a climate of expectation that the Shroud's dating would be medieval So that his computer-generated Shroud date of 1260-1390 = 1325 ±65 across the three laboratories would be accepted without question[24Jun14; 30Jan15; 31Mar15; 22Feb16; 15Aug17; 28Oct18; 03Aug19; 21Mar23]. Therefore "1350" was the date he chose for the Shroud's very first dating date because of its psychological and media leak value[30Jan15; 31Mar15; 22Sep15; 22Feb16]. That the "1350" date had the psychological effect of overriding the Arizona scientists' critical faculties is evident from Gove's eyewitness description of Arizona laboratory's first dating run of the Shroud:

"We all waited breathlessly. The ... radiocarbon time scale calibration was applied by Doug Donahue ... At the end of that one minute we knew the age of the Turin Shroud! ... the year the flax had been harvested that formed its linen threads was 1350 AD-the shroud was only 640 years old! It was certainly not Christ's burial cloth but dated from the time its historic record began" (my emphasis)[03Aug19].

So Gove and the other Arizona scientists did not need any more Arizona dating runs, nor any other laboratories' dating runs, but one run of "one minute" at one laboratory, to know that the Shroud was "certainly not Christ's burial cloth"!

Oxford's Prof. Hall, testified to the effectiveness of Linick's "1350" leak, in that, "Everyone was resigned to it being a fake long before the announcement [on 13 October 1988] ... it was out of the bag from the very beginning.":

"When questioned about press leaks, Hall replied: `So it was `leaked' by the press ... in the States long before the newspaper stories started here [sic].... Everyone was resigned to it being a fake long before the announcement. In this sense it was out of the bag from the very beginning'" (my emphasis) [GV01, 134; ; 21Mar23].

• Linick was quoted in Sox's 1988 book. As we also saw above, Linick was quoted in Sox's 1988 book: "If we show the material to be medieval that would definiely mean that it is not authentic." Linick must have been motivated by something more than a sceptic's desire to discredit the Shroud, because his scientific career would be adversely impacted, if not finished, if Sox let it slip (which he did by quoting Linick in his book) that Linick was communicating with Sox about the Shroud's dating, in breach of his signed confidentiality agreement[24Jun14]. Being paid by the KGB a very large sum of money to ensure that the Shroud's radiocarbon date was 30 years before the Shroud first appearance in undisputed history at Lirey, France, in 1355, would provide Linick with that motivation!

• Linick knew in minute technical detail how the AMS system at Arizona worked. Linick was the lead author of a 1986 paper which described in minute technical detail how the AMS system at Arizona measured the carbon 14 content of samples[05Jul14]. Linick mentioned in that paper that the AMS computer was a "DEC computer system" which "largely controls the ... calculation of results for each 15-minute run" (my emphasis)[05Jul14]. See future where Oxford's Prof. Christopher Ramsey (1962-) tried to downplay the power of the AMS computer.

• Linick was "extremely mathematically gifted"[05Jul14; 31Mar15; 22Feb16]. So Linick would be able to write a program which could detect that an AMS output was from a Shroud sample and then substitute the dates of that sample with computer-generated dates which, when calibrated, totalled and averaged, would make the flax of the Shroud appear to have been harvested a plausible period of time before 1355[05Jul14; 31Mar15; 22Feb16].

• Linick "did the computer programs" of Arizona laboratory [09Jan21]. Which meant that Linick was the System Administrator and so was in the unique position in Arizona laboratory to write a program which substituted the Shroud's AMS radiocarbon dates with computer-generated dates. And since Arizona, Oxford and Zurich's AMS systems were "clones"[22Feb16], the same hacker program, slightly modified, could run on the other two laboratories' AMS computers!

• Linick was an extreme Shroud sceptic Linick would not have accepted that the Shroud was Jesus' even "if we date it back 2000 years"[24Jun14; 05Jul14; 31Mar15].

• Linick would have realised he could hack the Shroud's dating when Turin reduced the laboratories from 7 mixed to 3 AMS On 10 October 1987[22Oct17 & 08Dec22], the Archbishop of Turin, Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero (r. 1977-89), advised the seven laboratories that were originally proposed to carbon-date the Shroud, using two different methods, that their number had been reduced to three AMS laboratories: Arizona, Oxford and Zurich[05Jul14; 31Mar15]. After that Linick would have realised that he could a write a program to be installed on the AMS computers at those three AMS laboratories (which were effectively clones), to replace the Shroud's carbon-14 dates coming from their AMS systems, with computer-generated dates, which would ensure that the Shroud appeared to date a plausible time before the Shroud's debut in undisputed history at Lirey, France, in 1355[05Jul14; 31Mar15; 25Mar18].

• Linick's program would have to run automatically with no human intervention Because the AMS computers were never online[07Mar14; 05Jul14; 21Jul14], Linick's program would have to run automatically at all three AMS laboratories[08Jun14; 15Jul18; 28Oct18; 27Apr15]. An algorithm which started with each laboratory's first run date (see 22Jan25 and 28Jan25 where Arizona's first run was the most recent of all three laboratories' dating runs; Oxford's first run was the least recent of all three laboratories'dating runs and Zurich's first run was the least recent of Zurich's dating runs), generated random dates within limits, and converged on a target date (assumed for the purpose of this excercise to be below the lowest Table 1 date of Zurich laboratory) would fit those criteria (see "Reverse-Engineering the Hacker's Algorithm" below).

[Above: Reverse engineering Linick's algorithm: proof of concept. Starting with a laboratory's first run, `hard-wired' date, then each successive dating run being a random number between the limits of the target date and the previous dating run's date, the hacker's algorithm would converge on the target date, no matter how many dating runs there were, providing the algorithm controlled extremes. Zurich's dates were used because it had the most dating runs in Nature's Table 1. The "extremely mathematically gifted" Linick's program would be more sophisticated than my simple Excel spreadsheet, but the basic concept of random numbers within limits converging on a target date, for each laboratory would be the same.]

• Linick would have been aware of the vulnerability to hacking of the laboratories' AMS computers VMS, the operating system for the "DEC computer system" that the AMS computers were (see above) had a major security flaw, in that if an unauthorised user entered any login and password and ignored the error messages, he could gain access to the system[21Jul14; 17May15; 02Jun16]! Then he could become a System Administrator by running a short program[SC89, 341]. Being the System Administrator who "did the computer programs" at Arizona laboratory (see above) Linick would have received a "mandatory patch" from DEC in May 1987 to close that `back door'[21Jul14], so Linick would have been aware of that vulnerability to hacking that the AMS computers were.

• Linick would likely have been aware of hackers exploiting the VMS security flaw to break into DEC computers In October 1986 two German student hackers with the pseudonyms "Bach and Handel," who had discovered the VMS security flaw[CM92, 169-170], broke into the DEC computer of SCICON, a large German software company[CM92, 176-177]. They decided to set up a six-member hacker gang and named it "VAXbusters"[CM92, 177], after DEC’s minicomputer the VAX-11[VLW], which the AMS computers were (see below). The

[Above (enlarge): Schematic of the Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating system at the University of Arizona in 2005[30Jan15]. Note the "Control Console" at bottom left next to the photograph of a computer[see enlargement], which appears to be a VAX-11. This likely was the actual AMS system which radiocarbon dated the Shroud 7 years earlier in 1988.]

VAXbusters, who were associated with the German Chaos Computer Club, used the back-door technique to get into VAX computers throughout Europe and North America[CM92, 177], travelling on SPAN, NASA's Space Physics Analysis Network, which links computers world-wide involved in physics research[SC89, 342; CM92, 177]. For ten months the VAXbusters wandered through VAX sites with impunity, but they were just tourists, not spying or damaging hacked computers"[CM92, 177]. But in July 1987 they were detected by Roy Omond manager of a VAX system in Heidelberg[SC89, 342; CM92, 177], who discovered the real names of Bach and Handel, Claus Tränker and Stefan Weirauch[HNF], and posted an electronic message to all other users on SPAN, naming the two students[CM92, 178]. Bach and Handel assumed they would be prosecuted by the German authorities, and prepared a report, dated 17 August 1987, detailing all 135 installations that had been penetrated by the VAXbusters, including NASA, the Goddard Space Flight Center CERN in Switzerland and the European Space Agency in the Netherlands[CM92, 178]. In return for Bach and Handel's cooperation, the authorities declined to prosecute[CM92, 178]. The story was released to the press on 15 September 1987[CM92, 178] and on TV[CM92, 178]. When it was realized that NASA had still not removed the VAXbuster's programs from its two computers, nor had it installed the mandatory patches, live on German television, Bach and Handel broke into the two NASA computers in Washington DC, and installed the mandatory patches that DEC had issued four months earlier[CM92, 178]!

• Linick had severe psychological and personal problems. Linick was extremely introverted[30Dec15; 03Aug19]; suffered from depression[see above; 30Dec15; 22Feb16; 15Aug17; 03Aug19; 09Jan21] and had threatened to commit suicide[09Jan21]. However, see future, Linick was murdered, disguised as suicide! At the time of his presumed suicide on 4 June 1989, Linick was estranged from his wife and young son and was living in a Tucson motel[09Jan21]. It is consistent with my Hacker Theory that in such a depressed state, Linick would have sought to escape from his problems by offering the KGB a ~1325 radiocarbon date of the Shroud for a large sum of money[24Jun14], if the KGB could provide a hacker who could install Linick's program on Zurich and Oxford AMS computers (see future).

• If Linick had offered the former Soviet Union a 14th century radiocarbon date of the Shroud it would have accepted it If Linick had approached the Soviet Union, through for example the Soviet consulate in San Francisco (the primary mission of which was to funnel US technology into the Soviet Union), with an offer to guarantee that the Shroud would be radiocarbon-dated to about 25-30 years before the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at Lirey, France, in 1355, the Soviets would have accepted that offer[03Sep14]. This was because by the mid-1980's the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse, and did collapse with the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989[03Sep14]. A first century radiocarbon date of the Shroud would have been a threat to the atheist USSR[03Sep14]. Despite its attempts to eradicate religion since the 1917 revolution, the USSR continued to have a large Christian population[03Sep14]. In the 1980s, four Christian denominations had a total of about 61 million adherents, and that does not count the 5.5 million Roman Catholics mainly in the satellite republics, nor does that count the 30 million Roman Catholics in Poland in the late 1980s, a total of about 96.5 million Christians in the Soviet Union in the 1980s[03Sep14]. And if Protestants and other Christian denominations are included, that means there would have been over 100 million Christians in the crumbling, officially atheist, Soviet Union in the mid- to late 1980s[03Sep14]! So a first-century radiocarbon date of the Shroud would have been perceived as a huge threat by the embattled Soviet leadership[03Sep14]. According to Russian Orthodox physicist Alexander Belyakov (c. 1932-), speaking in 1996 at a Shroud Conference in Rome, in Russia the Shroud had been officially ignored, rather than opposed:

"In spite of the great interest in the Shroud among Christians and other people in Russia, there were no explorations of the Shroud up to now in our country. The reason is the presence of the prevailing atheistic ideology"[03Sep14]

So when it was announced on 10 October 1987 that the Shroud was going to be radiocarbon-dated in the near future[22Oct17; 08Dec22], it would have been a huge worry for the atheistic Russian leadership that the Shroud might carbon-date first Century! So if Linick had approached the Soviet consulate in San Francisco with an offer of a guaranteed fourteenth century carbon-date of the Shroud in exchange for a large sum of money, the Soviet leadership would have jumped at the chance!

Continued in the next part 5 of my Hacker Theory.

Notes:
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its title, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]

Bibliography
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GH96. Gove, H.E., 1996, "Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud," Institute of Physics Publishing: Bristol UK.
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RP88. Rinaldi, P., 1988, "Letter dated August 12, 1988, from Fr Peter Rinaldi to Rev. Kim Dreisbach."
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.
SH88. Sox, H.D., 1988, `The Shroud Unmasked: Uncovering the Greatest Forgery of All Time,' Lamp Press: Basingstoke UK.
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TCW. "The Cuckoo's Egg (book)," Wikipedia, 25 March 2025.
VLW. "VAX-11, Wikipedia, 5 May 2025.

Posted 7 April 2025. Updated 14 May 2025.