Dot points summary of my Hacker Theory (2)
This is the eleventh instalment of my "Dot points summary of my Hacker Theory (2)," part #43 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia. In keeping with its purpose to "help me answer questions about my Hacker Theory in any future online interviews" and "Graphics will be `flashcards' which I may hold up to the camera to illustrate a point" (04Jul25), I won't normally include graphics, which will keep this dot points format as brief as possible. For more information see "Dot points summary of my Hacker Theory (1)." Again, if a reference looks the same as another (e.g. "08Dec22"), when it is clicked it will open at the correct place.
[Index #1] [Previous: Dot points summary of my Hacker Theory (1): #42] [Next: To be advised #44].
■ Leaks In early July 1988, after Arizona laboratory had completed its dating[08Dec22], Zurich was mid-way through its[08Dec22], but before Oxford had started its dating[24Jun14], leaks about the Shroud's radiocarbon-dating results began to appear in English newspapers[24Jun14].
■ Kenneth Rose "medieval" On 3 July 1988, biographer Kenneth Rose (1924-2014), in his column in the London Sunday Telegraph, wrote of the Shroud's ongoing radiocarbon dating: "In spite of the intense secrecy surrounding the investigation I hear signs that the linen cloth has been proved to be mediaeval"[24Jun14; 30Dec15; 15Aug17; 06Aug18]. This leak was from Zurich laboratory's Director Willy Wölfli (1930–2014)[07Apr25].
■ Richard Luckett "1350" Then on 26 August the London Evening Standard quoted a Cambridge University librarian, Richard Luckett (1945-2020), who stated of the Shroud's radiocarbon dating that, "a probable date of about 1350 looks likely" and that "laboratories are rather leaky institutions"[24Jun14; 15Oct15; 30Dec15; 15Aug17; 08Dec22]. Luckett was unknown in radiocarbon dating circles[24Jun14; 30Dec15; 03Aug19], but it was assumed that the leak came from Oxford[24Jun14; 30Dec15; 15Aug17; 12Feb08]. However, on 9 July Oxford's Prof. Edward Hall (1924-2001) and Robert Hedges (1944-) in a letter to The Times stated that Oxford had not yet started its dating[24Jun14; 30Dec15; 15Aug17]. In an Associated Press story of 9 September 1988, Luckett clarified: "I had an absolutely marvellous leak from one of the laboratories and it wasn't Oxford"[24Jun14; 15Aug17; 12Feb08].This leak was from the hacker, Arizona physicist Timothy W Linick (1946-89) (see future below).
■ David Sox Harold David Sox (1936-2016) was a former Secretary of the British Society for the Turin Shroud (BSTS), turned Shroud sceptic[24Jun14; 30Dec15; 15Aug17]. On 23 September 1988, in a special newsletter to BSTS members, Ian Wilson (1941-) publicly concluded that Sox was the source of Rose's and Luckett's leaks to the media[24Jun14; 30Dec15; 30Dec15; 15Aug17]. The connection between Rose, Luckett and Sox is that evidently they were members of an informal network of homosexuals[24Jun14; 30Dec15; 15Aug17]. Sox later admitted he was the source of the leaks but that he was not solely to blame[24Jun14; 30Dec15; 15Aug17].
■ Linick was quoted in Sox's book Linick was quoted in Sox's August 1988 book, "The Shroud Unmasked," as anti-Shroud, in the context of its radiocarbon dating:
"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?'"[24Jun14; 30Dec15; 15Aug17].
[Above: Flashcard of Linick quoted on page 147 of Sox's 1988 book, "The Shroud Unmasked."]This was despite Linick having signed a confidentiality agreement, along with all present at Arizona's first dating, "not to communicate the results to anyone ... until that time when results are generally available to the public"[24Jun14; 30Dec15]. How would Sox know that Linick existed, unless Linick contacted Sox? Linick was not a laboratory leader, but an ordinary `back room' Arizona laboratory scientist[24Jun14; 30Dec15]. The above quote of Linick on page 147 of Sox's book is opposite Sox's description of the Shroud's AMS radiocarbon dating on page 146. So Linick's Arizona laboratory's leaders would surely have read it and concluded that Linick was the leaker to Sox of Arizona's "1350" date[30Dec15].
That Rochester radiocarbon dating laboratory's Prof. Harry Gove (1922-2009) realised that Linick was the leaker of Arizona's first run "1350" date to Sox is evident from: 1) this quote from Gove's 1996 book:
"I must say I wondered about Luckett's date of 1350 because it was the date Donahue announced to me when I was present at the first radiocarbon measurement on the shroud in 6 May 1988. Of course, it also corresponds very closely to the shroud's known historic date. However, I still assumed Luckett had said he got the number from Oxford. When I read that he claimed he got it from one of the other two labs I worried that it might have come from someone who was present at Arizona during the first measurement" (as Linick was - my emphasis)[24Jun14; 06Aug18; 08Dec22].and 2) Gove's photo in his 1996 book of "Those present at the Arizona AMS carbon dating facility at 9:50 am on 6 May 1988 when the age of the shroud was determined"[22Feb16; 25Mar18; 23Jun18; 08Dec22] (below), shows Linick standing in front of his Arizona laboratory leaders and colleagues in this historic group photograph of the very
[Flashcard (enlarge): Photo at page 176H of Gove's 1996 book, "Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud." But tellingly, Gove barely mentions Linick in his book, but he could not take him out of this photo![25Mar18].]
first "1350 AD" dating of the Shroud, which can only mean that Linick was in charge of the AMS computerised dating process at Arizona laboratory and those present were acknowledging that"[25Mar18; 07Apr25]. When Gove and Arizona laboratory leaders and staff read Luckett's 26 August "a probable date of about 1350 looks likely" (above) they must have worried that there was a leaker in their midst. But when they read Linick's quote in Sox's book, published in October 1988[24Jun14], they would have put two and two together and realised that it was Linick who had leaked Arizona's first-run "1350" date to Sox!
■ The laboratories did not realise that they had been hacked Recently, in considering what Gove wrote after my quote of him above:
"However, it did not really matter now since all three labs had submitted their results to the British Museum and so none of them could be influenced by this real or imagined leak"[19Jan16].Apart from Gove's "imagined leak," which is at best self-deception, or at worst, a lie, because Luckett had said (see above), "I had an absolutely marvellous leak from one of the laboratories ..." (my emphasis), Gove's "since all three labs had submitted their results to the British Museum and so none of them could be influenced..." shows no consciousness by him, ~8 years later, that Arizona's and the other two laboratories' Shroud dates were the result of Linick's hacking.
Ironically it was the Shroud sceptic Hugh Farey (1956-) who first alerted Arizona's Prof. Tim Jull (1951-) and Oxford's Prof. Christopher Ramsey (1962-) to my early posts in my "Were the radiocarbon dating laboratories duped by a computer hacker?" series. (Thanks Hugh, "... you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" - Gn 50:20)! See my "Were the radiocarbon dating laboratories duped by a computer hacker?: My replies to Dr. Timothy Jull and Prof. Christopher Ramsey (5)." This evidently came as `a bolt from the blue' to Jull and Ramsey because to my amazement they responded to my anonymous (to them)[05July14] blog posts. As I later wrote:
"Since when do Professors of Physics, let alone Directors of two of the world's leading radiocarbon dating laboratories, Arizona and Oxford, deign to respond to a mere blogger's post? If Jull and Ramsey knew that there was no truth in my hacker theory, they would have simply ignored it"[22Nov16].So, I no longer claim that the laboratories knew that they had been hacked by Linick, but Jull and Ramsey's "prompt, misleading and false replies"[10May17] to my early hacker posts (before I called it a theory), shows that it was feasible, at least for Arizona (they probably could not conceive how Zurich and Oxford, not being online, were hacked).
■ Anthony Linick Sox worked with Linick's half-brother Anthony Linick (1938-) as teachers at the American School in London for at least 11 years from 1982 to 1993, which included 1988[22Feb16; 15Aug17; 07Apr25]. My email correspondence with Anthony included many implausibilities by him, and at least one lie that he only met Sox "once or twice"[22Feb16]. Anthony was unaware that I had worked as a relief (substitute, supply) teacher in 12 diferent Western Australian high schools for 6 years between 2009 and 2015[22Feb16]. And in my experience it simply is not credible that two teachers can work in the same school (indeed the same middle school) and only "meet ... once or twice" in 11 years[22Feb16]! As expatriate Americans in London, teachers at the ASL would presumably know each other socially more than teachers in their own country. Indeed, I posted a 2011 article in which Anthony and Sox were in the same room of an English pub at an ASL reunion[03Aug19]! So in view of his many implausibilities, including at least one lie, I concluded that Anthony had an active role in leaking Arizona's "1350" date, as the go-between his half-brother Timothy Linick and Sox[07Apr25]!
■ Climate of expectation The "1350" leak by Linick was necessary to create a climate of expectation[24Jun14; 15Aug17; 03Aug19; 21Mar23] that the Shroud would date close before its first appearance in undisputed history at Lirey, France, in 1355[30Jan15; 22Sep15]. This was so that Linick's computer-generated 1260-1390 date of the Shroud would be accepted without question[24Jun14; 31Mar15; 22Feb16; 10Mar17; 30Dec15; 15Aug17; 03Aug19]. Which it was. After Arizona's first dating run returned the date of "1350," Gove declared:
"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"[22Feb14; 22Sep15; 23Jun18; 07Apr25]So, after only one dating run lasting only one minute, there was no need for further dating runs by Arizona, Zurich, and Oxford[23Jun18; 07Apr25]!
So powerful was Linick's "1350" psychological hammer blow[22Jan25] in overriding the scientists' critical faculties[03Aug19, 07Apr25], that there was no thought about how the Shroud's flax could have been harvested in 1350, and then the Shroud exhibited only ~5 years later in n 1355]!
Oxford's Prof. Hall confirmed that it was the leaks' effect, that "Everyone was resigned to it being a fake long before the announcement" (on 13 October 1988):
"So it was `leaked' by the press ... long before ... Everyone was resigned to it being a fake long before the announcement ... it was out of the bag from the very beginning"[21Mar23; 07Apr25]!
Ever since Google announced in July 2024 that its goo.gl URL
shortener will not work after 25 August 2025 (above), which is now only ~14 days away, I have been frantically converting my many thousands of goo.gl links back to their original links. I now realise that I went overboard by converting links that were not long to shortened goo.gl ones. But I trusted Google (never again!) that its goo.gl URLs would be permanent. I still have over 1580 goo.gl URLs I have yet to convert back to their originals. Although Google has now said it will constinue to support "active" goo.gl URLs (whatever that means), I can't take that risk because it will take me a lot of time converting dead goo.gl URLs back to their originals and some them will be impossible to convert. So from now until 25 August (or sooner if I can convert back all my goo.gl URLs before then) I will cease blogging and concentrate on converting my goo.gl URLs back to their originals.
To be continued in the twelfth intallment of this post.
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.
Bibliography
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.
Posted 31 July 2025. Updated 12 August 2025.
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