Tory Porn Shock

THE UNIVERSITY is continuing its investigation into the placing of obscene remarks and pornographic images on York University's Conservative and Unionist Association's official web page over the summer.

The offensive material was broadcast worldwide under the Conservative logo until Computer Services at the University became aware of the situation and immediately blocked the pages. The culprit substituted pictures of Margaret Thatcher and Michael Portillo with those of naked females and gay porn under such captions as "John Major's Favourite Pictures". Accounts of society meetings were altered to include calls from Mussolini and Hitler, while details of the associations trip to the London conference were tampered with to suggest members visited sex shops and prostitutes.

The University has ascertained that the alterations, which made the front page of the Sport and appeared in major newspapers such as the Times, occurred in the early hours of the morning on two terminals in Goodricke computer room.

A spokesperson for the university, commented that Computer Services were also sure that these changes were not done by a "hacker" but by someone who had in some way acquired the password which is needed to alter a home-page. Although it is further assumed that it is not a member of the campus tory party itself as the comments were so detrimental to the society.

Hilary Layton, at the University's Press and Publicity office, was anxious to point out that such offences do not only contravene the university's policy, but are also against the law and that staff and students can be prosecuted for broadcasting such material on the internet.

Matthew Stallabrass, campus conservative chair, was summoned to Conservative Central Office in London as a result of the prank.

John Purle, chair 1994/5, commented: "the story made it into more than one newspaper...it must have been press released and so was probably a pre-meditated job with a political motive."

He further defended the society against accusations that security was lax, in light of the fact that the password had not been updated since March stating: "members have the password, as do their friends and so on. The campus conservatives are not a clique - we are an open society."

The associations web-pages have previously come under fire for their content which has been accused of being homophonic and sexist but these allegations have been fiercely denied and are not in any way connected with the current incident.

Sara Nuwar

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