Super-Hacker Gary McKinnon Will Be Extradited To United States

The guy commited a crime, theres no doubt about that, but his crime should be tried in the UK and he would be sentenced and jailed here. Seems to me that the US Gov wants to make an example of a non US citizen who commited a crime from outside the US exposing the poor state of security in some US defence department and NASA computors.
I wonder if the roles were reversed if the US would allow one of their citizens to be tried outside of the US for a crime commited on US soil against a foreign computor network?
Somehow i dont think it would happen, do you?
If no one has read the extradition treaty between the US and UK here it is. See anything a bit one sided about it?
Heres a quote from the linked page........ "Under the new treaty, the allegations of the US government will be enough to secure the extradition of people from the UK. However, if the UK wants to extradite someone from the US, evidence to the standard of a "reasonable" demonstration of guilt will still be required."
Wow when did we become the newest state of the United States? The UK has to provide a "reasonable" demonstration of guilt" but the word of the US Government will be enough to secure the extradition of a UK citizen? My God what moron in Blairs Government signed that little piece of paper?
Ahh it was David Blunkett, should have known.

[edit on 8-7-2006 by Janus]

Originally posted by jsobecky
Old ways of thinking must yield to today's technology. Else we'd still be putting people in town square stocks for punishment.

As long as sovereign nations still exist then the "Old Ways" will and must always apply. In the absence of a grand looming international law enforcement agency, the individuality of countries must be preserved. Otherwise we truely are on the fast track to having a New World Order.

I know I would prefer to avoid that. Wouldn't you?

I'm really striving to understand how people have already cannonized McKinnon even though he failed miserably to provide the public with ahy real truth about aliens. His most exciting 'find' if you can even use that word was the list of 'Non-Terrestrial Officers'. Thats about as vague as you can get, and probably refered to those onboard various ships or maybe even a star-wars program of sorts. He also admitted to "smoking a lot of dope at the time. Not good for the intellect" so anything he thinks he saw may be just another fancy of a stoned mind.

Honestly I like the idea of him being brought over just for the fact it will send the right message to the world, that we will agressively persue those who commit computer crimes against us. If we just sat there and let him sit over in the UK free as a bird every skiddie out there is going to get a set of brass ones and find a nice computer-law-free country to hack from and enjoy immunity from justice.

He may have been looking for proof of UFOs and such but he still comitted a crime: accessing a system he did not have express permission to access. Misconfiguration, stale patches, whatever he used to get in does not make it okay in any way, shape or form.

Gary exposed the FACT that our finest cyber security measures are in the hands of buffoons!

Robert Lyttle of Deceptive Duo fame did the same thing except without the whole UFO spin, guess what...he got busted as he should have. There are far better and more responsible ways to make bugs known other than exploiting them. But no instead of doing the right thing these guys choose the black-hat road and look where it lands them.

Are people defending him just because of his supposed crusade to find proof of UFOs and just discarding the hard facts that he indeed did commit crimes?

Hey personally I think a unified one world government is not a bad idea. Whats wrong with a world as portrayed like in starship troopers. I think thats a badass way to have a society.

Originally posted by Helig
Honestly I like the idea of him being brought over just for the fact it will send the right message to the world, that we will agressively persue those who commit computer crimes against us. If we just sat there and let him sit over in the UK free as a bird every skiddie out there is going to get a set of brass ones and find a nice computer-law-free country to hack from and enjoy immunity from justice.

Do we have a right to arrest coca plantation owners in Colombia because their product is illegally sold here in the US? Of course not. They are Colombia's problem, because they are in Colombias jurisdiction. The best we can do is convince the Colombian government to act in a manner in line with our wishes.

The message we are sending to the world is that we dont care about international borders. Everyone is under our jurisdiction, and we have the right to import anyone who violates a US law that harms a US entity even if the perpetrator was never on US soil.

Absolutely we shouldn't let him sit free in the UK. We must ensure that the UK government punishes him in an appropriate matter. If the hacker were in a country that had no computer crime laws, then there are obvious ways to deal with that.

However I suppose this is all water under the bridge as the extradition has been granted. I hope there is an appeal. Otherwise this is setting a very dangerous precedent.

Originally posted by jsobecky
Who are you to determine the dollar damage of the damage done and what it cost to repair it?

Someone who noticed how the US gov came up with the damage assessment. It's obviously a necessary nonsense to get the extradition agreement working. And someone who has noticed, time and again, the extent to which the US government is prepared to flat-out lie for its own ends. Someone not in thrall to the US government or easily gulled by its assertions.

As for those people spouting the tired cliche "if you can't do the time"... I'm sure they're always happy under authoritarian regimes like the US. Personally I prefer the kind of freedom we have in Europe.

Yeah, that was me. We have all the freedoms you wish for. Europe is stale, you have no "freedom".

We don't have the freedom to bear arms. Big deal. In every other way, we're way ahead of the game. And what does "stale" mean in this context? I suspect you probably mean cultured....

I can't believe after some months this guy is still being portrayed as a "super hacker". The ones that don't get caught are the ones people should be lookin for. As for this script kiddie, any network admin, pen tester, hacker, etc could tell everyone the method used to gain access was so lame it shouldn't have been made so big of an issue. People have gained access to .gov DB's for years and suddenly just because this person forgot to use a BNC, remote PC, etc...he gets caught and all of a sudden BAM, he's the world's super hacker.

On another note, no one should ever compare this kid to someone as kevin mitnick because unlike the former, the latter was able to elude authorities for years before finally giving in and had a more reputable background with communications and computer hardware.

Originally posted by semperfortis
Borg,

I have to kind of agree with Hard to get.

The laws were created for a different kind of hacker. Not some idiot that was just meddling.

Semper

While I understand the law is being used to an extreme here, the point still shouldn't be about the poor picked on hacker. It should be on the very pertinent fact that he deliberately, and willingly infiltrated several government servers, knowing full well that they were operating with un-updated systems, and got into information which he was not privy to. He knew this was against the law going in, and yet he still did it. Should he be prosecuted? You bet your backend he should.

I liken this to someone breaking into your home while you're asleep. If you catch them, technically you can shoot them dead and claim self-defense, since he/she was trying to take your property. Now in this case, he was simply snooping where he wasn't supposed to be by electronic means. Does this mean that he's any less responsible for his actions just because he's using a computer? I think not. He got careless and got caught, case closed.

My main question still stands; why is everyone rallying behind someone that willingly committed a criminal act? Has society in general degraded to the point that we laud the criminal, when it should be the lawmen that we put in charge of protecting us that we should be lauding instead?

TheBorg

The US government has no case, and it knows it has no case.

The entire outlook is very simply the fact that these "highly secret and secure," sites on the internet named their "Administrator," without a password. They are responsible for the so called "damage," because they failed to secure their computers with a password at all!

Think about it, there is no crime at all here! Anyone anywhere can access another computer on the internet when it fails to have a password. Now even when computers have a password, there are scanners to put plausible words into place, so that is why you put something like "@smart2$," rather than "smartone," as a password. The fact is that these government computers are run by internet illiterate fools, so there is no case at all. This "master hacker," actually has very few skills, while the US government is covering its stupidity by making heavy charges on a very average internet user who was careless enough to give a traceable email address during his romp.

The fact that he discovered ET of some kind on these "secret computers," demonstrates possibly a disinformation campaign in itself, one that is bolstered by the criminal charges. Even that scenario invalidates the prosecution, as well as the content of the data. It too may or may not be a "red herring." Is this all a setup? Only time will tell. Can one reasonably expect a fair trial here, given the current system handling it? Does the fact that reasonable men are contemplating a prosecution here only bespeak the computer illiteracy that clutters government? Amidst all this ignorance is the very real possibility that an innocent man exercising the most basic internet skills is being railroaded.

[edit on 9-7-2006 by SkipShipman]

So this guy managed to hack into US DOD and NASA computers to look for evidence of UFO and aliens. after smoking lots of dope.

1) if some stoned hacker could hack in to a secure system in the DOD and nasa, umm firewall? encrytion? you would think that these place has top draw securtiy systems as they are sort of classified systems.

2) if the US goverment really does have info on UFO and aliens contact, im sure that it locked away somewhere very secure and not on any public system that any muppett can access. ( what was he smoking to make him think if he found something that he would have a hope in hell of getting the info out to the public before MI5 or FBI are kicking down his door)

3) This guy will be tried and convicted as sent to prison for a long time, so the US can A cover up what rubbish sercutiy they have and B) to make an example of 1 guy who had too much time on his hands.


Why dont they get the guy to help them make there systems hacker proof. and also it anthor case of the UK rolling over and playing dead for the Bush adminstartion. as this "law" dosent go both ways, the UK goverment has signed it into law, but US congress has yet to sign off on it. Ummm fair, me thinks not.

Breaking into an unsecure database, is still breaking in to a databse. It is a crime. It is digital trespassing.

I said it before I will say it again, if I break down your door and rob your house, are you goig to come after the company whos lock and chain could not hold up to my foot and rally to keep me free? Or are you going to come after me? This is EXACTLY the same thing.

Under US law the damage includes the cost to rectify the security flaws that allowed him access. The actual cost of his actions was less than $1000 as only a couple of pcs had to be reimaged to remove the software he put on them.

Id be pretty damn worried too if I was him. They might send him to gitmo.

The current state of U.S. jusitce and international policies really doesn't inspire confidence. He did commit a crime tho. Regardless of his intent. The only way this could be balanced out is if the information he recovered from the computers was equally criminal in its supression and was damning of the U.S. government.

What exactly did he recover? Did he save any copies? Does he have proof?

Originally posted by Ph0b0s
On another note, no one should ever compare this kid to someone as kevin mitnick because unlike the former, the latter was able to elude authorities for years before finally giving in and had a more reputable background with communications and computer hardware.

Actually the comparison is valid. Mitnick also made a stupid mistake that got him busted: he used the same ESN/MIN pair on his cloned cellphone for too long and was able to be tracked because of it. Mitnick had little skill in coding or systems cracking. He was a VERY good social engineer and little more.

If you think hacking is all writing buffer overflows and race conditions, then I suggest you review the definition of script kiddie. Some of the most skilled hackers on record used exploits that someone else discovered. The talent comes from finding the holes and navigating through them. You're condemning him because instead of looking for new vunerabilities to exploit, he took advantage of ones that were already there. Only a fool would ignore available holes just to make new ones.

Have you sat down and read every book of the Britannica front to back? No? Then you are using second hand knowledge in your daily life are you not? No different, sorry.

If he is brought here he will be made an example of, just like Mitnick. An example to all the other hackers out there, because they'll be the only ones listening.

[edit on 9-7-2006 by apc]

It's beyond obvious that they want to use him as a scapegoat.

Thou shalt not expose our pathetic cyber security after we've bilked the taxpayer for billions
following 9/11.

I really do hope this gets turned around to show just how much fraud, waste and incompetence
our nation depends on.

Originally posted by DYepes

The taliban did not cooperate in giving up Bin-Laden when linked to 9/11, it would be such a shame for something like that to happen to Britain....

Yes but Bin Laden was a terrorist leader who admitted being behind 9/11, which cost lives and damage. Mckinnon is a curious nerd who hasn't cost any life and I doubt he cost as much damage as they say. America aren't exactly going to go mental and bomb the UK if they don't extradite him. They'd look like right tw*ts lol

Originally posted by HardToGet

What if they ship him to Guantanamo Bay? Yikes.

I wouldn't like to be him if he is shipped there! After being there for a year or so, people will probably forget about him, he'll fade out of the media and probably get beaten around a bit. Or a lot. As I said before, it's a bit unfair for him to be treated as a terrorist when all he is really is a nerd lol

Apparently Gary discovered something nobody should see...

BBC News

By the late 1990s, Mr McKinnon decided to use his hacking skills to do what he calls "research" on an issue he firmly believes in. Mr McKinnon told the BBC that he is convinced that the United States government is withholding critical information about Unidentified Flying Objects.

Mr McKinnon further explained that he believes the US military has reverse engineered an anti-gravity propulsion system from recovered alien spacecraft, and that this propulsion system is being kept a secret.

As for his quest to find evidence of a UFO cover-up, Mr McKinnon has said that he found some circumstantial evidence online to back his claims, including what he said are photos with what he speculated were alien spacecraft airbrushed out of the picture.

'UFO Hacker' Tells What He Found

After allegedly hacking into NASA websites -- where he says he found images of what looked like extraterrestrial spaceships -- the 40-year-old Briton faces extradition to the United States from his North London home.


Wired News: Did you find anything in your search for evidence of UFOs?

Gary McKinnon: Certainly did. There is The Disclosure Project. This is a book with 400 testimonials from everyone from air traffic controllers to those responsible for launching nuclear missiles. Very credible witnesses. They talk about reverse-(engineered) technology taken from captured or destroyed alien craft.

Wired News: What sort of evidence?

Gary McKinnon:A NASA photographic expert said that there was a Building 8 at Johnson Space Center where they regularly airbrushed out images of UFOs from the high-resolution satellite imaging. I logged on to NASA and was able to access this department. They had huge, high-resolution images stored in their picture files. They had filtered and unfiltered, or processed and unprocessed, files.

My dialup 56K connection was very slow trying to download one of these picture files. As this was happening, I had remote control of their desktop, and by adjusting it to 4-bit color and low screen resolution, I was able to briefly see one of these pictures. It was a silvery, cigar-shaped object with geodesic spheres on either side. There were no visible seams or riveting. There was no reference to the size of the object and the picture was taken presumably by a satellite looking down on it. The object didn't look manmade or anything like what we have created. Because I was using a Java application, I could only get a screenshot of the picture -- it did not go into my temporary internet files. At my crowning moment, someone at NASA discovered what I was doing and I was disconnected.

I also got access to Excel spreadsheets. One was titled "Non-Terrestrial Officers." It contained names and ranks of U.S. Air Force personnel who are not registered anywhere else. It also contained information about ship-to-ship transfers, but I've never seen the names of these ships noted anywhere else.

Well that sure is a bunch of serious reasons for NASA and the US goverment to quickly "remove" Gary and prevent him from speaking some more, about the hard Evidence he found on comptuers he hacked.

I would love to see one of those non-censored-huge, high-resolution images.

Malganis_7/9/2006 at 05:38 AM says:
Yes but Bin Laden was a terrorist leader who admitted being behind 9/11, which cost lives and damage.

How does that relate to this thread?

Most here are aware that Bin Laden publicly denied involvement in 911 and that the post 911 videos of Bin Laden supposedly admitting involvement are fakes.

Off-topic misinformation such as this occurs regularly on ATS. It's a subtle and effective method of propaganda. Do the mods and others filter it out and ignore it, or does it seep into your subconscious and subtly influence your points of view.

[edit on 7/9/2006 by dubiousone]

I friggin hate hackers. What is the damn point? Ohh they lurch around making viruses, lurking to steal peoples information, always trying to deface or tresspass onto digital property. They could very well all be sent to Gitmo for all I care, including but not limited to the guy involved. I hope all hackers think twice now before they use their damned skills for illigetimate reasons.

You are confusing hackers with crackers. They are quite different. Hackers seek to learn. Crackers seek to harm.

Most hackers either become or are already network and systems administrators. Their skills are put to use every single day to ensure the security of their networks, and yours. There is no harm in hacking. In many states it remains legal as long as data is not altered. But that is where the line is drawn. If a hacker decides to use his/her skills to obtain compromising information, destroy sensitive systems, or any other destructive act, they graduate to the level of cracker. It is the cracker you hate. Not the hacker.

>
btw I get to post under this login until mine fixored. joy.

[edit on 9-7-2006 by apc_broken]