Where is Gary Mckinnon? (NASA Hacker)

That's true. Someone I know told me about the logging of daily attacks on the army's civilian network. He was able to talk in general about how many attacks, but which countries performed the most attacks was secret.

In my personal opinion, the rapid onset of standard computer networking in the 1990s probably lead to a ridiculous number of security policy violations on computer equipment on private networks in government and contractor buildings. Cause back then ld analysts and logistics personnel may have been sloppy with office work.

But that doesn't mean that the hacker had access to anything of significant military value. As Tom has made clear, those networks are likely very different from civilian infrastructure.

In other words, a personnel list is exactly what I might expect to find on some beaurocrat's civilian computer. A table of off-world bases, on the other hand, I would not expect to find.

[edit on 26-2-2007 by Ectoterrestrial]

to futher the point Tom is saying that Gary's claim that he was just snooping around on an open server> is a deception. Tom is saying that Gary knew what he was doing, becuase its is very difficult to locate top secret govt servers.


however Tom suggests that "all" top secret is held on a separate internet. this im not so sure about. it may be protocol to store data on a private internet, but in the case of Gary Mckinnon; he may have gotten lucky, and found info not on a private server. that is also assuming what Gary found was top secret to begin with.

As a point of interest ZOO magazine Australia had an interview with him last week. He was talking about not wanting to be extradited to the US.

He said he's no web vandal, or virus writer, and that he never acted with malicious intent.

But he did admit that he hacked into dozens of US government computer systems. In fact, he calmly detailed just how easy it was to access extremely sensitive information in those systems.

"I found out that the US military use Windows," said Mr McKinnon in that BBC interview. "And having realized this, I assumed it would probably be an easy hack if they hadn't secured it properly."

Using commercially available software, Mr McKinnon probed dozens of US military and government networks. He found many machines without adequate password or firewall protection. So, he simply hacked into them.

Link to external source.

He confesses to the crimes in this interview. I was surprised to find out he is a 40+ year old man. From the description of his lifestyle I'd say he never grew up.

He knowingly committed a crime and has apparently confessed so he should be man enough to stand trial and pay the price. If he had cooperated and worked out a plea deal he probably would have got off with a slap on the wrist. He created the notoriety by trying to get out of trouble he caused himself. From what I just read I think it is apparent he made up his excuse about wanting to benefit society by revealing the UFO info after he was caught. Dropping out of school at 17 should be an indicator of who he is.

The "Honey Pots" do exist, but I don't think this was one.

This was a pretty long period of time.

As Tom already explained I keep seeming to explain whenever someone writes about this yahoo, is that this guy has no access to anything classified. Classified networks usually have to go throught a physical crypto device before its even shuffled out the the wild blue yonder. Keep in mind althought no crypto is completely safe, even the basic 128 bit encryption takes awhile to tear down. And well when I was in the Navy (only 3 yrs ago) they had to change the crypto depending on the sensitivity of the information. So something really classified might be daily crypto change. This guy (like sooo many other before him) did something stupid, he hacked into an unclassified network. He caused a huge amount of damage by deleting over 3000 accounts in efforts to cover his tracks (yeah smart idea there) your right about being made an example as he probably cost alot of tax payers money because all the work that those 3000 people could of done, wasn't because they had to get new accounts and get their accesses to whereever they needed back again. Plus they probably had to have an investigation, so NCIS probably had to spend manhours looking in event logs and tracking down this guy. So yeah the huge bill they tack him with, is because he bascially caused that much work to be lost and time consumed which wouldn't of been consumed in criminal investigation. I've been a Systems administrator for over 10 years, on both classified and unclassified networks and I've seen hackers break into the unclass systems. But even the most basic hacker, (script kiddies) don't usually delete accounts. This guy was dumb and has to find a way to save his reputation and possibly get something out of going to jail. Why not make up a story about seeing data about UFO's? That way he'll get media coverage and seem like a hero, when in all actuality he was just some doped up guy, thinking he was cool.

Sorry I don't have a high opinion of him, but from my experience and his angle in his stories that makes the most sense.

-Aza

PS Tom how is Corry station? or you somewhere else?

Hello,

i don't think that all accessed computers were just honeypots, here is a list with all ip addresses he logged on (they are blacked out in the orginal document, but it wasn't done correctly) cryptome.org...

According to this document he accessed computers of United States Army, United States Navy, NASA, United States Department of Defense, United States Air Force, some universitys, librarys and some companys

Because he used windows and a remotecontrol tool, i believe most of those computers were just ordinary workstations running windows too, very likely some honeypots, but i think not all.

So i don't think they would store sensitive information on those workstations, but maybe some of those computers had access to network shares or something, which had sensitive stuff on it? Could be if you ask me

I hope he does not have to go to jail for 70 years, way too much for computer crime imho...

Its true, he was probably an immature guy.
Its also true that he probably sought to escape his crime by drawing attention to his case with an appeal to the public and anti-us government sentiment.

However, I am not prepared to draw conclusions about what he saw.

Even the biggest buffoon can come across information of interest if he is stupid enough to pursue it and hope he is not caught.

I see no reason to disregard his story because of who he was, just as I see no reason to buy it as a given fact.

Originally posted by Azathoth


PS Tom how is Corry station? or you somewhere else?

Urr...that's a bit hard to explain. Think of us as a field-qualified small defense contractor. We not only can do fast one-off design work, but we can make "house calls" when your stuff isn't working right and the place it's in is inconvenient, so to speak.

We're also the world's only TS/SCI BIOS shop, as far as I know.

thanks for this interview link
i believe this guy tell the truth.
So a ufo looking like a "cigar" ALLRIGHT we must look for that now instead of regular "flying saucers"

Ip scan for 199.122.33.10:
ISP=U.S.A. COMMUNITY FAMILY SUPPORT CENTER

ip scan for 199.114.42.111
ISP=SAM-PENTAGON

kinda strange

[edit on 26-2-2007 by themaster1]

Gary seems to be a very determined person, from what i seen of him being interviewd he didn't seem very determined in what he was saying, nor did he make much eye contact.i actually felt sorry for the woman interviewing him in the yard of his local pub, he looked so shifty it was embarrasing.
He probably did see some dodgy references that HE has made assumptions on and found himself believing them himself in the end.But, as allready stated, theirs no way any military agencies, including NASA would keep any sensitive data on an open network.
Sorry Gary, but you're not kidding us.

PS, im a UFO believer.

[edit on 26-2-2007 by Order Out Of Chaos]

Originally posted by Blaine91555
He knowingly committed a crime and has apparently confessed so he should be man enough to stand trial and pay the price. If he had cooperated and worked out a plea deal he probably would have got off with a slap on the wrist. He created the notoriety by trying to get out of trouble he caused himself. From what I just read I think it is apparent he made up his excuse about wanting to benefit society by revealing the UFO info after he was caught.

Pay the price?

What about the slack security he exposed? It's mindnumbing to think the world's most powerful military kept a lot of information on unsecure computer networks lol. Stupidity is the crime here and on the behalf of the personnel involved.

A) the idea of a 'plea deal' is idiotic as it contradicts the long standing mantra of "we do not negotiate with terrorists". B) If it was simply the case of him serving a light sentence I don't think the whole affair would've dragged on. C) You're not going to charge someone with a 60 year sentence unless he's p*ssed off some top brass in the US and perhaps there MAY be some truth in Gary McKinnon's claim.

Originally posted by Blaine91555
Dropping out of school at 17 should be an indicator of who he is.

That's a banal comment, whether someone has dropped out of school at a particular age has nothing to do with the kind of person they are. I'm sure there have been many a psychotic individual who's had a good academic education; doesn't make them the ideal person. Gary McKinnon at least comes across as somewhat intelligent and articulate in his interviews, and not some brainless idiot who accidentally stumbled onto an unsecure network.

I know its a bit late but I wonder now that the US has claimed this :


news.bbc.co.uk...


I wonder if Gary McKinnon's solicitors are able to use it to his advantage?

Here's something plausible:

He was caught...caught doing something he knows was illegal according to the laws of that country where the equipment resides. Ignorance cannot be claimed. He was caught doing the same thing (through security logs) on more than one system/computer/net/whatever.

Gary is being made into a "folk hero" through media spin. He's far from it. A government is embarassed and wants to give him the duct tape treatment (right alongside waterboarding) for multiple counts of this criminal activity. It's like committing more than one act of GTA - you get charged separately for each one and the sentences are combined. Depending on the judge and the prosecutor (and the size of the networks he supposedly compromised), 70 years is probably light. He is being made an example of, I think.

When you take away all the theories of what he found (not important) or even if he landed in a honeypot (also not important) you come down to this: breaking and entering. Intentionally or not, it is still considered a crime. That he admitted he did it on purpose does not help his case and it takes some pretty fantastic political gymnastics to overturn an extradition request. He's lucky.

It's a simple cyber crime issue made less so by international boundaries. The US, I believe is exercising it's right to try a criminal in it's own court and there is some argument about it because Scotland does not view cyber crime the way the US does.

Think about it this way (or at least try to): if Gary Mckinnon were to have actually found something so earth-shatteringly secret and important, chances are the world would NEVER have heard of him - he would have just "disappeared".

reply to post by Blaine91555



You are absolutely right!

Disagree

History shows when people come forward with claims of ET's/UFO's, they are made to look like fools. Such as in this case. Earth-Shattering evidence? I thought aliens don't exist...