Slashdot Mirror
World's Biggest Hacker Held
Hieronymus Howard writes "The London Evening Standard is reporting that the "worlds biggest computer hacker" has been arrested in London.
Gary McKinnon, 39, was seized by the Met's extradition unit at his Wood Green home.
The unemployed former computer engineer is accused of causing the U.S. government $1 billion of damage by breaking into its most secure computers at the Pentagon and NASA. He is likely to be extradited to America to face eight counts of computer crime in 14 states and could be jailed for 70 years. Apparently he broke into U.S. military computers to hunt for evidence of a UFO cover-up."
The Evening Standard releases The Metro and Evening Standard Lite. All are rubbish.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
Theres an error in the summary. No one claimed he was the world's biggest hacker. The quote was in fact "Mr McKinnon is charged with the biggest military computer hack of all time"
-Paul McNulty, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia
"Its a grey area". "How grey?" "Somewhat of a charcoal shade"
I think some chump is getting confused about millions and billions. He probably thought the US million was a UK billion or something like that. It is now generally accepted everywhere that a billion is a 1,000 million, not a 1,000,000 million.
The wikipedia article clarifies
"The Briton was indicted in 2002 by a federal grand jury on eight counts of computer-related crimes in 14 different states.
It claimed that he hacked into an army computer at Fort Myer, Virginia, obtained administrator privileges and transmitted codes, information and commands.
Unauthorised access
He is accused of then deleting around 1,300 user accounts.
The indictment alleged Mr McKinnon also deleted "critical system files" on the computer, copied a file containing usernames and encrypted passwords for the computer and installed tools to gain unauthorised access to other computers.
A loss of over $5,000 (£2,725) to the Army stemmed from the alleged damage, according to the indictment."
So in the space of three years, $5K becomes $100M? Nice rate of return, if you can get it...
However, in this case TFA on cnn at least, gives a figure of 1300 user accounts deleted in one instance. That probably involved real cost. He wasn't just looking for info, he was also being malicious.
Six score characters.
Brevity being wit's soul
I have enough space.
He didn't find anything because nothing exists. Carl Sagan once said that by his estimate, the knowledge of alien life would most likely be a secret for all of two hours upon discovery (...or was it Issac Azimov).
I was in the Navy for six years. There are no secret alien files being held on servers. The Government and our nations military are made up of the same everyday shmoes as you and me. They've all worked in malls or mc'donalds at one time, played video games, and are TOTALLY INCAPEABLE of keeping a secret of this magnatude for 60+ YEARS... trust me!
They have different meanings in Britain and the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion
Of course, something as Earth-shattering as UFO proof wouldn't get anywhere near a computer only approved for 'Secret'. Think secure facilities with guards, shielded rooms and computers, and vaults. Where classified networks do exist, you'll see mandatory physical separation distances between cables to avoid crosstalk, heavy use of fiber optics, pressurized conduits, and so forth.
Fortunately I don't often have to deal with that stuff. As exciting and mysterious as classified data processing might sound, it's mostly boring and a freaking pain in the ass to deal with.
According to the BBC it caused $1 million in damages not billion.
Everyone, please send emails to this address of a similar nature:
7 14?source=Evening%20Standard&ct=5
m l
Dear editor,
I am a computer hacker. By this, I mean that I enjoy learning and exploring computer technology. I have a degree in computer science, and am involved in many not-for-profit computer-technology endeavors. I am not a criminal. I do not violate computer security, I do not write malicious software, and I do not intentionally cause harm to the computer systems that I have access to. Any computer system access that I have has been given to me through legitimate means. It has come to my attention that you have used the term 'hacker' in the article linked below to indicate a person who intentionally violates computer security systems: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/19164
The proper term for such a person is 'cracker' or 'security breaker', i.e. one that "cracks" computer security. By using the term 'hacker' in the way that your publication has done, you spread misinformation about me, and people like me. You are demeaning and destroying a culture that, above all, values learning, knowledge, and wisdom. Please stop insulting hackers by equating them with criminals. For more information, see here: http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/appendixc.ht
Please issue a correction, and please make sure that a clear distinction is made in the future.
(your name here)
A Proud Hacker
I pity the foo that isn't metasyntactic
And on a related note, what accounts for the $1billion damages?
I've just read Bruce Sterling's "Hacker Crackdown", in which there is a similar claim by a large corporation (AT&T) of a document being worth almost $80k, while a very similar document was sold for 13 bucks by the same company to anyone who asked for it.
The interesting part was how they arrived to the 80k figure for a 12 page doc. In it they computed, among other things, two weeks of a typist and an observer...
Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
Let's put some real math behind this...
.0043". It takes 12.5M twenties to make $0.25B. 12.5M twenties then equals about 498 cubic feet.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing states that the current US currency is 2.61" x 6.14" x
According to Volkswagen, the new Beetle is 161.1" x 67.9" x 59.0", which works out to about 373 cubic feet. Since the volume of the car is somewhat less than its bounding box, I'd say that $0.25B in $20 bills is significantly larger than a VW bug.
A bug is probably closer to a quarter billion in fifties, which would be about 199 cubic feet.
You turn in YOUR nerd card.
Technically not true. In most places the SIPRNET runs over the same infrastructure (wires, switches, etc) that the unclassified traffic runs over. The SIPRNET traffic is just encrypted using TACLANEs, so it is essentially a classified VPN as opposed to a physically separate network. It would be theoretically possible to hack into the SIPRNET from the Internet by compromising a TACLANE.
He's not dead or castrated.
To be eligible for a Darwin one must remove oneself from the gene pool.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Under the UK Extradition Act of 2003 the US does not have to show any evidence at the extradition hearing.
The fact that he has been charged in a US court is sufficient, so I wouldn't bet on the judge ruling as you say.
The converse does not apply to UK extradition requests to the USA.
This has been applied to 3 bankers involved in the Enron fraud.