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World's Biggest Hacker Held

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the is-that-girth-mass-or-height dept.

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."

4 of 631 comments (clear)

  1. Re:what? by Smidge204 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To be fair, the cost of finding and fixing trhe holes should not be included. After all, it was broken before he got there.

    Not to mention that they should be found and fixed regardless of any intrusions.
    =Smidge=

  2. Re:what? by the_bard17 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not to mention trying to figure out where all those holes in security came from and patching them.

    Yeah, that makes sense. Pawn the cost of fixing your security holes on the guy who found them.

    If my house ever gets burglarized, I'm going to try to get the burglar to pay the contractor to fix the "hole" the burglar got in through.

  3. Most secure? by Mille+Mots · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ...The unemployed former computer engineer is accused of causing the US government $1billion of damage by breaking into its most secure computers at the Pentagon and Nasa...

    Maybe it's just me, but any device connected to any other device is no longer to be considered as secure.

    I would have guessed that the gubbermint's "most secure computers" would be airgapped, but apparently that is not the case. Or, perhaps, the author of TFA is being just a bit sensational and overdramatic. ;)

  4. A Darwin Award nomination, say I! by Dystopian+Rebel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The guy is smart enough to cobble together scripts and guess passwords so he can get into computers run by US Military Intelligence ("The World's Biggest Oxymoron", by the way)...

    And what does he look for? UFO information! Now he's facing 70 years in prison.

    Come on, that must be the equivalent of tipping a Coca-Cola machine onto yourself.

    --
    Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.