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."
"Apparently he broke into US military computers to hunt for evidence of a UFO cover-up."
It sounds like an excuse to me.
So is the guy really nutty or is this just an attempt to justify his illegal activities?
Then again, perhaps he was on to something?
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
Really? Because he broke into a Pentagon network? That just makes him stupid; if he were really a big hacker, he'd be doing blackhat corporate work. UFOs! Yeah...whatever.
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
1 Beeelllion Dollars?
Where do they get that from? If that's really the case, it would only take about 6,000 people to cause enough damage to double the national debt!
The article doesn't mention anything anywhere about pure damages, for starters. It mentions the costs associated with tracking and capturing the guy, and costs correcting some of the problems - combined. Those costs are listed as 570,000 pounds. At the exchange rate I just looked up (1.83 dollars to a pound), that's still only 1,054,500 dollars, which is more like a meeelllion dollars. Even if they tack on the 950,000 pound in fines, that's still not even three million.
That's a far cry from a billion... and about two million less than the damages Kevin Mitnick was supposed to have caused.
Frankly, they should have just let this guy find some "evidence" of UFOs. Then he might have spent his time trying to convince people of it instead of looking for more!
libertarianswag.com
According to this, he's free on bail:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4071708.stm
He only committed a crime in the UK even though the effects that crime where in the US. There are already enough laws in the UK about breaking into military sensitive computers that can put him in jail for a very long time and there are enough treaties with the US so that breaking into a US military computer in the UK can get you thrown in jail forever.
The judge should rule that he can't be extradited to the US until he has been tried in the UK and then only if the US has charges that don't fit into double jeopardy.
Exactly. In my time working with school district (a government entity, of course), consultants will come in and make a big deal about "security", and sell a district a PO a mile long with all sorts of unnecessary crap on it. I have even seen them produce port-scanning logs as evidence of "being hacked." The School Boards will happily hand over $100,000 (in a district with a $2 million yearly budget) to remedy this "security hole." It's the same in the huge government boondoggle of departments and agencies. I'm getting more and more convinced that the coming crisis of the world pulling out of US bond markets is the best thing that could happen; right now this country has unlimited money, and is busy making an unlimited bureaucracy to spend all of it...
If this is what you do everytime theres a break-in at your company, I fear for your security. First off, you're presuming that he didn't delete the accounts beyond ADs ability to restore them, which is a pretty big assumption. And you're ignoring the work involved in auditing the restores of all the users data and privledges, to make sure that you don't accidently restore any tampering. Dealing with a large scale security breach is complicated and a major task, and while it's not fair to pin the total cost on the hacker (like fixing the hole he came in through), the secondary costs can be quite large - auditing and figuring out how he came in in the first place, deciding exactly how much of your infrastructure you can trust after the breakin, what a safe date to restore off tape is, etc, etc.
The evidence so far is that the guy IS a skript-kiddie, and probably not a very good one at that. If, after countless reviews and endless debate, many Federal agencies are still scoring D or worse on their own evaluations, I cannot find any reason to have any confidence in their ability to secure their systems.
Perhaps, instead of wasting time chasing UFO spotters, they should be putting more time and effort into getting their own house in order. Windows machines are rated for standalone security, not network security, and Windows is only C-class even then. That may be fine for a desktop hosting seriously unimportant files, but I would not regard that as nearly good enough for servers or desktops likely to have files of significance.
For the sorts of establishments we're talking here, I would say that a minimum of B3 on internal security and something comparable for network security should be the minimum for anything beyond the kiosks they've been pushing people onto.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)