Slashdot Mirror


NASA Hacker Gary McKinnon Interviewed

An anonymous reader writes "A BBC article reports about an interview between Click and Gary McKinnon who in 2002 hacked into NASA and other US Military networks. In the interview he talks about how he accessed machines by using default passwords and a conversation with a NASA network engineer using Wordpad. He also talks about how he found information about anti-gravity, UFO technology, free energy and how UFOs are regularly airbrushed out from high-resolution satellite images."

11 of 402 comments (clear)

  1. I'm really skeptical by suso · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, the graphical remote viewer works frame by frame. It's a Java application, so there's nothing to save on your hard drive, or at least if it is, only one frame at a time.

    What kind of moron spends 3 years breaking into government computers and doesn't know how to do a screen capture or see the importance of saving what he's doing. Sorry folks, but from reading this interview, he seems like bullshit.

    1. Re:I'm really skeptical by gerardrj · · Score: 5, Informative
      This guy's full of shit. His answers don't make sense.

      ...and bearing in mind this is a 56k dial-up, so a very slow internet connection, in dial-up days..."

      "...No, the graphical remote viewer works frame by frame. It's a Java application..."

      "SK: You were actually cut off the time you were downloading the picture?
      GM: Yes, I saw the guy's hand move across."


      Can someone show me a a Java VM that existed and would have been the programming language of choice in the "dial-up days"? At least to me the heyday of dialup was the late 80s to mid 90s, then cable and DSL started taking over. The first version of Java wasn't released until about '96 and wasn't widely deployed/accepted until 2000 or so.

      HOW did he see a "guy's hand move" over a dial-up connection that was sending about 1 frame every 2 minutes at best?

      Idiot. I'm guessing the interview was so short because the BBC interviewer smelled the BS.
      --
      Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
  2. UFOs, free energy, and anti-gravity? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is he certain he didn't stumble on a NASA honeypot?

  3. UFO Vs Alien & Gary's Flakey Story by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I'm going to throw out this warning that this article was not fairly summarized by Slashdot.

    I will preemptively state that UFO does not necessarily mean extraterrestrial technology or not from this planet. In the raw form of the acronym, it means simple that there is an Unidentified Flying Object. There are most likely hundreds of types of aircraft that governments around the world would refuse to classify due to a need to keep their enemies in the dark (national security).

    From the article:
    Gary McKinnon: I was in search of suppressed technology, laughingly referred to as UFO technology. I think it's the biggest kept secret in the world because of its comic value, but it's a very important thing.
    He interchangeably uses "suppressed technology" with "UFO technology." I'm certain the United States Government has tons of suppressed technology as well as any other government for obvious reasons.

    I should finish the quote, however:
    Old-age pensioners can't pay their fuel bills, countries are invaded to award oil contracts to the West, and meanwhile secretive parts of the secret government are sitting on suppressed technology for free energy.
    Ok, that last bit about free energy, you can go ahead and call him a nut job. And then there's also this:
    I got one picture out of the folder, and bearing in mind this is a 56k dial-up, so a very slow internet connection, in dial-up days, using the remote control programme I turned the colour down to 4bit colour and the screen resolution really, really low, and even then the picture was still juddering as it came onto the screen.

    But what came on to the screen was amazing. It was a culmination of all my efforts. It was a picture of something that definitely wasn't man-made.
    Yeah, Gary, it sure is crazy how you can mess with the color quality and resolution of an image to make it look like my family picture is really some image a green gelatinous blob that eats people.
    Firstly, because of what I was looking for, I think I was morally correct. Even though I regret it now, I think the free energy technology should be publicly available.
    Uh, I only heard a story about a blimp above the earth's atmosphere. Where was the story where you saw a device that produced unlimited amounts of energy?

    "In my house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!" - Homer Simpson
    --
    My work here is dung.
  4. Conspiracy by kakapo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The thing that always surprises me about these Giant Conspiracy nutjobs is that they never really ask themselves how such a conspiracy would *work*. There must be thousands of people in the know, going back for at least 30 years -- and they really think this wouldn't have leaked by now??

    Apple can't keep the date they launch new computers secret (next Tuesday for the next batch intel powerbooks, by all accounts). And that is a secret with a finite lifetime (three months ago not even Steve Jobs knew the date -- a week from now everyone will know it).

    The NSA can't randomly listen in on international calls for more than a year or two without someone blowing the whistle. The CIA grabs some very bad guy in Pakistan and holds his head underwater, and a few months later we can all read about it in the New Yorker.

    Remember this giant conspiracy is brought to you by the same people who run FEMA and promote "absitence only" sex education as a solution to teen pregnancy. But somehow the conspiracy works well until some script kiddie breaks into NASA over a dialup line (you plan to find free energy devices that will change the face of civilization, and you can't spring for DSL??) and you find that all these "secrets" are protected by default passwords. This guy presumably did hack into NASA, but the rest of it crap -- he is either nuts, or hoping that the Feds will decide it isn't worth the bother to have the guy spouting this nonsense on the stand.

    1. Re:Conspiracy by Paladin144 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      The thing that always surprises me about these Giant Conspiracy nutjobs is that they never really ask themselves how such a conspiracy would *work*. There must be thousands of people in the know, going back for at least 30 years -- and they really think this wouldn't have leaked by now??

      Works pretty well, I'd say. If somebody ever comes out and starts telling secrets, they are immediately branded a "giant conspiracy nutjob." And after that.... and after that nothing. Nobody pays attention to them any more. Case closed. I wonder how many of the people who screamed "nutjob" had even finished reading the article before they made up their mind. I wonder how many have done any serious research into the matter.

      I'm not saying this guy is for real. You'd think he'd get something better than dialup if this is his obsession. But to claim that a massive conspiracy couldn't work is just ludicrous. It's all about getting people to play along, while compartmentalizing knowledge. It's possible nobody really knows all the big secrets out there. So then is it really even a conspiracy? Sounds more like it's just our fucked up world, where everyone thinks he knows everything.

      The NSA can't randomly listen in on international calls for more than a year or two without someone blowing the whistle. The CIA grabs some very bad guy in Pakistan and holds his head underwater, and a few months later we can all read about it in the New Yorker.

      The NSA has been listening to domestic calls for over 30 years. Get a clue. Read some of my older posts for more information on this. It's people like you who make "conspiracy" possible, because you don't question what leaders tell you. The reason why nobody is too shocked about Bush's international call spying is because most people of power in Washington know that the NSA has been monitoring domestic calls for decades. It's really not that big of a deal. But you can't talk about it in polite company without being branded a nutjob, no matter how many facts are on your side.

      You're not one of those people who doesn't believe in any conspiracies, are you? There are folks out there who reject the very idea of a conspiracy, saying that it has never happened, in all of human history - EVER....And people say conspiracy "theorists" are the nutjobs. sheesh. The whole coincidence theory crowd actually just makes the conspiracy theorist crowd more paranoid because it leads them to believe that everyone has been brainwashed. In a way, I suppose, it's true.

      Conspiracies can be very benign and very mundane. For instance, I am party to a secret conspiracy to fool people worldwide. I bet you are, too. It involves telling children that a fat guy in a red suit flies around the planet delivering presents to the entire world in just 24 hours. That's right: Santa Claus. Have you ever really wondered why we tell our children such ridiculous lies? And the creepy thing is that every adult is in on the conspiracy. How can it be possible that we are all a party to this vast conspiracy? What do we even have to gain from it?

      The weird thing is, if you dare to tell a child the truth, their parents will get upset at you! It's insane. I met a guy recently who admitted he believed in Santa until he was 16 years old. And somebody had to tell him! He was devastated! Now, if this guy tells me there's no such thing as UFOs, should I believe him? Personally, I was rigging boobytraps for Santa by the time I was 6 or 7 years old.

      My point is, don't be so sure that our leaders are telling the truth. Sometimes people -- no, whole cultures lie, for no good reason. That doesn't mean Gary McKinnon isn't full of shit, but it's impossible to know for sure. There is certainly more to our world than meets the eye.

  5. UFO Conspiracy Theories Debunked by Geopolitics. by Valdrax · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Consider this: WHY would you show off your MOST ADVANCED technology if your LESS ADVANCED technology already IS SUPERIOUR to the adversarys?

    You've obviously never read up on the kind of technological fantasies the US military has. Despite your BOLD STATEMENTS that EMPHATICALLY use CAPITALIZED WORDS which make me DOUBT YOUR SANITY, the US military is completely and totally incapable of understanding the words "good enough." Even though our military technology can stomp on anyone on the planet, the Pentagon has long argued for increased capabilities against a phantom Chinese threat. They conjure up the image of China suddenly having tech on par with ours in 10-20 years as a boogeyman to justify bigger and fatter budgets for more powerful weapons.

    Second, the space program is a black eye for the US. It was a prominent sign of American strength and leadership that has decayed into a series of failures. It costs a ridiculous amount of money to send a space shuttle up and to deploy our many satellites. If we had alien technology, then we could half NASA's budget and accomplish the same goals. We could also cheaply weaponize space like the Pentagon always fantasizes about.

    Third, oil. We have a lot of shady alliances worldwide that revolve completely around access to oil. Take Saudi Arabia. We've known for decades that the Saudis are state sponsors of terrorist groups and have spent their money heavily to foment Muslim radicalism. We know that the majority of the 9-11 attackers were Saudis. However, we're still all buddy-buddy with them because of oil. If we weren't dependent on oil, we could pressure the country towards democracy or at least leave it as some sort of backwater of no importance and focus on developing more friendly allies elsewhere.

    Take Venezuela. The US government has long thought that the rise of Communism and Socialism in Latin America was to be stopped at all costs -- even to the point of toppling democracies for dictatorships. (I really, really hate this policy, BTW.) Venezuela is the vanguard of a new South American socialism movement, and it only succeeds because the state oil industry can support the entire economy. Guess what country is the number one customer of Venezuela despite our official dislike of Chavez? The US of course.

    Take Iran. Right now, our conflict with Iran over nuclear power/weapons is sending oil prices skyrocketting and hurting Americans. If we had free energy, then Iran would have no leverage. If we were smart, we'd give it to the Chinese and the Russians and remove the economic leverage that makes them veto UN resolutions against Iran, Sudan, etc.

    Oil blocks a very, very large amount of US foreign policy goals and make us have some goals that are very unsavory. Free energy would not only boost our economy, but it would make many of Washington's dreams possible. To say that we have it and aren't using it is to BLATANTLY IGNORE GEOPOLITICS.

    Then again, I don't expect to reach you with facts. For crying out loud, you post a link to a site which goes on about "Illuminati," "The New World Order," and "Chemtrails." If you can offer a RATIONAL explanation of why we have a greater interest in hiding technology than in using it, I'd love to hear it. Bonus points if you can explain why 100 years advanced military technology isn't being used in Iraq right now.

    --
    If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
  6. Re:65000 passwords in 8 minutes? by Quixote · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Perl script need not run on his machine. He could have logged into a machine inside the network, and then run this script against the other machines on the network.

  7. I BELIEVE HIM by CranberryKing · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am seeing a lot of criticism but you are all looking for holes. Addressing those arguments:

    * The "hand moving accross".. he meant the mouse was then controlled by someone viewing the desktop who realized he was remotely controlling.
    * [possibly] that same person launched wordpad to type a message knowing he would see it, "who are you? what are you doing?"
    * He didn't save anything because he was just discovering it and didn't know what he would be looking at in advance. Then he was cut off.

    There is nothing unbelievable about his story unless you are still in denial that the governments are hiding free energy technology and awareness of alien life from the general public. If he has changed his story at all, it is probably because he is now contending with the fact that he may spend the rest of his life in 6'x6' concrete room in the US.

    Free Energy is the death blow to the entire class/economic system that keeps most of the world enslaved to 12 families. If we all had access to Free Energy, no one would have to "Earn a Living", we would just live (imagine that). The perfect example is when J.P. Morgan pulled all his funding and effectively shut down Nikola Tesla when he realized Tesla was working on a free energy system. He said (parapharsing possibly) "if it's free to anyone, where do I put the meter?". In a matter of years Wardenclyffe was being dismantled and we know how the rest of the story goes.

    Believe it.

  8. Conspiracy theories are missing the point by zoeblade · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Leaving conspiracy theories aside for a second, isn't it just as interesting and worth commenting on that several American military administrator users that are accessible over the internet aren't password protected, or that the same government is trying to throw this person in jail for sixty years for using these accounts, double what you'd get in the UK (the hacker's own country) for murder?

  9. Honeypots by JacksonAces · · Score: 5, Informative
    This guy is just trying to cover his rear. Here is a quote from another site covering this story. I think it should sort some of the conspiracy theorist's fears about national security:

    from http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink =2051653 :

    erewhon wrote:

    "muninsfire: Calling erewhon....

    Last time this came up, IIRC, it was stated that NASA, et al, have 'honeypot' systems filled with spurious, though tantalizing, information--if you go cracking into 'em multiple times, they trace you and send the guys in the suits who have no sense of humour.


    You rang? This is what, like rerun #4 for this one guy?

    Ok, kiddies, here is something that is the absolute truth. Consider it closely when you go groping around other people's systems.

    All these agencies have their very own MIS departments, who, contrary to popular opinion, are very VERY good at what they do. The military guys have the Defense Information Systems Agency, for example, although quite often the intelligence branches for the various services get in the game as well. We have at least two military MIS guys that post regularly on Fark. One of them works at NORAD, for example.

    Now, it's not unheard of for DIA to launch attacks on various military MIS systems just to see how well they are doing. I recall one physical invasion where they infiltrated a Marine base and corrupted their system, but I digress.

    Here's the deal. There are no less than three military networks. The lowest level is NIPRNET, and it is tied to the civilian internet by gateways. It is fairly secure, but no secure data is trusted on it.

    Next is SIPRNET. SIPRNET is ok for traffic up to 'TS'. SIPRNET is not physically connected to the civilian Internet. Anywhere. At all. You can't "hack into it" because there are no systems with both connections. That is verboten. They audit you to make sure you didn't do some dorky multihomed system with links to both. All the time. There's even rules about how close you can put a NIPRNET and a SIPRNET machine in the same room.

    But wait, SIPRNET is TS at best. It has its very own web program called Intelink-S. SIPRNET has all SORTS of cool stuff on it, but it's been described as tactical instead of strategic and while I don't go surfing around just to see what I can get into (bad form) that's probably true.

    Then you have JWICS. JWICS is top level. It has SCI level stuff. You use Intelink-SCI. It has battle plan type crap, strategic level info. On JWICS the elder gods of They® reside, like Zeus on Olympus. You thought DISA was a biatch about SIPRNET. JWICS isn't the sort of thing you want due to the asspain level it brings you.

    Like SIPRNET, JWICS is totally separate, it has NO physical connections to ANYTHING civilian. It's the sort of thing where they might monitor the freaking dispersion characteristics and signal flight time of the fiber for taps. The sort of thing where they'll probably end up using OAM-entangled modulation. Where the cable sheath might be pressurized and double walled with marker gas in the outer sheath that sets off alarms when the slightest pinhole occurs. Personally, I don't know how the physical level of JWICS is protected and don't want to.

    Now, for the sort of thing our young Brit is discussing, data for SCI projects, that would be on JWICS, if it were stored on ANY accessible server. You would not be getting into JWICS. I can't imagine a more classified project. Hell, it's probably OVER SCI, whatever's up there in the security stratosphere. But it couldn't be less than SCI.

    It would be a violation of any number of legal documents and/or oaths to put something like that on NIPRNET, much less on a civilian web server.

    So, what did he find? Well, they put out honeypots. The term is "military intrusion detection honeypot". You can't readily get to it,