'UK Hackers' Condemn McKinnon?

An anonymous reader writes "Whitedust has some interesting commentary on this BBC article which claims that 'UK hackers' have condemned Gary Mckinnon's trial. From the article: 'Another example of some truly awful and misinformed mainstream tech reporting here. The article claims that UK hackers are almost all in support of Mr Mckinnon when in truth as we all know the entire tech community has agreed that Mr Mckinnon is not only an idiot but a deluded attention seeker.'"

Comments

Re:What?!

[The_REAL_DZA]

That really makes you think about how long someone who really has hostile intents could stay undetected.

Answer: Pretty much as long as they wanted to.
 
Remember all those Mission: Impossible episodes (the "good" T.V. ones, not the "so-so" Cruise-missiles they've been releasing the last few years...)? You remember how at the end their "target" always had that "wtf just happened?!?!" look on his face? Same story, different era (and the tape may or may not self-destruct in five seconds...)

Harmless Nutter != Terrorist

[Attaturk]

"...when in truth as we all know the entire tech community has agreed that Mr Mckinnon is not only an idiot but a deluded attention seeker".

I'm sorry but you can sod right off.

I'm both a member of the "tech community" and a "UK hacker" and I certainly do not consider him either an idiot or an attention seeker.
Clearly the guy has some pretty outlandish views. But apart from that his only crime was proving how incredibly poor federal computer security is in the US even long after their biggest ever attack on home soil.

The only real crime worth talking about here is the lack of security. If I was walking down a street in London and saw a door marked "Ministry of Defence. Top Secret. UFO archive." I'd probably keep on walking - unless the door was wide open. Then I might just peek inside out of curiosity. Now if it turned out to be the real deal how the hell could anyone with a brain and a conscience prosecute me for that?

Mr McKinnon is not entirely innocent but he is quite right to be concerned about being extradited to a country that seems to feel that it can suspend the rule of law in order to best fit the fear-mongering 'everyone that's not with us is against us', "we'll get the terr'rists" mentality.

Perhaps if the US didn't have such a ghastly recent history this wouldn't be a problem. But the fact is that noone outside the US is ignorant of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, the foreign torture flights - you name it. And the type of people currently running the Pentagon, NSA, CIA and indeed Whitehouse are hardly grounds for giving the US justice system the benefit of any doubt whatsoever.
We know these people have little or no regard for equal human rights. We know these people will happily bend, ignore or entirely circumvent their own laws to suit their own needs.
We know that innocents have been mistreated, tortured or killed during this administration's watch.
We also know that Gary McKinnon is pretty harmless, and unsurprisingly didn't actually manage to do any harm to the world's biggest military and technical power.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if us Brits could still trust americans to practise what they preach then we wouldn't have a problem sending him over for his wrist-slapping. But sadly we can't. And we don't want to see another British subject subjected to media-friendly kangaroo courts that do little more than to quench the american right's thirst for heads to roll - whether they're the right heads or not.

Re:Harmless Nutter != Terrorist

[Attaturk]

OK so that metaphor wasn't water-tight. However note that I absolutely did not say that he did not commit a crime. He found vulnerabilities and a lack of passwords protecting remote administration services (that should never have been left running) on the space agency and air force computers belonging to a foreign power.

He failed to report them, and he continued to access them.
Fair enough. He's nicked. It's a fair cop etc.

I have no problem with him being fairly prosecuted. If you read my post again you'll see that my problem is rather that we simply can't trust the United States to fairly prosecute him any more. His charges are likely to be inflated, dramatised and exaggerated - in fact if you listen to the hype we know this to be the case already. Quoting one of his prosecutors: "the biggest military computer hack of all time"
Riiiiight. Just like Richard Reid was an elite Al Qaeda special agent, Moussaoui was a criminal mastermind and Saddam Hussein had deadly global threat anthrax super-powers.

It's very difficult for us Brits to trust people that say stuff like this, even when they're supposed to be representing your biggest ally.

If the real threats are regarded as uncatchable, untreatable or inexplicable - i.e. Osama, Kim Jong Il, Sudanese government etc. - and the hangers on and wannabe anti-Americans are treated as serious threats, absolutely nothing is being done to improve US security.

I'd just like the US authorities to stop vilifying relatively harmless nutters and to instead focus on the real serious threats, which I accept may be a little more complicated and a little harder to media manage.

Until then it's probably safest for trans-Atlantic relations if British subjects are tried in British courts whether or not the U.S. considers them terr'rists.

Don't misunderstand this.

[Anonymous Coward]

We fully support the prosecution and punishment of McKinnon, who is a self-confessed criminal and a notorious cracker.

What we do not support is his extradition to the United States of America; in the light of the USA's abysmal human rights record, openly xenophobic policies, and rampant corruption problems, we consider it highly implausible that he could receive a fair trial there. Furthermore, we reject US law as tending to cruel and draconian punishments, and we deplore the condition of US prisons, which Amnesty International ranks as among the most brutal and inhuman in the allegedly-civilised world.

McKinnon should be tried and imprisoned in the United Kingdom, which is where he was when he committed his crimes. It's as simple as that.

Re:Jurisdiction troubles again.

[shotfeel]

It really isn't very clear is it. Especially when the crime actually extends across the border. If I throw a rock across the US/Canadian border to hit a Canadian, where should I be prosecuted? Its a crime in both countries. Same it true if I'm sitting at a computer in the US and hack into a Canadian govermnent computer.

Re:Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

In all of my history as a US citizen, I have seen enough to beleive that the courts here are legit and fair.

Former Illinois Governor (and future prisoner) Ryan stopped executions here when it was found that half the people on death row were proven innocent. A few cops, prosecutors, etc are now in prison for faking evidence, etc.

You might click on a few of these links:

Experts question arson convictions
Texas Case Spurs Arson Conviction Questions
Arson experts cite bad evidence in '04 execution

They detail how the "experts" used junk science. Imagine your house burns down and your family dies, and you get the death penalty for murdering them, even though the fire was an accident.

Bad enough his family died, worse that they killed him for the "murder" based on evidence that didn't prove anything.

A friend's brother spent five years in federal prison for loaning money to a cocaine dealer, never saw or touched any of the actual drug. The dealer went to prison for two years.

There's a fellow serving life inder California's "three strikes" law for stealing a candy bar!

I fear my "justice" system. You should as well.