'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

Much Ado About Nothing

[TripMaster Monkey]

Agreed, Gary is an idiot. His moonbat UFO-tech stories notwithstanding, anyone who breaks into systems by exploiting blank administrator passwords really isn't much of a 'hacker', and anyone who says they managed to get a UFO picture, but didn't save a screen dump is either a moron or a liar.

All that said, 70 years? Incarcerating Gary for what amounts to a life sentence for his harmless sightseeing is more than too harsh...it makes him a martyr to hackerdom...a martyr that actual hackers would much rather not be associated with.

Instead, how about some action against the clueless sysadmins who left vital Army, Navy, Air Force, and DoD systems vulnerable to such a sophomoric and elementary 'attack' by not passwording administrator-level accounts? If I ever failed to protect my network against such an intrusion, I'd be cleaning out my desk at the end of the day.

Mark deserves to be punished, but extradition to the U.S., 70 years in prison, and millions of dollars in fines is just plain overboard. The U.S. would much better serve its interests by studiously ignoring Gary and letting the UK authorities deal with him.

Of course, if the U.S. is just looking for another 'terrorist' to keep the public's fear level at fever pitch, I suppose the uber-hacker Gary McKinnon will do nicely.

Re:Much Ado About Nothing

[Unski]

Mark deserves to be punished, but extradition to the U.S., 70 years in prison, and millions of dollars in fines is just plain overboard. The U.S. would much better serve its interests by studiously ignoring Gary and letting the UK authorities deal with him.
Why do you stop there? This what is fishy to me - that he is looking at a horrendously disproportionate sentence in relation to his crimes. It only remains to be effectively discussed as to why he is looking at such a stupid sentence.

It's so easy to rattle off some dismissive diatribe on /., saying he is a nutjob etc., but why the hell are they looking at giving him such a fisting? And as for his credibility amongst the UK hacker community, who the hell are Whitedust to be able to speak for them? There has been so much momentum in the direction of explaining away his allegations, and so little critical analysis of what he says. Most of the analyses I have read basically start from the point of view that he is mad and deluded, no-one is supposing 'what if he is right..?'. There were easily about 20 naysayers who jumped on his explanation for not being able to grab a screenshot - a narrowly technical aspect to his allegations - but I believe him as I believe he would not have had time to grab one. I also believe he has got out of his depth, and has seen too much. I say it again: 70 years? Something is not right.

Re:Much Ado About Nothing

[shotfeel]

It all depends on how you add things up. Is 5 years too much of a sentence for breaking into gov/mil computer systems? Then if he's being tried for 14 separate violations, that could add up to 70 years if convicted on all counts. Even then, the judge could sentence him to the maximum 5 years for all convictions, but say all terms to be served concurrently (meaning only 5 years max). OTOH, nobody seems to note what the minimum sentence could be. Is it possible he could be found guilty and serve no prison time at all?

Just to be clear, the "5 years" was just pulled out of a hat. I don't know specifically what crimes he's being accused of, how many, or what the sentencing range is for any of them.

Re:Much Ado About Nothing

[Unski]

Yeah I would not disagree with what you suggest there - that it could be served serially or concurrently and that the minimum is not being reported. I thank you for that much, but the main thrust of my post is that (should they choose to make him serve it) seventy years is still a suspiciously disproportional sentence and only adds fuel to the fire. It bugs me, it makes me believe him more than a casually dismissive sentence would. What did he see? Why do they want to gag him so bad? Very few, if any, hackers have been convicted and given custodial sentences, there are several unusual things about this case;

1. He managed to hack into US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Department of Defense for a period of around two years. Equals much embarrassment on the part of those respective organisations, surely?
2. The US has a real hard-on for extradition. Britain has had to work hard in persuading them to let Britain prosecute him instead. There is a real appetite for punishing him amongst the US authorities, but I doubt there are many citizens in the US that care.
3. He talks of suppressed technology - UFO technology, anti-gravity technology and so-called 'Free Energy' technology. I wager that most people would not go around saying such things unless they were convinced they had seen such things. He must surely have been aware his claims would be met with outright derision, that people would not simply believe him and demand more information from government.
4. A classic tactic in a psychological war campaign is that of Decoy, Distract and Trash: Set up some person or group, take them off the trail of something real and important, and trash the person or the subject. McKinnon is totally vulnerable to tactics such as these at the moment - his allegations can be individually explained away by the authorities to the media (decoy), the public can be incited into wanting him punished via the media (distract) and he personally can have his PC and human rights impounded (trash).

Re:Much Ado About Nothing

[DenDude]

/*[suppressed technology]... anti-gravity technology and so-called 'Free Energy' technology. I wager that most people would not go around saying such things unless they were convinced they had seen such things. */

Actually, there are a lot of people that would say things like this without ever actually seeing it. I'd refer you to Pons and Fleischmann of the Cold Fusion fiasco for example. Maybe at first they thought they had something, but eventually, they had to know that they were mistaken. Neither of them, however, admitted that they had made a mistake.
There have been a ton of these devices designed and built over the years, and not a single one of them works. You just can't violate the laws of thermodynamics. Not ever.
/* He must surely have been aware his claims would be met with outright derision, that people would not simply believe him and demand more information from government. */
Or possibly he would know that the government is just not able to provide information, thus proving him correct, and a great, great man. Come on, really. Anti-gravity? Free Energy? geez....

Re:Much Ado About Nothing

[Unski]

But, I put it to any sceptic - do you have any evidence he didn't see any of that? Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence. You have merely your faith in the laws of thermodynamics - I'm sorry, I am a geek, I love science, I love technology and I believe in the empirical method, but ultimately physics and it's laws are all works in progress, subject to validation and dismissal at any point. Going further, though it works as a system for us to make sense of the world, science is just another belief system.

At the moment, the only opposition you provide is a facile statement of your belief in the Law of Thermodynamics, and a baseless dismissal of the things he has suggested he has seen.

I have no evidence he is right. You have no evidence he is wrong. But /. was once somewhere where the alternative possibilities could be discussed.

Re:Much Ado About Nothing

[Chr0nik]

I take it you haven't read up on the Pons and Fleichmann "fiasco" lately have you? Not only has it been re-reviewed, but funding for research, although limited, has been approved by the DOE based on the second review's results. The cold fusion reigns have been taken over by others in their place, since they were so utterly shunned, and ridiculed by the scientific establishment. Now the question is not whether or not excess heat has been generated. But whether or not it's a product of fusion, and whether or not the methods of measuring the excess heat are accurate. Most people on the panel agree that it is, due to the presence of tritium ash, a by-product of fusion. They disagree on the amounts of excess heat, and the methods of testing, and they are not going full bore with it. But it's not completely dismissed out of hand any longer.

Not to mention it has been replicated many, many times, by many researchers in many labs at this point. Don't get me wrong, the findings were still negative(or should I say skeptical), which they should be, but they are now receiving funding. And Stanley Pons and Martin Fleichmann, are now back in the fusion game. It's been 20 years since the initial review, and people kept tinkering, and working with it. The DOE now thinks that it's now worth taking a look at. I wonder where it will be in another 20 years, now that they have funding for "Higly focused research efforts". And now that they are not considered paraihs for even researching it.

From the DOE report: The nearly unanimous opinion of the reviewers was that funding agencies should entertain individual, well-designed proposals for experiments that address specific scientific issues relevant to the question of whether or not there is anomalous energy production in Pd/D systems, or whether or not D-D fusion reactions occur at energies on the order of a few eV. These proposals should meet accepted scientific standards, and undergo the rigors of peer review. No reviewer recommended a focused federally funded program for low energy nuclear reactions. Reviewers identified two areas where additional research could address specific issues. One is the investigation of the properties of deuterated metals including possible effects of alloying and dislocations. These studies should take advantage of the modern tools for material characterization. A second area of investigation is the use of state-of-the-art apparatus and techniques to search for fusion events in thin deuterated foils. Several reviewers specifically stated that more experiments similar in nature to those that have been carried out for the past fifteen years are unlikely to advance knowledge in this area.

You can check it out for yourself at www.newenergytimes.com.. BTW if you need to look any further, only a handful of researchers call it "cold fusion", it's more common term lately has been LENR, or Low Energy Nuclear Reactions. There are other sites, but you'll have to sift through the cooks to find them. Personally I don't see any reason why it's not possible, it doesn't break any laws of physics, like a lot of those self running magnet motors and PM devices people are always reporting. The theory seems reasonable. Nothing insanely out of wack, nothing that proposes tapping ether or some esoteric bizarre unknown energy force.

Re:Much Ado About Nothing

[DenDude]

/* But, I put it to any sceptic - do you have any evidence he didn't see any of that */

No, I have not. But then again, I have no evidence that you are not a 4' tall green lion from the planet ipthar typing telepathically to /. However, until I've seen documentation of 4' tall green lions from the planet ipthar *with* telepathy, I am just going to assume that you are a human using some sort of input device like everyone else.

/* ultimately physics and it's laws are all works in progress, subject to validation and dismissal at any point */

Exactly. When I see any evidence that there is a way to get free energy, I'll be sure to look at it. However, some dude telling me that the Pentagon has free energy, even though I see tanks still using diesel (or jp4 or whatever those things use now) is just not enough evidence to get excited about, let alone examine.

/* At the moment, the only opposition you provide is a facile statement of your belief in the Law of Thermodynamics, and a baseless dismissal of the things he has suggested he has seen. */

You are absolutely correct there. I have a belief in a law that has been proven over and over, and has *never*... *ever* been proven to not work. Does anyone really think that maybe I should believe in some other thing that destroys one of the foundations of physics?
Now, about the *baseless* dismissal. It's not without foundation as you seem to imply. The foundation of my dismissal is the knowledge that anti-gravity and perpetual motion machines have been proven over and over again to be not feasible. That's not baseless; it's empiricism.

/*You have no evidence he is wrong*/

Of course I don't. And in fact, there is not a single person in the world that has evidence that he is wrong, because there's not a single person in the world that knows every document in every server in the world. But the historical evidence shows that every single person who bets against the law of conservation of energy has lost. Does that mean that it's always going to be? Well... not necessarily... but for now, I wouldn't disconnect from the local electric company.

Re:Much Ado About Nothing

[Bilestoad]

"I'm sorry, I am a geek, I love science, I love technology and I believe in the empirical method"

No, the rest of your post indicates you do not. You're a "truth is out there", "I want to believe" kind of guy pretending to be rational - just like McKinnon.

What?!

[Cheapy]

Whoa there. They aren't condemning him. They are condemning the trial. Last time I checked, those were entirely different things. He got lazy towards the end, but how lazy was the US Military to not notice it for two years?

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

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...)

Jurisdiction troubles again.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

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.

Perhaps whitedust should consider that the hacking community can think Mr Mckinnon is "not only an idiot but a deluded attention seeker," but at the same time also support Mr Mckinnon as he is being extradited to the US for committing a crime in Britain.

Would US hackers support the extradition of another hacker being extradited to France for hacking a french military network? I suspect not - no matter how stupid & obnoxious the hacker's behaviour was.

Re:Jurisdiction troubles again.

[Tweekster]

Um actually extradition exists for a reason. And he didnt commit his crime in britian, he commited it in Britian AND the United States. That is the downfall of technology. All this talk of no borders and you can't limit it etc, well guess what, it works both ways.

Re:Jurisdiction troubles again.

[LWATCDR]

"Mr Mckinnon as he is being extradited to the US for committing a crime in Britain"
He broke into a computer in the US. So what the crime committed in the US or Britain? Having "Hackers" come to your defence is a little like the mob coming to your defence. I really hate that use of the term Hacker. I still think of Hackers as being good programmers and not script kiddies.
That being said I see no real reason for him to serve 70+years. I do think that he should go on trial here in the US but he should get a suspended sentence and possibly some medical help. I really doubt they will throw the book at this poor soul.

Re:Jurisdiction troubles again.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Um actually extradition exists for a reason.

Yes, so that criminal who commit a crime in a country, then flee to another country can be returned to the country they committed the crime in.

And he didnt commit his crime in britian, he commited it in Britian AND the United States.

No he was in Britain when the crime was committed. The crime occurred in both countries. Perhaps I did not sufficiently distinguish between the subject & object of my original sentence.

That is the downfall of technology. All this talk of no borders and you can't limit it etc, well guess what, it works both ways.

No, it only works one way - when you commit an offense outside of the US, your government will face pressure to extradite you to the US. It will not flow the other way.

Re:Jurisdiction troubles again.

[TubeSteak]

extradited to the US for committing a crime in Britain.

International law is funny that way. The U.S. does not have a reciprocal agreement to extradite people to the UK.

http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/60523-print.sh tml

Apparently the Scots don't like the terms of the 'new' treaty. Kudos to them.
Here's the meat of the article

Britain's controversial extradition treaty with the US faces a challenge from Holyrood over whether it can be applied in Scottish courts.

MSPs are understood to have agreed in private to lobby Whitehall over the deal with Washington under which British people can be incarcerated while awaiting trial in America, despite no evidence being presented against them.

[2 paragraphs]

The treaty was agreed by Britain three years ago to avoid long delays in bringing terrorism suspects to trial. All that is required to remove a suspect from Britain is a warrant from a US court, without any evidence being required. However Congress has stalled its reciprocal part of the treaty because legislators there fear it does not give adequate protection to US citizens extradited to the UK.

Liberty, the [UK human rights &] civil liberties campaigning group, complains that the law is being used for non-terrorist charges, that those involved face jail on remand because they have no residence when they arrive in the US, and that the preparation of cases can take months

Emphasis mine.
What were the Brits thinking to agree to such a treaty? Their Gov't failed in its fundamental duty to protect its citizens & provide due process.

Re:Jurisdiction troubles again.

[kentmartin]

So, by this logic, I pop a website up in the UK that is critical of the Elosian administration. It is illegal to criticise the Elosian administration in Elosia, so, they can request my extradition?

Better still, I publish my non DMCA compliant workarounds on my website in Elosia (which also has DMCA madness), US citizens can access it, does that mean that the US can extradite me when the Elosian court system has had it's fill with me?

Re:Jurisdiction troubles again.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

No he was in Britain when the crime was committed. The crime occurred in both countries.

Negative. Jurisdictions do not overlap. If the same crime was comitted in two jurisdictions, then you open the way for double jeopardy extraordinare.

McKinnon was in the UK as he knowingly broke US law, just as say, USians are in say, the US, as they knowingly break Saudi law when they critisise the House of Saud.

Here's the bottom line in this paticular case. US considers itself the priemiere country in the world. US law is considered by US courts to apply everywhere, and anyone infriging on US laws or the rights of US entities, evern if the infrigement is outside the US, is condiered accountable. Essentially, every non US citizen is still deemed to be de factor under US law by the United States, and such vassals are subject to summons, inspection and approval by their masters in washington.

Think that's a bit far fetched? Go ask Manuel Noriega and the Panamanian government about the extra long arm of US law.

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.

Well

[gowen]

if anyone's going to know about talent attention seekers, its Whitedust Security, the people who published the array of conjecture, guesswork, faux outrage and outright wrongitude that was : "Walmarts Wikipedia War"

Larry David type

[suso]

Maybe this guy is like Larry David, you know, always ending up in weird situations, like being able to get into NASA's servers but not able to save anything. There is the possibility that he made up the story about how his screenviewer works and can't save pictures to save face. Or to prevent him from really getting nabbed by the authorities. I would think that if the U.S. government really suspected that he saw something as important as evidence that aliens exist, that we wouldn't even know this guy existed.

This guy gets the same kind of attention when someone names their baby Google.

Idiot

[gowen]

The article claims that UK hackers are almost all in support of Mr Mckinnon

No it doesn't. It says that some of them who knew him personally are in support of him. It quotes them, too.

The only stupid generalisations are in Whitedust's articles.

And you thought hackers already had a bad name?

[Billosaur]

From the original Whitedust article on McKinnon: Free Gary? Please God Don't.

It would seem Gary "Uber Hacker" McKinnon is not so "Uber" after all. After reading his interview on Spy.org.uk it has come to our attention that his technical knowledge and indeed, mental state, is not all that it should be.

I seem to remember that he was afraid they were going to ship him to Guantanamo Bay. But perhaps he'd be better off in a Starfleet detention cell, or maybe aboard the Death Star. The guy is a certifiable kook; the only thing he has to fear is a fair trial where he gets on the stand, rants about the hidden UFO technology (which is doing a wonderful job for us in Iraq among other places) we possess, and the jury figures out that he is a kook and send him away.

Much as I tend to think of hackers as low-lifes for the most part, those that use their abilities indescriminately anyway, I don't think even they should be subjected to this guy's company.

Re:And you thought hackers already had a bad name?

[barefootgenius]

I think the U.S. might be a little more careful with this one. On the one hand they are saying he was smart enough to break into their computer systems and on the other hand saying that what he found there doesn't exist?

I must admit that I to found it strange that he didn't take a screenshot and that he was caught after two years just as he found the information he was looking for. I also found it strange that the day after I heard about this on "Click", there was a news release of, "UFO study finds no sign of aliens".

More info

[exosyst]

The BBC also have a nice profile on Gary at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4715612.stm It appears he was using some kind of Remote desktop system for the remote control and for the most part he seems to have just pinged and attempted access using a perl script! Not exactly the "ultimate hacker" that the US and the media seem to be inferring.

Harsh punishment for what exactly?

[digitaldc]

The punishment he faces, up to 70 years in jail, was also too harsh a sentence for the crimes he has confessed to.

Kevin Mitnick did similar things and they went after him too. From Kevin's Wiki entry: "Littman made allegations of journalistic impropriety against Markoff, of overzealous prosecution of Mitnick by the government, of mainstream media over-hyping of Mitnick's actual crimes, and of the legality of Shimomura's involvement in the matter."

So what did McKinnon actually do? Is his harsh sentence for changing/using/leaking/stealing information or just because he embarrassed the Government in the 'post-911' world?

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

[Mark Hood]

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.

Actually a better analogy would be trying the closed door and discovering it was unlocked - then walking inside instead of raising the alarm.

It's still trespassing, and still a crime. How easy they make it for you doesn't really matter for the purposes of the trial.

I'm sure you'd ask the court to release someone who wandered into your house, read your personal information but didn't take any of it, right?

Mark

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.

Re:Rebuttal to whining

[AceCaseOR]

I've thought about this some, and actually, perhaps it's a better idea to bring him to the US for trial, even if he doesn't get a 70 year sentence, because it establishes a precident, which could possibly be extended to, say, Russian Spam Kings, Nigerian E-Mail scammers, or any other person or group which is engaging in more serious computer crime against the US and lives in a country we have an extradition treaty with (or could get with) and has weak computer crime laws.

I can imagine why it's happening

[mustafap]

Security Advisor: "Hackers got into our computers again sir"

Bush: "Damm it! Where did they get the technology to break our secret codes?"

Security Advisor: "Actually, we left the systems wide open. Our IT specialists are too lazy to set passwords"

Bush: "So how do we stop these sly foreign devils?"

Security Advisor: "Lets just grab one and stick him in jail for life. No one at home will care. It might put the rest off"

Bush: "Or we could train our guys to use password?"

Security Advisor: "You'r talking nonsense again, sir"

Like Dmitry Sklyarov?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

So that people the world over are subject to US law? So that people excercising their civil rights in their home countries can be dragged off to the US, be given a fair trial and hanged, because they offended the moral sensiblities of the mighty nation of manifest-destians? Like Dmitry Sklyarov, who was held accountable for simply excercising his rights in his own home country?

I for one would rather not be dragged off to the US to be judged and condenmed for excercising my rights in my home nation. Over here, people can drink after they're 18. Should they be dragged off for infringements of the oh so higher and purer US statutes on alcohol consumption?

You might consider that trollish, but it just amazes me how arrogant some americans can be in their attitudes towards other countries and their judicial systems, paticularly in these days of Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay. Your country is not exactly a shining example of enlighted jurisprudence.

Sense

[agentcdog]

It is apparent that someone needs to add some sense to this conversation. You can argue all you want about "where" this crime took place... the fact is, the "victims" were on US soil when the crime occurred. So to say that the US shouldn't conduct the trial is a bit one-sided. Also, this (as much as it's a joke to you) is a matter of national security.
Now if the US does treat him fairly eveyone is gonna yell that they are just trying to save face. You have condemned the US not on its actions, but on your own supposition. Judge the US by what it does (meaning, wait till he's sentenced to bitch about his horrible sentence). In all of my history as a US citizen, I have seen enough to beleive that the courts here are legit and fair. They are not perfect, but surely no one assumes that GB has perfect courts.
One more thing: I assure you that I (along with almost all of the rest of the country) would support the reverse case. If someone hacked GB's computers, I would expect them to be sent there for trial.

Re:Sense

[Wizard Drongo]

Well, you see there would be the problem. The reason why I wrote to my MP, MSP and MEP's, demanding all of them to have this man denied extradition was very simple. He's a moron, probably slightly deranged, and uses 'hacking tools' that even 12 year-old script kiddies would reject. But here's the point:
We have an extradite treaty with the United States of America. We've signed it, ratified, enshrined it in law and everything.

You didn't.

Tomorrow morning, a hacker in Florida, or New York or anywhere in the US could hack into the MoD's system, launch some nukes maybe, or send some troops to invade China or something (well, the hacker couldn't really, since our SysAdmins have a deep and arcane knowledge of something called a "password"), or maybe bomb London, and legally speaking, there ain't a damn thing we could do to have him extradited, cause you didn't sign the treaty, Why should we honour a treaty you can't even be bothered to sign? Then of course there's the issue that we have a law that says we're not supposed to extradite people to countries where you aren't guaranteed a fair trial (Guantanamo!), or where we aren't assured the suspect won't face the death penalty (normally not a problem when we deal with the USA, even for murderers, yet interestingly, the State Dept haven't given us that assurance in this case.)

Basically, this is more about the US having dubious fair-trial practices, dodgy military trials, the possiblility of a media show-trial for a foreign 'terrorist' and all that sorta thing than it is about a sad loner in a London bedsit wanking off to the idea of finding "alien" shit inside a US defence network. Maybe he did. I'd assume it was filed in the same archive as other 'secret' hidden or forgotten data, like the US Constitution and the right to a fair trial......

Re:Sense

[IamTheRealMike]

In all of my history as a US citizen, I have seen enough to beleive that the courts here are legit and fair. They are not perfect, but surely no one assumes that GB has perfect courts.

Your legal system is more than imperfect, it's an international disgrace - what joke of a legal system is simply ignored by politicians when convenient for them to do so? Answer: Americas. There are plenty of examples elsewhere in this thread.

If someone hacked GB's computers, I would expect them to be sent there for trial.

You might expect it but you'd be disappointed. IRA terrorists have a long history of fundraising in the United States, some of them are still there today, yet they will not be extradited as the US simply does not do that. Incidentally the US govt was implicitly supporting terrorism in this way for a long time.

McKinnon, whatever he believes, should not be tried in the US. It wouldn't be safe, and he would certainly be unfairly treated by an administration that is way, way out of control.