Slashdot Mirror
BBC Profiles Extradited Cracker Gary McKinnon
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC has published a very good profile of Gary McKinnon. It discusses his motives and methods as well as raising the question as to whether he is a malicious 'hacker' or whether he was simply obsessed with finding info about UFOs and should be praised for finding security faults in what should be extremely secure systems. This should provided stimulus for some interesting discussion on Slashdot especially between us Brits and our American friends following the confirmation of his extradition to the USA."
There is a very big difference between finding security faults, and exploiting them!
Ok, I understand the whole "being a hacker isn't a bad thing" line, but really... CRACKER. Am I the only one that thinks this is kind of dumb?
... WTF? To 95% of the population, being a hacker is a bad thing. How about we give it up already and just forego the use of the term hacker meaning good computer nerd?
I mean really
I like white/black/gray hat myself.
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He stole brains of the military, FBI staff and even of the President of the US? Over the interweb? By deleting files?
Prosecutors say he altered and deleted files at a naval air station not long after the 11 September attacks in 2001, rendering critical systems inoperable.
My,my. Isn't that something?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
His extradition is typical of people trying to dispose of what they do not understand or feel threatened by similar to the witch burning of ages ago. I wouldn't call him out as having been "sloppy leaving clues" as this is typically what happens when you feel like you are justified in what you are doing. It's sad you should get guilted by friends to stop something you clearly enjoy and are good at because of silly society rules :/
Anybody else ever wonder if this is the same guy repeating this over and over again, or if there are really that many assholes that read /. ?
Nobody really gives a shit (I didn't really even read the above post), I just find it kind of curious.
Are you the same dude that posts to EVERY article, or is there a whole "underground movement"?
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The UK, as a seperate entity from the US, no longer exists.
If US laws can be enforced on British soil, but not vice-versa, then the UK is a defacto part of the US. But here's the clinching shit in your mouth: with no representation. What's the point of a government, if the laws they pass mean nothing?
Gary McKinnon was foolish. Yet he now faces up to 70 years in jail.
What angers me even more than the absurd penalties threatened by the US courts? The supine, wimpering acquiesence of the UK governmnt who will extradite one of its own citizens without evidence being required, yet demands no such reciprocal agreement with the US.
Mr McKinnon should burn his British passport and go away from the UK to some country which still cares for its citizens.
That the term "hacker" be henceforth replaced by the term "fucker".
Yes, it may still lead to unforeseen consequences for the fucker when laymen (and women) star using the term without proper understanding of it, but isn't that exactly what the fucker community really needs?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Well, I can say kudos to /. for doing a good job of hiding this crap! When I first came to the page I didn't even see it! I wondered what the hell you were talking about! lol
According to Bush: You are part of the Rebel alliance and a traitor!
Nobody intimidates the US government..
Our TWO main powers are extradition, rendition and prohibition.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
UK should rather become a state of the US and should leave the EU for good. It seems to me that the UK takes '1984' as a guidebook for their plans.
``or [...] should be praised for finding security faults in what should be extremely secure systems.''
That one is really easy. Finding said security flaws is an accomplishment, but that isn't the issue here. The issue is what you do once you find them. You get praise for actions that lead to improved security (reporting them to the vendor, fixing them, reporting them to users, etc.). You get condemnation for exploiting them for selfish goals. Same as always: do something for the common good? Praise on you. Screw someone over for your own advantage? Damnation on you.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
"It wasn't just an interest in little green men and flying saucers," said Mr McKinnon. "I believe that there are spacecraft, or there have been craft, flying around that the public doesn't know about." Mr McKinnon further explained that he believes the US military has reverse engineered an anti-gravity propulsion system from recovered alien spacecraft, and that this propulsion system is being kept a secret. In that sense, Mr McKinnon said he sees his own hacking as "humanitarian." He said he only wanted to find evidence of a UFO cover-up and expose it. He called the alleged anti-gravity propulsion system "extra-terrestrial technology we should have access to".
With that type of excuse, one could get away with almost anything short of violently assaulting people in public, don't you think?
NASA's documents consisted of printed news articles from the Slashdot website, but no other related documents.
On a heavier note. I seem to remember when the New Zealand SIS (so secret that I only know about them because they had an office below my lawyers...tinted window, blinking lights, NZ SIS signage, you get the idea.) revealed their super secret documents on Ahmed Zaoui, they were largely comprised of newspaper clippings. Tinfiol hats on people, we are being watched. I propose either the deletion of /., or the replacement of us all with bots endlessly spouting memes.
Either way, we are all in the BlackVault now.
I reserve the write to mangle english.
From TFA:
As for his quest to find evidence of a UFO cover-up, Mr McKinnon has said that he found some circumstantial evidence online to back his claims, including what he said are photos with what he speculated were alien spacecraft airbrushed out of the picture. He said the photos in question were too large to download to his own computer.
So he somehow managed to SEE the photos (without any alien spacecraft on them, BTW), but wasn't able to download them? Am I the only one to whom this doesn't make sense?
...is something you don't have.
1. Saying he was "just" obsessed with finding about UFOs is a thinly veiled attempt at making an unnecessary end justify the means. If you or your buddies have found a UFO, good for you, but information does not "want" to be anthropomorphised, and you can't just raid other people's stuff to satisfy your curiosity.
2. It's unlikely anyway. I've mixed in UFO/remote viewing circles thanks to a few obsessive buddies, and while "the government's hiding something" seems to be standard rhetoric, the hobby is empty of people carefully planning cracking raids to get it. It would be counter-productive to make enemies of the people you want to be more open.
The at-all-costs nutjob does not have the clarity of thought to do what McKinnon did, though congratulations for building the foundations for a failed insanity/naivete defence. Why don't you just give him blonde pigtails and a lollypop and tell him to say "oh wittle me, no Sir I had no idea that sweetie wasn't mine".
3. It's probable that he did something that neither side want to put out in the open.
4. But there's more than enough evidence for an extradition among merely what both sides agree happened.
5. No, "hackers", finding breakable security and breaking it is not a pastime that justifies itself. When you're happy not reacting to my regularly cutting the windows and defeating the locks of you and your most vulnerable family member so I can leaving a note saying "I just wanted to see what you look like - and show you how easy it is so you can stop me from doing it again" then at least you'll be consistent.
Everyone's personal security and privacy can be defeated eventually, including yours, and there's always someone smarter than you who can defeat it. If it hasn't happened to you already, it's not because you're an impenetrable leet haxor, it's because you're inconsequential. And if you ever become otherwise, good luck on that "Thanks for the help and implicit security advice! Look forward to more of your work" note you'll have to write to your intruder.
Unfortunately, our former PM, the worlds worst negotiator, Tony Blair went and signed a bilateral extradition treaty with the US (the one which removes the burden of providing any evidence before extraditing) When the US refused to sign their copy of the treaty he just let it ride.
Thanks Tony, bang up job.
It's a bit racist calling him a cracker. ITYM Hacker.
Of course it's the same guy, he trolls all sorts of shit on /. and his name is Anonymous Coward, err wait....
Why feed the trolls?
Reactions such as yours only make them enjoy their asshattery more.
When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
Nobody intimidates the US government.
Our main power is extradition. Extradition and rendition..
Our two main powers are extradition, rendition and prohibition..
Our three main powers are extradition, rendition and prohibition.. and an almost fanatical loyalty to 'the flag'..
Among our many powers are such diverse elements as extradition, rendition, prohibition and an almost fanatical loyalty to 'the flag' and bombing people who try to stop us... ...I'll come in again
I think his best chance of defense rests on whether or not this claim is true...
Only he knows if this is fact or fiction. If true (and they can prove it) then he's sunk and deserves everything he gets. But if it's not true then the chances are the US Govt are trying to blame him for the (supposed) $700,000 cost of securing systems that should have been tighter than a duck's back-side in the first place.
How much of this is truth, and how much is it a "cover your ass" exercise by the US Military to distract from their own incompetance?
https://thepiratebay.org/tor/3231674
but remember he's also a dangerous hacker!
-n3td3v
And if you object, they'll come in again.
Probably some kid that tries to get some attention, and thinks that he will get it, but by posting as an AC he won't ever get the infamous OMG Ponies styling of /. which I think is rather cute!
Just ignore him - he'll get tired of it or end up as cannon fodder somewhere.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
The US Military's computer systems were bought to its knees by a bloody hairdresser?
Honestly, I think this is a sign that anyone with any shred of dignity left should simply bid the US a fair farewell and migrate to Canada or England or any other nice, not so completely inept country.
Whatever else he did, he knowingly accessed restricted computers whilst America was in a state of war. For that alone he is at risk of going down.
Nutjob he may be, probably is in fact, but a nutjob who chose the wrong time and place to take his paranoid delusions out for a stroll on the internet.
So what if their systems have crap security? Does that mean he had a right to access them? Nope.
Sure it was a hell of a wake up call for the US, that a crank could hack them so easily, but this does not excuse the crank who did it.
I know how to 'hack' into networks, but I wouldn't do it, because people who do go to jail. Its that simple. If you can't accept that basic fact and you go around breaking into computers, then you deserve everything you get.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
.... the 800-pound gorilla in the room. i.e.: the types of intrusions and attacks that seem to be committed on a daily basis by what appears to be government-sanctioned Chinese hacker groups.
But in truth, I find it remarkable that the US government is not owning up to the fact that it also seems to be running what amounts to basically insecure systems on much of its IT infrastructure.
This dude may have been a crackpot, but somehow these antics are only performed for the sake of overreaction, when the blame should also be squarely shared by those who administer these networks.
As a US taxpayer, I find this last part infinitely scarier... especially because all of this saber-rattling is not likely to remedy the conditions that made it possible to do this in the first place. A recent security audit of US Gov networks gave them an 'F' if I remember (could be wrong)
Z.
The worst thing Gary McKinnon has going for him is that photo that's shown alongside every article that mentions him. I couldn't imagine a better caricature of a 'malevolent hacker' if I tried.
How is accessing passwordless machines 'hacking'?
... Every night."
"There were hackers from Denmark, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Thailand
'I'd instant-message them, using WordPad, with a bit of a political diatribe. You know, I'd leave a message on their desktop that read, 'Secret government is blah blah blah."'
davecb5620@gmail.com
The asymmetric extradition arrangements are of course wrong, but what he is alleged to have done is a crime in the UK too, and even if the extradition arrangements were fairer he would probably have ended up on a plane to the USA eventually. The injustice in this case is more to do with the behaviour of the US authorities -- they attempted to coerce him into giving up his legal rights in the UK to fight extradition by threatening him with the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison. That's wrong regardless of the deficiencies of the extradition process.
Should he have been prosecuted? Yes.
Should he have been extradited? No.
He should have been prosecuted in Britain. It's not like what he did *isn't* illegal there.
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
There is no need to resort to using the "C" word. I thought we were above using racial slurs here.
My My....Is that TWO or THREE main powers!
Someone forgot how to count. ;-)
There is an underground movement, called the GNAA. http://www.gnaa.us/ Some of their stuff is funny, most just annoying.
Not a sentence!
Usually it is enough to threat them with embargoes :>
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
If you try that crap around here in the physical world, you will soon be discussing it with Mr. Mossberg. The fact that you can easily break in does not make it any less of a crime. This isn't the special Olympics for the morally handicapped.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Well, that site appears to be owned by michaelmiller@gmail.com . Wonder if that's his real name, and if he ever gets unwelcome visitors round at his place.. I hope so!
I read it, and I have to admit that I don't see anything particularly funny about the incessant racist, antisemitic and homophobic jokes! In certain sarcastic contexts that can be funny, but when people mean it, it's just sad.
which is totally what she said
No, ironic is like when it rains on your wedding day.
My understanding is that it needs to be signed by your Prez first and he won't.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
I'm sorry for starting a global thermonuclear war. I just wanted to play a game.
-David Lightman
And one thing that never gets discussed is what he claims he found. Which is modest enough (despite all the hours he put into the search) to sound almost plausible, and weird enough to be interesting: two folders of identically titled satellite photos, one folder of which was titled "unretouched". And a spreadsheet of names and ranks titled "non-terrestrial officers."
interview is long and the interviewer is an annoying UFO over-enthusiast, but Gary is actually pretty articulate and compelling. It's
here if you're interested.
he's going to get so madly bummed, he'll be able to pass basketballs.
I wouldn't sign "praised", but like any "should not happen" event, there are lessons to be learnt here. That doesn't mean you should praise the culprit. A fire, a plane crash, every bad event tells us what we've missed so far and allows us to improve things.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Before posting such blatant falsehoods, read the treaty. All the relevant language is 100% symmetrical between the US and the UK, and both sides have the same obligations: to provide some minimal amount of information by default, and to provide any further information the other side asks for if asked. The US has made it known that it needs further information: prima facie evidence of guilt. Nothing in the treaty forbids the UK from insisting on having the same information before making decisions. For whatever reasons, the UK has decided not to ask for this (this choice is codified in the Extradition Act of 2003) -- but this is a choice made by the UK which is not compelled by the treaty. The treaty is clearly Constitutional in both the US and the UK. It's possible that the Extradition Act of 2003 isn't Constitutional, but that's a different kind of problem.
"an excuse for doing something"
Not so much an excuse, its more like the way people in power need to think to maintain power. Unfortunately people who seek power over others, don't want people to stand against their point of view. Almost by definition, the ones in power (in every country) seek to have the power to dictate terms and control everyone they rule over. So any attempt to oppose their point of view, can be interpreted as wrong by them, but now they have this fear filled terror label under which they can label anything which could oppose their point of view and so can (and do) use it to stop any attempt to oppose their point of view.
What I also find very disturbing about this case is how they are trying to use Aspergers as some kind of defense. I find it extremely insulting to Aspergers to be treated somehow inferior. Most Aspergers would leave most of the sheep like people in this world standing for their intelligence But the capacity to learn isn't the same as having learned something already. Also just because someone has the capacity to learn, doesn't mean they have used their ability to learn to the full. This hacker has shown he has not thought through the full implications of what he was said to be doing. He is very misguided to think he can just look around military computers to find UFO evidence or any evidence. However being an Asperger is not a defense. If anything it should undermine his defense. So his defense team are "clutching at straws" so to speak, to hope Aspergers can become a defense for failing to think something through.
His defence team would do better to point out how this case is already decided in the press. The press seem to be helping to condemn him before he goes to trial, by constantly highlighting the apparent scale of what he is said to have done.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
Seems I missed Article 8 clause 3(c), which does oblige the UK to provide evidence but not the US. However, Article 10 allows the UK to asks for this exact same information if it wanted to.
I find it unbelievable that someone has gone to the trouble to mask the IP addresses in this document by simply drawing a black box over them. You can still highlight the text and copy/paste it elsewhere.
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/cyberlaw/usmck1102vaind.pdf
So, I could break into the BBC and rummage about in their files and they would try to charge me with a crime and would praise me for me for finding security faults in their systems?
Sure they would. The BBC is a bunch of hypocrites.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I can only guess that you're based in the US and therefore don't give a shit. If you lived in the UK perhaps you could see the injustice of the extradition going on here.
Then again possibly not as you yanks have no empathy at all. It's part of the reason you're so globally popular.
He was replying to a modded-down troll that you didn't notice. Click "Parent" on the original post.
The US entered the two World Wars on behalf of European Allies (France in the Great War, UK in WW II), although each time with a pretense that that wasn't the case. Before entering the second world war, the US was EXTREMELY provocative with its support of the Brits, with things like the Lend Lease Act, where the US shipped over materiel with basically no repayment.
During the Cold War period, despite liberal blasts later as a form of US Imperialism, the Europeans had legitimate fears of being invaded by Stalin. The US paid for (and put our troops at risk) Europe's defense for 50 years, letting them talk down to us for "militarism."
The belief that the US was unfairly subsidizing Europe was not unheard in US circles, so sock puppet, not, taken advantage of, absolutely.
The American and UK both have constitutional law... the UK's are based upon Acts of Parliament to which the crown assented... the legal power in the UK derives from the Sovereign and what the crown ceded to Parliament, so "Constitutional Law" there is about asserting Parliamentary power. In the US, power derives from the consent of the states that ceded power to it in establishing the government (Constitution was ratified by state governments, not the people).
So in a broad sense, "Constitutional Law" exists in both.
In the common vernacular, in the US Constitutional Law refers to limitations on government and the rights of the people, which don't really have an analog behind vague laws about "Human Rights" elsewhere. When people in the US talk about Constitutional Rights, they mean the rights of the people, primarily enshrined in the Bill of Rights Amendments, not the powers of Congress to issue Letters of Marque... :)
So legal definition, power of government, both the same... Acts of Parliament cede power from Crown to Parliament... US Constitutions cedes power from States to Federal Government, sharing sovereignty between the levels of government. But the US Bill of Rights as a "sancrosact" set of laws requiring HUGE Supermajority to change, pretty unique.
I think we're all missing the most important point of this whole case here, which is that he only managed to hack in because the US military used Windows"
"I found out that the US military use Windows," said Mr McKinnon in that BBC interview. "And having realised this, I assumed it would probably be an easy hack if they hadn't secured it properly."
So basically, Microsoft are aiding people hacking US military computers. Discuss. :-D
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
You'd have to learn how to speak English first.
. . . all those American sailors the British navy press-ganged.
Shoe's on the other foot now, isn't it, bitches?
Hackers Ethic says so
And we all know its true and honest.
If the governments really don't have any info they are hiding then they are in denial because our leaders are not as smart as the aliens leaders.
And our governments are not smart enough to know "we can handles the truth"...
I mean, setting all /. "home team" boosterism and simple "Hate Bush, Hate the US, Hate anything the government does" crap aside.
If I walk up to a store in the middle of the night, break in past the mediocre locks, and wander around the inside of the store looking for stuff proving UFO's exist - isn't that a crime?
If the "store" happens to be a federal government building, can't I EXPECT to be punished rather severely?
If the "store" happens to not just be a federal building, but a DEFENSE DEPARTMENT building (and I know it), why would I be surprised to have my ass kicked?
I don't get it. Why is this even a NEWS item?
-Styopa
I'm American, and I disagree with him being extradited. I think he should have stayed in England where he would have gotten a fair trial.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
You don't like the fact or the form?
Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick: Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron.
[UID-HeinzIntel]
I'm not sure what was being criticized; your English was fine.
The question is not whether he did something wrong but about where he did it. It was in the UK and not the US. If the US government doesn't want people from the UK messing with its computers then it is free to block all UK access: nobody is forcing them to allow acces from the UK. If they decide to allow UK access then they implicitly agree to let UK law deal with any hackers based there.
The problem with this treaty is that it completely undermines UK sovereignty. Now everyone in the UK not only has to follow UK law but US law as well because, even if they have never visited the US, if they violate its laws they can get hauled off there and prosecuted. I don't care whether it is reciprocal or not: the basic premise is wrong. US citizens should not have to obey UK law in their own country either....cross the border though and it is a different matter.
Yeah... is this the same guy that posts stories about eating shit out of a public toilet? *inquiring minds want to know etc...*
Requiem for the American Dream
Viewed from the US:
fnord
It also means to pass over or overlook, see the Oxford English Dictionary. According to them this meaning dates from circa 1000 AD so perhaps you might want to update your knowledge of English a little?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gldlyTjXk9A
Requiem for the American Dream
The rights and wrongs of this case will carry on but the real damage is the way we in the UK now see the US. IT used to be that USA was seen as freedom etc etc (all the usual things). Now its NOT, really not seen as free, inviting or positive. And its due to situations like this. The real question to ask is why is the US using these laws? You may say because they are there, but if they are so obviously one sides and wrong using them makes the US look wrong too. You can force your own way, as a superpower you can, but should you? and in doing so how does it square with your consistution that was meant to protect against abuses by government.
Worse still if you get the case into court you get a scared gangly man (with a mental illness) who hurt no one being sentenced to up to 70 years (more then murder rape etc) and then you call it justice. It just, will not fly.
Could it really be that the reason for this big effort is that the US government is embarassed that he found the security so easy to overcome?
Seems like he's a little shy when people are actually trying to talk to him.
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It does not have to stick, either. If the prosecutor can convict of anything, the judge can sentence for not only the convictions but also the acquittals. See U.S. v. Watts, 519 U.S. 148 (1997).
Tilt at windmills. Occasionally one will fall over out of sheer surprise.
Here in the U.S., we still sing songs praising the British fleetness of foot in battle.
Tilt at windmills. Occasionally one will fall over out of sheer surprise.
Nobody is game to enter into discussion about the reason Mckinnon gives for his crime.This would be the much publicized UFO cover up by the US. This is from the article: [But for some, his method of hacking is not nearly so interesting as his reason for doing it.] It is obviously a no go zone here on /. Only gutless geeks or very rational people respond on this site!!!! No conspiracy theorists here that's for sure. Wouldn't want to appear foolish here and now would we? After all, we've got a reputation to uphold. We are all realists. The downside is that we probably won't uncover or discover much from all our discussions here. This is because we are not game to take on the bigger issues on anything other than from a confined viewpoint whilst plodding along a safely traveled path. I have noticed that we are prepared to sweat a lot of small stuff though. Things like spelling errors, bad grammar all come under deep scrutiny and the writer is ridiculed. Again this results on no-one stepping out on a limb for fear of just that. I have found no discussion on the meat in the article here at all. How boring. Or is it that it has been done to death? In which case the cover-up was successful. Anyone who has read The Day After Roswell by the late Col. Philip Corso would know that there is definitely a cover-up and would take every opportunity to discuss this when an opportunity like this presents itself. So I ask here now. Is there anyone here that has something interesting to bring to the table on the subject of UFOs?
It's an attempt at a bit of humor - to us Americans people from the UK often are hard to understand because of the pronunciation differences. So if you want to be a state you will need to speak English (American style).