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British Hacker Loses Review of Asperger's Defense
Barence writes "Gary McKinnon has lost the judicial review of his case, dealing a potentially fatal blow to his hopes of avoiding extradition to the US. Lord Justice Stanley Burnton and Mr. Justice Wilkie dismissed the review at the Royal Courts of Justice. The review had been assembled to determine whether the diagnosis of McKinnon's Asperger's Syndrome had any bearing on the Home Office's original decision to extradite him to the US. Asperger's sufferers often exhibit obsessive behavior and social naivety, which McKinnon's lawyers have long offered as mitigation. His legal team now has 28 days to appeal the verdict, and his lawyer, Karen Todners, has indicated they may consider taking his case before the US Supreme Court. Last year we discussed a full profile of the hacker published by the BBC." Sophos's survey of 550 IT professionals found that 71% believe McKinnon should not be extradited.
It is the new English supreme court the case is going to, the one that replaces the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords.
What is really pissing the British off is that the American government is trying to extradite McKinnon using a law that was passed under the shadow of 9/11 for the purposes of anti-terrorism.
Granted, McKinnon was foolish to enter the US government computers, although perhaps he should be given a consultant's fee for highlighting such lax security. If they're going to prosecute him for being an idiot, then certainly they could look closer to home.
And the tactics employed by the American Justice Department have been more than questionable under various EU laws, let alone the English legal system.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment is to see the politicians rolling over for the American government instead of standing up for their own citizens.
Did McKinnon break into the systems? Yes, and he has admitted such. Surely as a British citizen having commited a crime in England he should be tried under English law.
Iain
I'm so sick of the aspie defense. Seems like every time a computer user is on trial (remember Reiser?), it gets rolled out. "My client is guilty as hell, but he's got Asperger's!" First, your mental handicap has to be to the point where you quite literally don't know what you're doing - so just give it up, having light Asperger's doesn't cut it. Second, it impacts the way people view us computer professionals - for example, when we try to argue for less copyright and more information freedom. The aspie defense does us about as much good as the "Your honor, this man did indeed kill his daughter, but he's Muslim, he can't help himself" defense does for the vast majority of Muslims.
He didn't "hack in". They had default "Administrator" accounts with no password. The hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage he's supposed to have caused was the cost of checking to see if he'd damaged anything (he hadn't) and fixing the security holes (which weren't his problem). They only noticed the intrusion because he left messages telling them!
What he did was the moral equivalent of walking through an unlocked, unguarded door and having a look round. For this he's facing 60 years in jail. This is not justice.
""Despite his growing affinity for the machine, he left school at 17 to become a hairdresser, a career cut short by a friend's insistence that there was better money, and he was better suited, to a career in IT."" http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/252972/gary-mckinnon-britains-hacking-hero.html I find it highly unlikely that an Aspie would ever become a hair dresser, an incredibly social job. Anybody who has every had any kind of contact with a true Aspie knows they avoid social situations like the plague. I call shenanigans.
What he did was the moral equivalent of walking through an unlocked, unguarded door and having a look round. For this he's facing 60 years in jail. This is not justice.
And... Leaving a note to the property owner. " You left the door open and I looked around. Please remember to lock it"
"Gary McKinnon has lost the judicial review of his case, dealing a potentially fatal blow to his hopes of avoiding extradition to the US" It's ironic that if the situation were reversed and under the 'evidence; presented in this case, the UK government would have no way of getting McKinnon extradited here. I guess we're not a real country ane'ways .. :)
davecb5620@gmail.com
It's still hacking. Incredibly easy hacking, but any attempt to gain access to a system where you're not authorized is hacking. You can try to delude yourself that it isn't, but a reasonable person will conclude that it is hacking. It's like that bit from Jumanji: "You tried to cheat?" "No, I tried to drop the dice so they'd land on twelve." Oh, okay, honey. Well, that would be cheating."
As for the "having a look round" bit: I don't know what the law is like where you live, but if someone does that here, they're gonna end up in the local jail waiting to go before a judge to explain just why they're wandering around. (And I don't suspect the judge will be happy with "Oh, I was just looking around.")
And if you came home and found such a note on your table, what would your reaction be?
Would it be "My my, I should really double check to make sure the door was locked. Thanks, Anonymous Note Writer!"
Probably not. Most likely, it would be something like "Holy crap, who does that guy think he is coming into my house and poking around without permission?" followed by vague feelings of unease and paranoia.
Yes, the systems should have been secured better. But that still doesn't give someone permission to go poking around in them, any more than someone has permission to go poking around in your house if the door is unlocked.
It may be an excuse if it wasn't for the obvious neurological difference that shows up in MRIs of people both with autism and AS.
No, leaving your door unlocked is not an invitation to enter.
But we don't lock people up for 60 years for trespassing.
If the original post up there is correct, what he did was far less severe a crime than trespassing.
A fine would be appropriate here. Decades in US federal prison most certainly is not.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
Maybe people will finally realise Aspergers isn't a real condition and an excuse for the the socially inept to not make the effort.
Some psychological, personality, and/or developmental disorders aren't fictitious. Maybe people will finally realize that and stop being facetious know-it-all assholes. Then again, maybe people like ringbarer are obvious trolls and my social ineptness and my lack of effort is the excuse for this misunderstanding.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
And just like heart disease. It's called being a pussy. Don't grab at your chest pussy. Suck it up!
(obviously you've never heard of adult ADD which is somehow "just being a kid?")
Actually, I'd make quick cursory check of my valuable property to make sure nothing was taken, then change the locks on my door for something I can't forget to lock (spring-bolt lock instead of deadbolt, for instance). That way the default is set to "locked" instead of "unlocked."
If the guy left a card to contact him, I'd probably send him some cash to buy a couple of beers with. After all, he could have stolen all my stuff, not left a note, and left no sign of forced entry (preventing me from claiming on my insurance).
Sometimes being a good citizen is the worst thing to do. There's a reason why you don't hear of many "good samaritans" any more.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I think the everyone missed the irony of you being unable to connect with and empathize with people with Aspergers.
i got your joke.
You are woefully uninformed and have probably only run into those idiots that self-diagnose as having Aspergers for the reason you state. If you've ever met anyone that was professionally diagnosed with Aspergers you'd know that almost all of them do what they can to fight the disorder and act normally. I, personally, know several and unless they told you it'd be hard to tell them apart from your average geek.
In other words... I'd suggest you STFU and actually do some research before cocking off about something you obviously have no real knowledge about.
Let's be clear. He should not have been on those systems. He *knew* he was not allowed in those systems. The fact that there was security, good, bad or non-existent is completely irrelevant. It doesn't matter if he was "exposing" their lack of security. It doesn't matter if he supposedly did no damage.
Nothing compelled him to attack and intrude on another party's system. Nothing compelled him to do that intrusion on a system that he knew would cause the black helicopters to appear. Being stupid is not a defense in a court of law. Although he has demonstrated a certain lack of mental capacity by even trying this stunt, he's still not dumb enough to be considered retarded, although *that* should have been his diminished capacity defense.
The DoD does not have the luxury of taking this guy at his word, they *must* investigate. That costs time and money. Additionally, intruding on a military system carries the higher than average possibility that compromise could cause casualties. That means that you come down like a ton of bricks on people who do it, without regard for what they actually attacked. You want people to know that simply putting their pinky toe over the line into that network is Serious Business, despite what they decided to go after.
Don't get me wrong. People need to be fired at DoD and security needs to be improved, but that doesn't make what he did right or legal or less deserving of extradition and jail time. You don't go logging into military systems on a lark. If he was allowed to get off the hook for that, just think of the numbers of emboldened attackers who would see one less reason why they shouldn't attack a portion of the Internet that is already a huge target.
To reiterate, it doesn't matter if the morons at DoD left their door ajar, and it doesn't matter if our friendly neighborhood hacker just started writing notes all over the place about how bad their security was. You may not like having to send him to another country for trial, but he earned it. The only thing that the situation seems to lack is the sanctions and/or jail time for the people who were that bad at security. They should rot in jail alongside with McKinnon.
Yup, and you can do a scan to determine if I am awake or asleep, or whether I am thinking or not. This does not, however, indicate it is some type of genetic disorder or environmental variable causing this.
The one fact that keeps rearing its head is that even after you take out other socioeconomic variables, ADD and ADHD is much more prevalent in fatherless households. There is a very high correlation. And yes, I know correlation!=causation. However, you have to make some pretty big leaps of faith to get around it. Dads have a much different parenting style and discipline style than moms. It stands to reason that this would have an impact on the outcome of the children.
And now, in the modern America, where husbands aren't really viewed as necessary (or even desired), we wonder why we have an explosion of these "disorders". Sorry... it ain't rocket science.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I know you were trolling, but I need to respond. I have AS. My father has it. My grandfather had it. And my son and one of my daughters have it. Believe me, it's real. I'm nearly 40. I'm just now feeling like I'm getting a handle on social skills. I believe I'm now entering the realm of the merely poor people-skilled humans. But it's much more than a lack of people skills. I have problems experiencing any emotion except anger. Sometimes I know what I'm feeling. Sometimes I feel something specific (like jealousy or embarrassment for example) but interpret it as a generic "bad". Sometimes I can't identify it at all. And sometimes I feel nothing when something should be there. Even when I know exactly what I'm feeling, 80% of the time, I express it incorrectly. Normal people can't read me either. They think I'm angry when I'm not, or feel completely blind-sided when I am angry. Behaviors that are natural and automatic for neurotypicals are learned behaviors for me. And if I haven't learned them, I execute them wrong or not at all. I have problems with executive function meaning that it's difficult or impossible to plan and organize some things. It explains why I always scored sky-high on aptitude tests in school, but always got bad grades. My spacial relations, problem solving, design abilities, and speech/linguistics are way out there. I always impress people with it. But my memory is beyond terrible. I can remember hardware addresses of computers I used 20 years ago, but can't remember what I had for breakfast a couple days ago. I also have sensory problems, mainly with touch and hearing. I have problem filtering out background noises and focusing on specific people talking. I have no idea what they're saying. Yet my hearing tests out perfect. When it happens, it's like my wife has switched to a foreign language. My gait is visibly wrong, which is common. I also have the theory of mind problems (mind-blindness). It's sometimes nearly impossible for me to understand at all how someone else feels unless something nearly identical has happened to me. As a coping mechanism, I have a long mental list of things that I know make people feel bad. When someone expresses sadness to me because of one of these things, I fake the empathy back to them. It works most of the time. And I intend the same things for them as someone who actually feels bad for them. I really want them to feel better. But inside me, I feel mostly nothingness.
Asperger's Syndrome and other autism spectrum disorders are real. I've benefited partially from it. But for the most part it sucks. I would give anything to be normal.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Family values are talked about. We have advertising campaigns. But it is projected that in a few years that more kids will be born out of wedlock than in (it is slightly over 40% now). This is trend is being seen in all social levels. So, Family Values are a nice political campaign slogan, but we have rejected them as a society.
If you want the #1 factor in a child's success, look to two-parent households with parents who are actively involved with their children. Forget ethnicity, forget money. They may be big factors, but parents' involvement is #1.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Wow, simply wow. Have you been to Mexico? Egypt? Any nation outside of Western Europe or North America? I'll take an American prison any day with internet and three square meals.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Not at all, given that the whole point of Guantanamo Bay is to hold people against whom there is no evidence. He's actually guilty of something, so he can be sentenced in a court. Now, if he was innocent, but someone disliked him and wanted to get rid of him, then he would be sent to GB.
Not that that GB would be that different than the one he's currently in, mind you...
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
But we don't lock people up for 60 years for trespassing.
There have always been places where a physical intrusion - no matter how trivial - could quite conceivably get you shot.
The online world isn't so very different.