US Wants UK Hacker To Pay To Fix Holes He Exposed

bossanovalithium writes "Gary McKinnon, whose tribulations we have followed for several years now, is the UK hacker trying to escape extradition to the US. It appears he is expected to foot the bill for the US Government patching holes his breaching uncovered — to the tune of $700,000. It's not really the norm for someone to pay for exploits to be patched — damages fixed, yes, but this is a very different thing." The article paraphrases Eugene Spafford as saying that the victim of a cybercrime should not take the blame. "If someone broke a door to rob a store, he said, it was usual to charge them the cost of the door." Isn't the McKinnon case more like charging him to buy the lock that had been missing when he walked in?

Comments

Re:Taking responsibility for ones actions.

[dbcad7]

Your analogy changes though if it's a greased naked man who squeezed through a skylight on the roof and is looking through your sock drawer at 2 am. Now perhaps it is not the mans fault that you have a skylight, and that other people who are willing can do the same thing he did.. but you can see how you might want him to pay to keep others from doing the same thing.