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Hacker McKinnon To Be Extradited To US
Vainglorious Coward writes "When UK hacker and Asperger's sufferer Gray McKinnon lost the judicial review of his case it seemed likely that he would be extradited to the US to face charges of hacking almost a hundred systems causing $700,000 worth of damage. Today the UK home secretary rejected his last-ditch attempt to avoid extradition adding that 'his extradition to the United States must proceed forthwith.' McKinnon's relatives are expressing concerns for his health, with his lawyer going so far as to claim that extradition would make the 43-year-old's death 'virtually certain.'"
...and Asperger's sufferer...
This has NOTHING to do with this issue.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I hope you are proud of yourselves.
$700k of damages, my arse. They couldn't even secure their own networks against a UFO nut. FAIL. Sort out your own problems instead, like paying proper money to hire people who can secure networks, don't go looking to blame someone when the inevitable happens.
The crime took place on British soil. Why is he being extradited?
Or, if you want to take the view that the servers were on US soil, why have people posting to US servers been prosecuted in Britain for hate speech? You can't have it both ways.
I was pretty sure he wasn't immortal even before this....
OTOH, given the pommeling due process has taken in the US lately, maybe this guy's lawyer is on to something. We'll just have to wait and see.
Has just gone out the window. Lowest common denominator laws win.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Virtual death? Yes, I suppose he would be dead, so to speak, on the internet.
I have not read much on this case, from skimming his wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon ...it seems he is a UK citizen, right? Why would the UK extradite a citizen to the US? If it were the other way around I think an extradition would be very unlikely.
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
If you don't live in the USA you hardly stand much a chance of getting fair trial if you are extradited. Firstly you need money for a private attorney if you want a real shot at a fair trial (public defenders are a joke most of the time; innocent people go to jail all the time - just look at he innocence project). And you are not allowed to work while you are awaiting trail in the USA further guaranteeing you getting screwed over. You are not familiar with the legal system - again another nail in the coffin of obtaining a fair trial. And consider that you don't know anyone to turn to for advice. And then you have to consider cultural factors - a jury in the USA is going to be less sympathetic to a foreigner.
Of course in this case its even worse - what he did would be a lesser crime in the UK. Why someone should subject to a foreign countries laws while doing something that is not in that foreign county amazes me. We don't give foreigners the vote so why should they be subject to our laws when not in our country. Let him be subject to British laws and let the British system deal with him (ie for his hacking).
He also has Asperger's Syndrome and this form of autism could really be a stress factor leading to suicude. A trial in a foreign country is no small deal. The whole thing stinks.
Lowest common denominator laws win.
No, most powerful sovereign state wins. USA gets to tell pretty well anybody (apart from maybe Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea) when they want somebody brought over the USA to stand trial under US law. How often does the US let other countries take its citizens away to stand trial under their laws? Can't imagine US citizens being shipped to the EU very often, not even thinking of less developed countries.
Let's face it, he's a nerd / geek, so expendable as there are no votes in it for this government that likes to extradite TO the USA, but cannot get any wanted terrorist suspects extradited FROM the USA. That's the beauty of the extradition treaty THIS corrupt British government has, it's one way, they are a spineless government who rolls over for anyone these days, not giving a crap bout their own. The Americans never got the extradition treaty through their government machinery, they are laughing.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
His name is Gary, not Gray. Stellar editing as always, slashdot staff.
Sturgeon was an optimist.
I though there was a UN convention that prohibited extradition to countries that practice torture or won't give a person due process. Given the US recent track record on torture and the probability that he will be tried in a military court it should be fairly easy to get his extradition cancelled. But then again, the US and the UK are not all that much different and if closer together would probably become a single country. Maybe he should appeal to the EU court for the protection of Human Rights in Geneva and he probably will. This dude will be in prison for a very long time.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
That figure is the alleged cost of upgrading the security of these systems after the attack, not the result of any 'damage' that he may have caused. I'm not in any way condoning what he has done and Asperger's is no excuse but the desktops that he accessed were often Internet facing with blank or weak administrator passwords, seems to me like there should be some sysadmins on trial with him for gross negligence.
My analogy (no car sorry) would be that it's like a robbed bank having to spend $700,000 on a vault after realising that keeping the money in wooden boxes in the back yard is inadequate.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
...if he was doing something against the law...
...and Asperger's sufferer...
This has NOTHING to do with this issue.
This has nothing to do with the the issue whatsoever. The problem we have here is an extradiction treaty that is some what biased in the favour of the US that Tony Blair signed up to along with Bush at his private ranch in Texas IN PRIVATE as the IRAQ WAR inquiry is now following. Terror laws have been implented to erode every man, women and childrens' rights on this planet to live in peace. This guy was just a young enthusiastic individual IT guy interested in UFO's. All he wanted was to try and understand the TRUTH. It does not make him a terrorist, he had a thirst that needed quenching. Many scientists push the boundaries of convention to explore new worlds or organisms. It does not make this guy a terrorist, and in actual fact the NSA and DHS ought to be thankful he poked some holes in the systems. Now I could put up a few wargame "Real Time" Linux and BSD boxes to hack on a network, running other services, but $700,000.00 worth of damage is laughable beyond the extreme. I am taking he never pulled an rm-/rf *.* and obviously forensics have checked /var/logs have not been contaminated. Did these guys run ENCASE? If they did, any person working in intelligience knows Encase is not enough.
In my own words of the X-Files (2O*x+d4782)
Grid me.
All cows eat grass!
I guess I should be extradited to Saudi Arabia since that message can be read from there.
I hope you are proud of yourselves.
$700k of damages, my arse. They couldn't even secure their own networks against a UFO nut. FAIL. Sort out your own problems instead, like paying proper money to hire people who can secure networks, don't go looking to blame someone when the inevitable happens.
The US just enforced an African debt of $20,000,000.00 on Liberia, yes that is how ruthless the US are with African 3rd world countries. Greed no water people dying in Liberia.
All cows eat grass!
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time !! Don't do it !!
At least not France nor Germany, although it's slightly different within EU countries (or at least Schengen) because it wouldn't be an extradition, and member countries have similar standards -- the US certainly doesn't. McKinnon would hardly get more than a suspended sentence here.
He tried to quench that 'thirst' by breaking in to a highly sensitive military computer network directly or indirectly depended on by many people in harms way every day. Sounds a hell of a lot like it SHOULD fall under terrorism laws. Think of it this way, if he had bypassed and broken security in person, slipping in to the heart of an actual highly sensitive military base because he was 'curious' his motivation would hardly matter. I'm just glad the terrorism laws are being applied to someone who actually broke them rather then the usual trumped up charges.
He didn't "break in to a highly sensitive military computer network". He leaned against the door and found it opened. If he actually got into any sensitive areas, then the ones that belong into court are the incompetent idiots who couldn't even keep an amateur with two much time on his hands out of their networks.
in the EU. In the US he risks over 10 years in jail for hacking crappy computers. That's what you'd get around here for murder (except for the worst types I guess)
To those retards who will say "you do the crime you do the time": a basic tenet of the rule of law is that nobody is supposed to ignore the law. Corollary is that you can't be supposed to know the laws of all the fucking countries on the internet when you haven't even set foor there. Here he would hardly get more than a suspended sentence for that harmless thing he did. In the US he risks over 10 years.
What if I post an anti-communist rant on a Chinese server? Or advocate for atheism on a Saudi one? Do I deserve a flogging? This all thing is a major injustice. That some people don't see that makes me mad.
My son asked me over this me how can a third world country extradite a British citizen ? i then had to explain America is not a third world country although he and his friends firmly believe it is, makes me wonder if the USA is being increasingly viewed in a different light ......
The fact that the old lady didn't put up much of a fight when the mugger took her purse doesn't make it less of a mugging. 'But she was so easy to rob, didn't put up any fight at all! Send her to jail since she's not taking any self defense classes!'
Flash Forward.... /. .\
All cows eat grass!
Imagine if there were an extradition treaty with China. Suddenly people in the US and UK who spoke out about human rights, which is totally legal in those countries, could be extradited for breaking Chinese law.
My question is quite simple: If this individual is a British person, living in England, never going to the US, how can the US Government ever have the right to prosecute him? Sounds like he broke British law, and should be charged there. It sets a very dangerous president.
Perhaps Iraq could pass a law against torture and extradite former President Bush for his crimes.
...If it were me, I wouldn't be being extradited: at the first hint of trouble, off to Venezuela - whatever a pit Venezuela is, it's not even a fraction as bad as US "pound me in the ass" prison. And Venezuela hates the United States and would never extradite.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Was he really looking for ufo stuff or just wanted to brag about about getting into US army systems.
Part of this has to be to so the army does not look that bad and he may even get a deal maybe 10-15 years just to keep this out of court.
Or did he just find a setup trap that was meant to be that easy to get into like the child porn traps that are out there.
Was the systems setup that was as no payed for it to be setup right and they wanted to hit what even hacker to foot the bill for it.
Isn't his death already virtually certain?
A real country with hair on it's chest wouldn't extradite any of it's citizens for something like this. Put him to trial yourself instead of giving the Americans a political blowjob. Tony Blair isn't in office any longer, you can stop kissing USofA's ass now.
How is he going to get a fair trial,he will not have a jury of his peers,they all live in the UK. Are we going to extradite them as well??
Jack of all trades,master of none
At least not France nor Germany, although it's slightly different within EU countries
Not here in Finland either. Our consitution doesn't allow extradition to countries that use death punishment. It was apparently considered a sign of barbaric, illogical an unefficient justice system here already in very early 20th century.
They couldn't even secure their own networks against a UFO nut. FAIL.
UFO nut != incompetent. Crazy: yes. Incompetent: Maybe, but not necessarily.
Sort out your own problems instead, like paying proper money to hire people who can secure networks, don't go looking to blame someone when the inevitable happens.
Just because something is easy doesn't mean you have the right to do it. Hypothetical situation: If I were to shoot someone, saying "He wasn't even wearing a Kevlar vest, so ANYBODY could've done it" would not mean it was justified. I would deserve to go to jail and/or be executed just like any other murderer.
Sorry, it's more like someone going into people's homes while they're out if they left a door unlocked. It's trespass, it's an invasion of privacy, but there are no grounds for claiming that the person caused massive damage just by entering or leaving a note on the table. And if it's a business, bank or government building, whoever was responsible for security should get in more trouble for the intrusion than the person who committed an act of trespass.
"Sounds a hell of a lot like it SHOULD fall under terrorism laws."
He sure struck terror in the heart of that computer, that's for sure.
Ever heard of the Insanity defense? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insanity_defense#Temporary_insanity]
Ever heard of Cruel and Unusual punishment - 50 years for hacking into a computer. (hint see the Eighth Amendment of the US constitution)
Do you believe the same about other behaviors like depression, paranoia, and schizophrenia?
Just curious...
I don't think that actually matters. If I leave my house door unlocked and you claim it was open, you still know you are not allowed to enter without permission from me (the home owner) or someone letting you in. I mean a crook isn't excused from stealing your car stereo just because a window was left down. If he would have leaned against my door, found it to be open and then entered, I would still expect him to be trialed and convicted for breaking and entering or whatever else could apply. And no, me not being certain that I locked the door is not an invite without repercussions for someone to enter the house or building or whatever.
Ok, it might make a small difference that the area he accessed wasn't a highly sensitive military computer network. But it's not excuse or defense for his actions.
For anyone feeling up to it, it has been previously proposed that we should each donate some time wasting this jerk's marketing staff's time...
But if you are Asperger's be warned you might get extradited if you overdo it.
Do you also choose not to 'believe' in gravity or the electrostatic force? Perhaps the whole world is run by the tooth fairy?
I never know what to say when people just outright reject decades of scientific evidence. And if on Slashdot of all places people don't understand the scientific method or just flatly deny it then maybe humanity is in big doodoo.
Your English sucks.
The funny thing about jurisdiction is that traditionally it is based on where the crime took place. Nowadays it seems to be a matter of convenience.
But where did the crime take place? Consider someone who stood inside France and shot an arrow into Germany. That arrow strikes a Kraut and kills them. Did the murder occur in France or in Germany?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Justice would mean him being tried in the UK, just like any other UK citizen. Now he is going to get 60 years in the for-profit American prison industry for guessing a few passwords. For an example of how people with Asperger's are treated there, see the Billy Cotrell case.
The US would sooner start a war than extradite one of their own to another country, even for war crimes. One-sided extradition treaties give the US legal jurisdiction over Europe but not vice versa. We Europeans are pussies. We've truly let ourselves become satellite states of the Empire of the United States of America.
... with a cheap lock and cause damages???
It is totally retarded to think that just because something is easy to break-in that it is OK to do so. If he was "man" enough to commit a crime, he should should be man enough to accept the consequences.
I never understand how you can have extradition without financial support for the defendant - otherwise it's impossible to get a fair trial.
As the previous poster pointed out, how is this guy supposed to support himself if he makes bail? How the heck is he supposed to pay for health insurance?
If someone is already clinically depressed how are they going to survive in very hostile climate in a foreign country with absolutely no support system? What about if someone has a mortgage in their home country, how will they afford to keep on making payments? What about student loans and credit card debt?
If we are going to take the concept of extradition + a fair trial seriously I suggest:
1. Upon extradition you are given financial aid to pay for initial legal and cultural advice.
2. A grant to pay for health insurance
3. Help finding a job, housing etc with interim financial help.
If at the end of it you are found NOT guilty then you are given compensation for losing your career, home, credit rating, friends in your home country (ie having your whole life permanently f***ed up) and the opportunity to keep your current job in the new country.
Additionally if the UK is going to extradite mentally ill people then facilities have to be provided for proper mental health treatment and rehabilitation - not the current bs that is the US prison system. Also if this guy needs extra help because he is mentally ill then the US government should pay for friends and relatives to come and visit him on a regular basis.
Also a guarantee should be given that the person being extradited will not be raped or beaten up in prison.
We've already for gotten Re Anderson! This is historic and something quite relevent to our "constitution".
( facts : http://www.justice.org.uk/images/pdfs/11inter.PDF )
Re Anderson is an ex parte case involving one of the Jamie Bulger killers. The death of this toddler was horrific beyond many people's imagination (I've purposefully kept ignorant of exactly what the killers did because the little i've heard sickens me enough!). The case set a precent however. It involves the HRA - Human Rights Act... A "bit of law" (a fantastic peice of legislation that DOES work - and actually protects your civil rights - see Re MB). The HRA enacts the ECHR - the European Charter on Human Rights - which essentially requires the "law" or officer of the judicary (a distinct and separate entity to the government) to pass judgements on people. Ex p Anderson makes descretionary tariff setting (by a politician or government appointee) illegal. The principle is simple: they are not a fair judge. Anderson proved that the then Home Sec was unfair in giving the individual life (all of it, not a sentence) imprisonment without parol. McKinnon is a prime example of where ee have another case of no judicial oversight into a judicial matter - the whim of a politician is massaged in exactly the same way as Ex p Anderson!
Yadda yadda
Matt
ASS BERGERS ???
HOOOT.
Hey Wanna ASS Berger.
Reminds me of the movie Demolition Man when he found out he was eating a rat berger.
a crook isn't excused from stealing your car stereo just because a window was left down.
Yeah, sure. Try it. See if the cops do more than take your name and a list of what was taken for insurance purposes. Actually catch the guy? Well, that would be hard, ya know?
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8382066.stm
This is for a judicial review of the Home Office decision. So they've not played the European or the Human Rights cards yet.
And with that, my karma-whoring is complete.
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
How is he going to get a fair trial,he will not have a jury of his peers, they all live in the UK. Are we going to extradite them as well?
No we are not:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense. The Sixth Amendment
Juries must be drawn from a panel that is representative of the citizens of the district in which the crime was committed.
Individual jurors must be free of bias.
The jury of your peers isn't a mirror reflection of your own self-image.
It's a richer sampling of the community in which you have been charged with a crime.
To a geek, this passage should sound familiar:
When you're in the government's sights, your best friend would seem to be a jury, that lovable amalgam of ordinary Americans with a simple, if sometimes mistaken, sense of justice. Did nothing wrong? Don't worry, jurors will sniff out the truth. Cheated a bit? No problem -- prosecutors would rather cut a deal than risk their case before a fickle jury. And if you do end up at trial, there's a good chance that jurors will be so sympathetic, confused or hostile to the government that they'll disagree on a verdict or let you off the hook.
It almost never works out that way.
Why to Fear a Jury of Your Peers
I'm sorry, did you just compare a "secure" military network controlled by the most powerful nation in the world to a defenseless little old lady?
$ make available
Your idiotic comments make me want to shoot myself. Would that be my fault, or yours? Does it matter if I have a predisposition to hating idiots?
Quartz Extreme and Core Image. Are there any other real reasons to spend all that money on generic hardware?
Extradition to the US will make his death 'virtually certain'?
I always thought all living beings had 'virtually certain' mortality?
Lock him up in a laboratory and extract the secrets of immortality from him immediately!
I'd suggest dropping Alan Johnson a line and letting him know exactly what you think of him: Alan Johnson MP
Greed no water people dying in Liberia.
Er, what? Could you rephrase that for us?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
He didn't "break in to a highly sensitive military computer network". He leaned against the door and found it opened
That seems like an awfully weak argument. It seems clear to me that we're dealing with a functional and intelligent human who could not have honestly mistaken his access for anything but illegitimate.
I don't understand why everyone's mad at the US.
The US is doing what their law says to do. They have an extradition treaty with the UK. Therefore, they requested extradition.
REQUESTED extradition. They didn't "demand" it. They didn't "order" the UK to. They didn't send in CIA commandos to kidnap the 43 year old hacker and bring him back on a C130 in the dead of night.
They asked.
The UK's response was, "Why sure, here you go! We don't want to prosecute this case here."
I cannot contemplate why the people from the UK who are angry at the US are angry at the US. It's YOUR country that's selling out a citizen of your country. It's YOUR country that, instead of saying "No, US. We're going to follow our extradition treaty and elect to prosecute here" that handed this man over.
Your country has the ability to prosecute him in the UK. They can do it. They chose not to. Don't blame my country for requesting extradition of a criminal. If your countryman was really an innocent aspie, your country should stand up for him.
Jeeze. Grow a pair. Everyone bitches about the US , all the time, and sure, we have some problems here.. but instead of whining about OUR problems, perhaps you should ask your OWN GOVERNMENT why they're selling out their citizens.
Let us in the States try to make our country better. You work on your own damn country.. cause it's no land of plenty.
I assure you of this, though. If the situation was reversed.. THIS country, the US, wouldn't be so quick to sell out its citizens.
So when someone leans against your door and they happen to find it open then they're free to do whatever they like? Post your address. I'm sure there are some takers.
When I was reading the article titles to see if anything looked interesting, I thought it said Hacker McKinnon to be executed in US... Really made me think twice about some of the stuff I do online in my free time :) That & the **AA has become a little more powerful/influential than the last time I heard.
"He tried to quench that 'thirst' by breaking in to a highly sensitive military computer network directly or indirectly depended on by many people in harms way every day. Sounds a hell of a lot like it SHOULD fall under terrorism laws."
Holy batcaves Batman. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! Let's start with a definition of Terrorism:
terrorism - The calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious.
or, how about Terrorist:
terrorist - a radical who employs terror as a political weapon; usually organizes with other terrorists in small cells.
Now, please explain exactly how what he did is in ANY way associated with terrorism. No really. Some morons are modding you up as interesting and you are not even close to the mark here.
strike
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Do you even know what 'terrorism' means? Because, apparently, from your post, you don't have the slightest clue. Hint: the use of force, or the threat of force, to coerce a people. That's it. Nothing else is terrorism.
no, but it does tell you something about the lack of criminal energy involved. if i left my front door open and came back home to find someone in my flat, i doubt i'd alarm the police, provided i could get the trespasser to leave by myself and was pretty certain that nothing had been stolen or broken.
the thing is, most of us have a gut feeling that mckinnon doesn't really deserve more than a slap on the wrist and to be told to go to bed early without pudding. what he did should have been regarded as a schoolboy's prank---he guessed the passwords of some poorly sites to search for information about UFOS. he didn't actually damage anything and he didn't actually inconvenience anyone himself. had he deleted or modified information, then that would be a different thing. your line "free to do whatever they like" is a very poor strawman, as the fact is that he didn't damage anything.
Asperger's is an over diagnosed, fad, crutch disease that every one claims to have in order to feel special. If you have Asperger's why are you on a message board leaving long comments to other people? I couldn't throw a rock without hitting someone whose doctor says he has Asperger's just because he has eccentric personality traits like every other human being on the planet.
Lets face facts here. This man is an evil deviant menance. He should be shot down in falmes. Nobuddy should have there intellignece insuloted by his clams to be an Asperger. We all know his type - he even looks dodgey - like somebody who would commit series crimes. I mean just look at him - he has the face of somebody who is bad to the bone. He has preyed ona innocent and defencelss United States for too long. I say blow him up now and have dun with it.!
Absolutely. Everyone who pokes around in a poorly secured computer system should be classified as a terrorist. As should anyone who creeps up behind me and shouts "boo!".
I really do... I've got nothing against the bloke personally, but this 'Special Relationship' that marches our soldiers to their death and fucks us every which way in our dealings with the US needs to die and that won't happen until the people in the street wake up and realise just how one-sided this relationship has been for a long time now.
One thing that I still can't understand is that I thought Obama was all about change. Why is his administration still pushing for this extradition? All the democrats told me that America would be perfect again once Obama got in >:(
Obama - SAME we can believe in.
This is the military we are talking about. If they put up as much of a fight as an old lady, the problem is the military, not the mugger.
What would they do if they suddenly needed to worry about a real terrorist? Sh*t their pants? When people start comparing the military to an old lady, either the country needs more terrorist attacks for the military to worry about (or a real enemy), or the government should be talking about abolishing the military, because there is obviously no use for them.
Well, given that he has Aspergers and thus has limited social skills, I wonder who he would be bragging to?
That is a stupid argument, and you are a stupid person for making it. I think most of us think it's fine to charge him with some sort of criminal trespass, but nothing (including any of the ignorant shit you have said) justifies charging him to change the passwords, which is basically what is happening, just as nothing would justify making someone who finds your house unlocked, walks in, and leaves without doing any harm pay to install a lock on your front door. He would never be extradited without the $700,000 figure associated with the case, yet allowing it to even play a part in your reasoning is itself corrupt. Thus, everyone involved with this extradition should be hung up by their testicles until they pay $700,000 for some minor offense which harmed no one so that they can develop some fucking empathy. I fear, however, that it is too late for you.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The fact that the old lady didn't put up much of a fight when the mugger took her purse doesn't make it less of a mugging.
'But she was so easy to rob, didn't put up any fight at all! Send her to jail since she's not taking any self defense classes!'
Are you calling the US Army a little old lady?
You should ignore my above comment. Sometimes I am prone to sleep walking and last night was one of those nights. I have been known to do this on IRC as well and have the logs to prove it. Eitherway, this morning McKinnon's mother was on BBC Breakfast and the extradition is still being fought. It seems that from a legal point of view, the Home Secretary has been ill informed regarding legalities.
All cows eat grass!
When the old lady in question is the US military it's reasonable (IMO) to describe their lack of self defence as a dereliction of duty. I don't beleive your argument can sensibly be applied to a nationally organised military service whose whole purpose for existing *is* self defence... well that and invading other countries who have lots of oil, depending on who you listen to.
I personally believe that the US just want to give him a huge scare. They want to make him believe that he is going to be severely punished for his crimes. What I think will happen is that he will be extradited, but the punishment won't be as severe as the US have led him to believe. In the end, I think the US will believe that he has been punished enough and either give him a substantial fine or 6 months in prison and then let him go.
You are breaking my heart here. If it was left up to people like you, nobody would ever go to jail anymore for anything.
Anyone with a family, collective punishment of family.
Anyone without a family, extra punishment because nobody would visit them.
Bam, all jails are empty.
It reminds me of a case where british newspapers were complaining about drunk drivers not being dealed with harshly enough, then the police arrest a drunken woman and cry that locking her up is mean because she had kids.
Can't do the time, don't do the crime. And if this guy is so incapable of overseeing the consequences of his own actions, then he should be in permanent care. To me an insanity plea has never sounded right "Hi, I killed someone because I am insane so I had no motive, and I could do it randomly again and again with no cure possible". Most people would say "awh, that is so sad, let him off". I say "fry him".
Oh and you are also insulting all the REAL asperger sufferers who do NOT commit crimes.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
* Impaired social interaction.
yup. that's slashdot.
* Lack of empathy.
Look at the parent poster and the OP.
* No sense of humor.
How many times has a WHOOSH! been required here?
* Hyperfocus on tasks and rituals.
Duh.
* Logical patterns of thought.
OK, many posters EPIC FAIL on this one. Could be BA or MA trolls, though.
This was a PUBLIC WEBSITE. It wasn't someone's home with a gate, it was a WEBSITE that asked for no user name and password in many cases. COMPLETELY PUBLIC.
It wasn't a home.
It was a computer system.
And how many people would get EXTRADITED to face $700,000 and 10-25 in jail for walking into a home and looking at your wife's smalls and leaving???
What happened is that people who were incompetent and paid a shitload to BE COMPETENT were found with their fingers up their arse and rather than go "Oh bugger, sorry, here's my resignation", decided that they would instead find a scapegoat. And rather than deal with your military's incompetence you are screaming for this bowb's blood.
Well fuck you.
You owe the British government £3trillion for the cost of tea destroyed in a terrorist attack, with punitive damages and inflationary increase for delayed payment.
Or the whole fucking lot of you should go to jail.
Terrorists.
So anyone who might commit suicide, gets a "get out jail free" card from you. At what crime do you draw the line I wonder? If I killed you and then said "oh I am going to end it all" should I walk free?
I don't think the world can work as you seem to want it to work. Oh and if he was going to kill himself over the stress, why hasn't he killed himself yet, over the stress?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
this 'highly sensitive military computer network' was one where they were using default windows passwords.
the 'damage' done of $700,000 seems to be a figure created by the military in order to justify extradition (there is a threshold of damage required and the damage seems to have been conveniently set at the 'correct' figure).
If a newspaper had simply reported that the computers were set up with the default windows passwords - then presumably the military would have had to perform the same work in checking for potential comprimise and securing their networks. Would the paper in this hypothetical case have caused $700,000 worth of damage - or was that just work that needed to be done as a result of bad security practice.
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this is a simple case of don't do the crime if you cant do the time!
Youre an idiot, lets talk about what he did, not what he might have done, or other stupid comparisons.
Just give him 1-2 years, then let it be. Because murders get that amount everyday. But we know the govt values life of many people really low.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I'm sorry, did you just compare a "secure" military network controlled by the most powerful nation in the world to a defenseless little old lady?
You are right, the comparison is preposterous.
The little defenseless old lady actually uses common sense, hence probably is more secure than the morons that are probably using IE still...
how long until
This reminds me of something that happened to me recently. My wife and I went away for the weekend and on our return, found a note at the bottom of our stairs from the police, informing us that they had found our front door wide open and had gone inside to make sure we hadnt been robbed, they'd been into every room (we've found the dirty footprints) and secured the door on their way out. We wrote to the police about this and thanked the officers in question. In my opinion, the US should do the same.
The fact that the old lady didn't put up much of a fight when the mugger took her purse doesn't make it less of a mugging. 'But she was so easy to rob, didn't put up any fight at all! Send her to jail since she's not taking any self defense classes!'
Except it wasn't an old lady, more like a 200 kg gorilla. Also no purse.
Would this extradition still have been allowed if he was facing the death penalty? I have always understood that we (the UK) wouldn't allow extradition in these circumstances, so maybe he should have murdered someone in Texas over the internet...
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Stop posting really. Your arguments are ignorant.
It's more like checking to see if the doors on the street have locks on them, then letting the owners know that this is not secure. Then, the owners sue you for 700,000 dollars because they had to make sure you didn't steal anything.
"Prove it with a proper diagnosis with a real doctor"? Hah. The problem with your dichotomy between self-diagnosis and "real" diagnosis is that many, many doctors are as clueless as the people self-diagnosing. The dedicated hypochondriac has little trouble obtaining "real" diagnoses, I'm afraid, so your suggestion to prove it isn't terribly useful. And that is to say nothing of false negative diagnoses.
People will believe and claim what they want, true or not, and there's little you can do about it, regardless of your opinion on the matter.
Allocation of resources. Most of the time, no serious information (such as a fingerprint) is left behind, because crooks know better. (My car has been broken into before and the police checked, which is how I know.) Minimal information means that it would take far too much effort to pursue a loss of a few hundred dollars worth of equipment when they can be pursuing larger crimes.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
The connection to terrorism is the legal portion of the law and why it was shaped that way. It's like the registered sex offenders who's only crime was taking a piss in the bushes when no public restroom was available. Nothing they did was related to sex or a sex crime but it's enveloped into the same category under the law.
It isn't just bandying about. Extradition requires a certain level of federal crime to be committed. By the *actual* damages done, McKinnon would not come under that definition of extraditable crime.
so the $700,000 IS DEFINITELY part of the extradition: without it there would be no extradition.
NOTE: they want to try him for post facto law. The US government brought in a law AFTER the hack and now want to charge him with it.
Which is against the constitution.
PS I wonder if China will extraordinarily rendition people from the NSA for hacking crimes...?
PPS since the US still has the death penalty, extradition to that barbaric country the US should be disallowed by EU laws.
Sorry, it's more like someone going into people's homes while they're out if they left a door unlocked. It's trespass, it's an invasion of privacy, but there are no grounds for claiming that the person caused massive damage just by entering or leaving a note on the table.
The problem is with your analogy. You are quite correct that walking into my house and leaving a note on the table doesn't amount to damages. However, walking into my house, rearranging the furniture, planting recording devices and using it has a place to hide your drug stash does cause me damages. I have to clean up the place, undo everything you've done, find all your recording devices, etc. Oh but you swear you didn't leave any? Right, I'll take the word of a criminal.
No, the reality is this. When someone connects to a server without authorization and has free reign over the system, they have already cost the server admin time that will be spent cleaning up the mess. Of course, if you have ever tried to dealt with cleaning up a rooted box then it's easier to just wipe the system clean rather than trying to find every backdoor, every infected file, etc. Of course, all passwords have to be changed as well. The server downtime is eating into the monthly hosting expenses as well as costing loss of business and so on.
I've been on both sides. I used to be a hacker. I've been arrested by the CID for allegedly hacking military computers (so I'm getting a kick out of these replies). I've also had to clean up computers after they've been hacked. The bullshit excuse of "I was just looking, I didn't break anything" has always been just that, bullshit. It's a rationalization for unethical behavior that most certainly is costly. It's a shame I've only realized that after being a drain on my fellow human beings.
Those keystrokes weren't even the crime they are accusing him of.
They want to put him on trial for a criminal law that passed AFTER (repeat ***AFTER***) he did the act.
Ex posto facto laws don't apply.
Unless the DoD want it to because they're so incompetent they couldn't find their own arseholes with an atlas and a team of sherpas.
terrorism has just become the catch all for people we don't like. It used to be communist but luckily people woke up and realized that communist just meant people just like us that live in a different country under a different form of government. Unfortunately terrorist is such a vague bad guy word that it can apply to anyone different or hostile to you. I wish I did but I don't have an answer as to how to not have it be as agressive. Hopefully the next or future generation will find a way to ignore it like we did with communist.
I personally know two children who have been diagnosed by real psychiatrists, and as far as I can see neither of them, even though they are of normal intelligence and one of them knows what autism and Asperger's is, would ever be able to wake up one day and say "Yes, I must suffer from Asperger's syndrome!". And both of them, even though they haven't been told their diagnosis yet, know they've gone through all kinds of tests and counseling that other children haven't. So I mainly agree that "self-diagnosed Asperger's" is an "affectation" (or rather, an affectation of self-classification which I supposed is used as an excuse in many cases).
It's also a myth that people with Asperger's are "really smart". IIRC, the diagnostic criterion is that they must be of normal intelligence, i.e., cannot be retarded. I suppose, since the vast majority of people suffering from autism are retarded, that makes Asperger's sufferers "really smart" --- for autists.
Allocation of resources. Most of the time, no serious information (such as a fingerprint) is left behind, because crooks know better. (My car has been broken into before and the police checked, which is how I know.) Minimal information means that it would take far too much effort to pursue a loss of a few hundred dollars worth of equipment when they can be pursuing larger crimes.
Anecdotal evidence, so take it as you will:
My friend's entire car was stolen, and found nearly a week later dumped on some back road. The police did nothing to track down the thie[f|ves], despite having several cigarette packs in the back seat - cellophane wrappings intact (fingerprints, anyone?). We eventually decided it was some politician or other "important" figure's friend/relative who "borrowed" the vehicle... we'd hate to think that the police are simply so lazy, or "resource-poor" that they cannot pursue a lead on a case of grand theft auto.
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That kind of situation is a problem. Minor smash-and-grab I can understand. Loss of a car is a whole other issue.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.