I am afraid I cannot provide link for the above; I retrieved the extract from a closed legal database which requires a user-account. So unless you have access to WestLaw UK or Lexis Nexis you should not be able to access it. However, I could email a pdf file of the decision or include it below - which I have attempted to do. I apologise for the cramped formatting - slashdot does not take kindly to long extracts.
*1739 McKinnon v Government of the United States of America
House of Lords
30 July 2008
[2008] UKHL 59
[2008] 1 W.L.R. 1739
Lord Scott of Foscote , Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers CJ , Baroness Hale of Richmond , Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury
2008 June 16; July 30
Extradition—Abuse of process—Plea bargain—Defendant gaining unauthorised access to United States Government computer network and deleting data—United States prosecutors offering defendant plea bargain of lower sentence and repatriation to serve most of sentence in United Kingdom if he went voluntarily to United States and pleaded guilty—Defendant told of much higher sentence if convicted by jury after contesting extradition and that prosecution would oppose repatriation to serve part of sentence in United Kingdom—Defendant refusing plea bargain and contesting extradition—Whether disparity between sentence and conditions on plea bargain offer and on contested extradition and trial constituting undue pressure to forego due process in England—Whether abuse of process—Whether defendant to be discharged
The defendant, a British citizen, used his home computer to identify network computers of the Government of the United States of America, extracted the identities of certain administrative accounts and passwords, and installed unauthorised software which enabled him to access and alter data on those computers. He then deleted data from 97 computers, many of them high level United States military computers. The cost of repairs was alleged to total US$700,000. The defendant's conduct was alleged to have been intentional and calculated to influence the United States Government by intimidation and coercion. When interviewed under caution, the defendant admitted responsibility although not that he had caused damage. Before making a request for the defendant's extradition the United States prosecutors informed the defendant's legal representatives that if he went voluntarily to the United States without contesting extradition and if he pleaded guilty to two counts of “fraud and related activity in connection with computers” the prosecution would make a recommendation to the court which was likely to result in the defendant receiving a sentence of three to four years' imprisonment and, after serving six to 12 months in the United States, the prosecutor would recommend to the Department of Justice that the defendant be repatriated to serve the rest of his sentence in the United Kingdom, and that that recommendation was likely to be accepted. The defendant was offered a plea bargain on those terms. The defendant was also informed through his legal representatives that if he chose not to co-operate and was extradited to the United States of America and convicted by a jury after pleading not guilty, he could expect to receive a sentence of at least eight to ten years' imprisonment, and would not be repatriated to the United Kingdom to serve any part of it so that he would serve the whole sentence in the United States, possibly in a high security prison, with at best some 15% remission. The defendant refused the plea bargain offer and extradition proceedings were commenced. The district judge found that the defendant's extradition to the United States of America would not be incompatible with his Convention rights and sent the case to the Secretary of State who ordered the defendant's extradition. The defendant appealed on the ground that the wide disparity between the predicted likely outcome if he co-operated with the United States authorities, and the thr
I think there has been a ton of misinformation floating around as to the damage that Mr. McKinnon inflicted.
According to the facts of the case:
"11 Using his home computer the appellant, through the internet, identified US Government network computers with an open Microsoft Windows connection and from those extracted the identities of certain administrative accounts and associated passwords. Having gained access to those accounts he installed unauthorised remote access and administrative software called “remotely anywhere” that enabled him to access and alter data upon the American computers at any time and without detection by virtue of the programme masquerading as a Windows operating system. Once “remotely anywhere” was installed, he then installed software facilitating both further compromises to the computers and also the concealment of his own activities. Using this software he was able to scan over 73,000 US Government computers for other computers and networks susceptible to similar compromise. He was thus able to lever himself from network to network and into a number of significant Government computers in different parts of the USA.
12 The 97 computers the appellant accessed were: 53 army computers, including computers based in Virginia and Washington that control the army's military district of Washington network and are used in furtherance of national defence and security; 26 navy computers, including US Naval Weapons Station Earle, New Jersey, which was responsible for replenishing munitions and supplies for the deployed Atlantic fleet; 16 NASA computers; one Department of Defense computer; and one US Air Force computer.
13 Having gained access to these computers the appellant deleted data from them including critical operating system files from nine computers, the deletion of which shut down the entire US Army's Military District of Washington network of over 2000 computers for 24 hours, significantly disrupting Governmental functions; 2,455 user accounts on a US Army computer that controlled access to an Army computer network, causing these computers to reboot and become inoperable; and logs from computers at US Naval Weapons Station Earle, one of which was used for monitoring the identity, location, physical condition, staffing and battle readiness of Navy ships, deletion of these files rendering the Base's entire network of over 300 computers inoperable at a critical time immediately following 11 September 2001 and thereafter leaving the network vulnerable to other intruders.
14 The appellant also copied data and files onto his own computers, including operating system files containing account names and encrypted passwords from 22 computers comprising: 189 files from US Army computers, 35 files from US Navy computers (including some 950 passwords from server computers at Naval Weapons Station Earle); and six files from NASA computers."(Extract from McKinnon v Government of the United States of America and another, [2008] 1 W.L.R. 1739)
If Mr. McKinnon did not commit an offence, I'm not sure exactly what is one then. Indeed, he may have been an amateur. But on viewing the facts it appears he caused a substantial amount of damage. The claim of damages reflects not only the damage incurred by the US military but also the deterrence necessary to dissuade future crackers from entering US government systems.
I worked for Atari over last summer for an internship. At the time, Atari owned the rights to create and run Hasbro board games on their website Atari Play. By the end of the summer, however, I suppose because of financial problems, Atari sold their rights back to Hasbro. Instead of keeping Atari's well run board game website and all of the programming to the games, a large loyal fanbase, and development team, Hasbro foolishly shutdown Atari Play and replaced it with nothing. From what I can gather, their executives do not sound to be the shrewdest bunch. At the end of the day, they're simply pissing off those most willing to enjoy their franchise. Many fans on the former Atari Play board even offered to pay a monthly fee after hearing of the sale. Yet, Hasbro has shown itself to not only limit fan access to their franchise but shutdown all alternatives until then. Not exercising a popular franchise should be considered a corporate crime.
Similarly in New York city there was recent arrest because a cameraman was apparently racketeering by videotaping a police car. There's a video on blip tv here: http://timesup.blip.tv/file/252942/
The police will do anything to arrest anyone who is seen as nuisance or a minor threat to their authority. Welcome to the police state!
I say what is even more sick, is that hundreds of Iraqi Civilians and American Soldiers are dying each week. However, they receive around 10 seconds of news coverage. While the victims and families of the victims in this recent incident will receive nearly two months of news coverage. I haven't even mentioned the thousands dying in Darfur..
If you look at the tom's hardware article: (http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/17/gameplay-o nly-gets-worse-with-vista/) it is quite clear that this article is way off from the truth, or the author had a stroke of luck when running vista. The performance on vista for games is abysmal to say the least.
Slashdot Mirror
I am afraid I cannot provide link for the above; I retrieved the extract from a closed legal database which requires a user-account. So unless you have access to WestLaw UK or Lexis Nexis you should not be able to access it. However, I could email a pdf file of the decision or include it below - which I have attempted to do. I apologise for the cramped formatting - slashdot does not take kindly to long extracts. *1739 McKinnon v Government of the United States of America House of Lords 30 July 2008 [2008] UKHL 59 [2008] 1 W.L.R. 1739 Lord Scott of Foscote , Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers CJ , Baroness Hale of Richmond , Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury 2008 June 16; July 30 Extradition—Abuse of process—Plea bargain—Defendant gaining unauthorised access to United States Government computer network and deleting data—United States prosecutors offering defendant plea bargain of lower sentence and repatriation to serve most of sentence in United Kingdom if he went voluntarily to United States and pleaded guilty—Defendant told of much higher sentence if convicted by jury after contesting extradition and that prosecution would oppose repatriation to serve part of sentence in United Kingdom—Defendant refusing plea bargain and contesting extradition—Whether disparity between sentence and conditions on plea bargain offer and on contested extradition and trial constituting undue pressure to forego due process in England—Whether abuse of process—Whether defendant to be discharged The defendant, a British citizen, used his home computer to identify network computers of the Government of the United States of America, extracted the identities of certain administrative accounts and passwords, and installed unauthorised software which enabled him to access and alter data on those computers. He then deleted data from 97 computers, many of them high level United States military computers. The cost of repairs was alleged to total US$700,000. The defendant's conduct was alleged to have been intentional and calculated to influence the United States Government by intimidation and coercion. When interviewed under caution, the defendant admitted responsibility although not that he had caused damage. Before making a request for the defendant's extradition the United States prosecutors informed the defendant's legal representatives that if he went voluntarily to the United States without contesting extradition and if he pleaded guilty to two counts of “fraud and related activity in connection with computers” the prosecution would make a recommendation to the court which was likely to result in the defendant receiving a sentence of three to four years' imprisonment and, after serving six to 12 months in the United States, the prosecutor would recommend to the Department of Justice that the defendant be repatriated to serve the rest of his sentence in the United Kingdom, and that that recommendation was likely to be accepted. The defendant was offered a plea bargain on those terms. The defendant was also informed through his legal representatives that if he chose not to co-operate and was extradited to the United States of America and convicted by a jury after pleading not guilty, he could expect to receive a sentence of at least eight to ten years' imprisonment, and would not be repatriated to the United Kingdom to serve any part of it so that he would serve the whole sentence in the United States, possibly in a high security prison, with at best some 15% remission. The defendant refused the plea bargain offer and extradition proceedings were commenced. The district judge found that the defendant's extradition to the United States of America would not be incompatible with his Convention rights and sent the case to the Secretary of State who ordered the defendant's extradition. The defendant appealed on the ground that the wide disparity between the predicted likely outcome if he co-operated with the United States authorities, and the thr
I think there has been a ton of misinformation floating around as to the damage that Mr. McKinnon inflicted. According to the facts of the case: "11 Using his home computer the appellant, through the internet, identified US Government network computers with an open Microsoft Windows connection and from those extracted the identities of certain administrative accounts and associated passwords. Having gained access to those accounts he installed unauthorised remote access and administrative software called “remotely anywhere” that enabled him to access and alter data upon the American computers at any time and without detection by virtue of the programme masquerading as a Windows operating system. Once “remotely anywhere” was installed, he then installed software facilitating both further compromises to the computers and also the concealment of his own activities. Using this software he was able to scan over 73,000 US Government computers for other computers and networks susceptible to similar compromise. He was thus able to lever himself from network to network and into a number of significant Government computers in different parts of the USA. 12 The 97 computers the appellant accessed were: 53 army computers, including computers based in Virginia and Washington that control the army's military district of Washington network and are used in furtherance of national defence and security; 26 navy computers, including US Naval Weapons Station Earle, New Jersey, which was responsible for replenishing munitions and supplies for the deployed Atlantic fleet; 16 NASA computers; one Department of Defense computer; and one US Air Force computer. 13 Having gained access to these computers the appellant deleted data from them including critical operating system files from nine computers, the deletion of which shut down the entire US Army's Military District of Washington network of over 2000 computers for 24 hours, significantly disrupting Governmental functions; 2,455 user accounts on a US Army computer that controlled access to an Army computer network, causing these computers to reboot and become inoperable; and logs from computers at US Naval Weapons Station Earle, one of which was used for monitoring the identity, location, physical condition, staffing and battle readiness of Navy ships, deletion of these files rendering the Base's entire network of over 300 computers inoperable at a critical time immediately following 11 September 2001 and thereafter leaving the network vulnerable to other intruders. 14 The appellant also copied data and files onto his own computers, including operating system files containing account names and encrypted passwords from 22 computers comprising: 189 files from US Army computers, 35 files from US Navy computers (including some 950 passwords from server computers at Naval Weapons Station Earle); and six files from NASA computers."(Extract from McKinnon v Government of the United States of America and another, [2008] 1 W.L.R. 1739) If Mr. McKinnon did not commit an offence, I'm not sure exactly what is one then. Indeed, he may have been an amateur. But on viewing the facts it appears he caused a substantial amount of damage. The claim of damages reflects not only the damage incurred by the US military but also the deterrence necessary to dissuade future crackers from entering US government systems.
Whtao said evver beeeaara beeeeeeeeeeee bbaad for youya ?
I worked for Atari over last summer for an internship. At the time, Atari owned the rights to create and run Hasbro board games on their website Atari Play. By the end of the summer, however, I suppose because of financial problems, Atari sold their rights back to Hasbro. Instead of keeping Atari's well run board game website and all of the programming to the games, a large loyal fanbase, and development team, Hasbro foolishly shutdown Atari Play and replaced it with nothing. From what I can gather, their executives do not sound to be the shrewdest bunch. At the end of the day, they're simply pissing off those most willing to enjoy their franchise. Many fans on the former Atari Play board even offered to pay a monthly fee after hearing of the sale. Yet, Hasbro has shown itself to not only limit fan access to their franchise but shutdown all alternatives until then. Not exercising a popular franchise should be considered a corporate crime.
Finally, a card that will fit in my case!
So they're finally allowed to have a "people tracking network" in China. About time, is what I say.
Similarly in New York city there was recent arrest because a cameraman was apparently racketeering by videotaping a police car. There's a video on blip tv here: http://timesup.blip.tv/file/252942/ The police will do anything to arrest anyone who is seen as nuisance or a minor threat to their authority. Welcome to the police state!
Project Censored has either been comprised mega corporations or slashdotted by a slew of slashdot users..
I say what is even more sick, is that hundreds of Iraqi Civilians and American Soldiers are dying each week. However, they receive around 10 seconds of news coverage. While the victims and families of the victims in this recent incident will receive nearly two months of news coverage. I haven't even mentioned the thousands dying in Darfur..
I've had two systems break!
If you look at the tom's hardware article: (http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/17/gameplay-o nly-gets-worse-with-vista/)
it is quite clear that this article is way off from the truth, or the author had a stroke of luck when running vista. The performance on vista for games is abysmal to say the least.
That's no moon.. That's a space station!
Phil Harrison is already saying the PlayStation 4 won't use discs Maybe if Sony still exists..
Are you kidding me.. the dual shock controller was the most uncomfortable piece of crap on the market. I'd take Xbox's monstrosity over it any time!
Wait a second.. Does anyone actually care about this?
Ohhh, the poor artist, when will they again be opressed. Personaly, I hope both the artist and sony sue each other to death.
but i enjoy it more then watching tv because its more entertaining to emulate something then watching yuppies in a reality tv show...