UFO Hacker In Hot Water
Well, it was to be expected…
This from today’s edition of Britain’s Guardian newspaper.
The British national, Gary McKinnon, today lost his high court bid to avoid extradition to the US for allegedly carrying out
the “biggest military computer hack of all time”. The case dates back to 2001, when it is alleged Mr McKinnon hacked into computers belonging to the US military and scientific establishments from his home in Wood Green, north London. Under the codename Solo, he is said during a period of 18 months to have hacked into hundreds of machines belonging to the Pentagon, the US army and air force and Nasa not properly secured by officials.
US prosecutors claim he caused $700,000 worth of damage. A lawyer for the US government said the hacking “was
intentional and calculated to influence and affect the US government by intimidation and coercion”. In an interview with
the Guardian in 2006, Mr McKinnon claimed he had simply been searching for evidence of UFO activity.
As the rest of the article demonstrates, McKinnon still has some legal avenues he can pursue. It ain’t over until it’s over.
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Apr 03 2007 
April 3rd, 2007 at 8:03 am
Having suffered through more than one denial-of-service attack while serving in the Air Force, I’ve got no sympathy for Mr. McKinnon. Having been phished,spy-botted, trojaned and wormed on my home computer, I’d really like to knock the crap out of McKinnon. The internet is the most wonderful and useful communication invention of probably the last 50 years. There are thousands if not millions of power-mad little hackers out there who believe that because of their superior knowledge and skills with computers that they have the right to disrupt or ruin people’s lives. I’ve got superior knowledge and skills with handling firearms and explosives but if I used this knowledge to disrupt or harm someone’s life, I’d at least face a huge fine and jail time. Why should Mr. McKinnon who knew what he was doing was not only illegal but unethical as well not be brought to justice? While I admire his passion for seeking the truth about what the US govt. knows about UFO’s, his illegal hacking has brought discredit to the UFO research field.
Carlos in Austin, TX
April 3rd, 2007 at 8:37 am
Carlos
I agree: McKinnon was recklessly stupid in thinking he could even possibly get away with not being monitored, found out, arrested and convicted.
My main interest in all of this is whether his sentence will reflect the crime, or whether he will be used as a scapegoat and be thrown into jail for 70 years or more as a warning to others.
Remember that a Welsh chap named Matthew Bevan did something very similar in the 90s; yet the case was dropped at the last moment when the US Government’s prosecution team refused to show the British judge the data on the systems that Bevan had hacked into, as evidence that he had really done the things they claimed he had done.
The judge recommended that the US prosecution team should think long and hard about whether or not they should proceed further, given that they were refusing to show the court the evidence of what Bevan had done, rather than just offer testimony that he had done it.
That’s why I am following this case: I want to see if the same ploy will be used if McKinnon gets transferred to the US, and if the case will collapse on similar grounds; or - if he’s tried in the US - will the judge in the US want to see the hard evidence of the claims that MmcKinnon damaged systems, or will the judge (unlike the British one) simplay accept the testimony of the Government without actually asking to see the evidence?
As I said, McKinnon was a fool to think he could get away with this. But does that merit 70 years in a US prison? Or a more lenient sentence? I think the latter. Some may disagree with me.
McKinnon, however, is faced with the fact that he will almost certainly be made a scapegoat and a warning and cautuion for others: “Hack us and we’ll get you extradited from your own country; you will not be allowed to serve jail time in your country - even though you committed your crime in your own country - and we’ll lock you up for life.”
Gary was wrong; dead wrong. But he’s also a victim of the times we live in if he gets 70 years.
April 3rd, 2007 at 8:52 am
McKinnon, like oh-so-many computer tekkie types, sits down before a monitor screen and sort of mentally goes into a “parallel reality” inside himself that we might term “cyberworld”.When in this detached reality zone they lose perspective of the fact that they still live and exist in the REAL world and that IN this real world there are causes and effects and actions and reactions that are very predictable. McKinnon lost sight of this. He had a project, a mission, and he was going to try and work it through so that “we’d all know the truth”. Well we don’t, and he won’t….though he IS learning a more unpleasant truth; that you pay a price for poking through defense files without going through the official channels and proedures. To McKinnon, this cyberworld business took on the intellectual quality of a kind of game, but a game it isn’t. Or, if it is considered to be one, then it is one that comes damn close to the nature of the old Mayan ball games, where you’d better win if you wanted to keep on living. Death may not be the consolation prize today, but there’s some pretty rough penalties to pay nonetheless. Gary McKinnon opted to ignore that reality….VERY foolishly…and now he’s going to be made to pay the piper. They’ll work very hard to make a serious example out of him.
I am of two minds on the guy myself. I think that, one, his naive actions were done for exactly the reasons he said they were, and his intent was non-malicious. He is not a cyber-terrorist. He set out to do no systemic harm, only to uncover hidden-suppressed UFO/ET data.
BUT, he DID do the “break ins” and was a damn fool to think there wouldn’t be repercussions.
So now this sad tale moves on to another chapter. Wonder if he thinks it was worth it?
April 3rd, 2007 at 9:15 am
Bill
Spot on. McKinnon did do the crime, so if convicted, will do the time. But 70 years?
Also, as an addition to my reply to Carlos above: charging McKinnon with hacking is one thing; but hacking and damaging a system is a far more serious situation in terms of sentence (I know: I have followed the fairly dull legal situations very closely re computer hacking).
It’s interesting that McKinnon vehemently denies hacking and causing harm (deliberately or not).
Matt Bevan merely hacked and was then shocked to find that the US prosecution team - as with Gary - was claiming that he had impaired systems, or had tried to.
But the fact that when the judge said “show us the proof” the US prosecution team backed down and went back home, and Bevan was a free man.
This doesn’t take away the fact that Gary M was utterly stupid but it raises interesting points that will ensure this case warrants our attention.
There is something else too: Gary is a British citizen, he committed his crime in Britain, using a British computer, and from a British address.
What would the response be if - hypothetically - a US hacker hacked into the Kremlin, then George Bush signed off on allowing the guy to be sent to Russia to stand trial in Moscow, and then to have him serve 80 years in a Russian gulag?
I know exactly what would happen: all hell would break loose in the US with demands about his civil liberties and how can an American be shipped to a Russian gulag?
This isn’t to deny the seriousness of what Gary did, but if found guilty, he should - as a UK citizen who committed a crime *on* British soil - be allowed to serve his sentence in the Uk too.
April 3rd, 2007 at 10:27 am
Oh I agree absolutely. I think they need to “put up or shut up” in this situation as well. And he should serve time in Britain and in something on a minimalist security level. This guy is not a threat to anybody and is not a true “criminal” in the commonly accepted sense of the word (only in the technical sense). Mostly he’s just a super-naive geek.
I don’t expect seventy years. I expect a deal. I hope HMG will press for leniency and he’ll draw ten years and they’ll make him serve 3.
I hope.
April 3rd, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Like officialdom everywhere, the US gov’t only catches the stupid hackers. McKinnon while probably being a bright and intelligent man obviously touched a nerve somewhere in his hacking the US gov’t computer security. If the US Justice Dept does show that he habitually tried to break into their secure files which I believe he did(how else did he get caught), he’ll probably get a Mitnick-style sentence. I doubt seriously that he’ll be convicted of a ‘terrorist’ act even in the US. I think it was silly that he wasn’t tried in the UK. I thought that if you hacked a computer that belonged to an ‘official ally’ of the UK, it’s just as if he’d hacked a Ministry-of-Defense computer. I’m still bound by ‘official secrets laws’ of the UK for my service while in the UK and if I reveal them, I’d go to prison. What happens to someone who breaks into a MOD computer in the UK?
April 3rd, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Carlos
He definitely broke in; but the area of dispute (which is exactly the same area of dispute with Matt Bevan) is over the allegation causing damage (or intent to cause damage) to the system, which both Bevan and McKinnin both vigorously deny/denied.
That’s the weird thing re McKinnon having to serve time in the US: it was a UK crime, on UK soil. It’s like someone living in NYC sending blackmail letters to someone in Scotland, and then being shipped to the UK to serve a sentence in London.
Grapevine rumors in the Uk suggest a simple reason for the transfer of McKinnon to the US: the US Government asked the UK Government if they could please try him in the US to make an example of him, and to specifically avoid the fiasco of what happened re Matt Bevan in 1997 when the judge basically told the US to not proceed with the prosecution because the prosecution wouldn’t provide the evidence (literally) to support their claims of what Bevan had been accused of.
Grapevine continues that a US judge is likely to be more sympathetic than a UK judge if the Justice Dept (or whichever agency) says: “Sorry, Judge, we have the evidence but we can’t show it to you because it will reveal classified details of our computer systems, and neither you nor the jury have clearance.”
Rumors in UK suggest it’s that simple: getting McKinnon to the US means a better chance of things not falling apart as they did with Bevan.
April 3rd, 2007 at 2:26 pm
I half heartedly agree with you all. Except, this hacker should be hired to aid the military. For a group that designed the internet they seem to be a sleep at the wheel. For how long have these groups hidden info and lied to the people. Gary on one hand is a hero as the military etc has used it’s own people to break laws, what’s the differance. The goverment also does the exact same thing on it’s own slaves or as they are called citizens. The military is scared as the truth will cause more then they can handle. No differant then the UFO military secrets withheld from the people.
April 3rd, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Nick:
I agree with Carlos. Here’s my thoughts on GM - “boo hoo”.
And no, he won’t be doing seventy years. That’s just fear-mongering being bandied about by (no offense) people who don’t understand the justice system, and it’s been pounced on by GM to build support.
Paul
April 3rd, 2007 at 5:39 pm
I think key to this is the topic of damage. If McKinnon really did just snoop around a bit as he claims, then it would seem little damage was done, and in fact more positives than negatives were the result, as his ‘attack’ led to more increased security measures. On the other hand, if he really did cause $700,000 damage, then he has a case to answer for. I agree with Paul, I very much doubt he would get any huge sentence…the UK relationship with the US is already on tenterhooks, and any sort of over-the-top sentence on McKinnon would be fodder for the UK media.
I’m wondering how much of that alleged $700,000 damage was in fact the cost of upgrading the machines to fix the security holes that McKinnon exposed.
And if we want to look at comparative crimes, what sort of sentence should be imposed on government officials sanctioning the invasion of a sovereign country, resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent people, based on faulty/falsified evidence (its either criminal negligence, or corruption, whichever way you look at it). If they were a corporation rather than a government they would be serving prison time already…
Kind regards,
Greg
April 4th, 2007 at 5:24 am
Paul
The fact that you disagree with me on a computer hacker I don’t even know will hardly cause offense here! And I understand the boohoo comment: if you hack, you are going to pay the price and it’s a very stupid thing to do, particularly thinking you can get away with it.
However, as I have said before, I’m interested in the bigger picture: McKinnon was totally wrong to go hacking; but will his sentence merit the crime? Will anyone see the hard evidence that he did extensive damage to the systems (which is one of the main points of the case)? Or, like Bevan, will that claim be pulled when the judge asks to see the evidence? Or will the case collapse (as it did with Bevan) when the government refuses to show the judge the evidence? Or does the fact that the case is likely to go ahead in the US mean that things will be different to the situation with Bevan?
And of course there is the issue of what precisely both guys saw during their hacking activities. Don’t dismiss the possibility that McKinnon did actually see something significant.
Bevan certainly did, because the details are on file with Scotland Yard’s Computer Crimes Unit: he found data on what (in simplistic terms) could be termed “anti-gravity” research at Wright-Patterson AFB that involved the theoretical usage of super-heavy elements (yes, I know: shades of Lazar).
But as weird as it may sound, CCU were specifically asked by the US to find out how much info on this Bevan had found, whether he had downloaded and printed the data, or if he had just read it online.
So, I predict it may be an interesting time ahead.
April 4th, 2007 at 5:45 am
Greg
Good points.
Re damage done (or not) to the systems by McKinnon: as I mentioned, this was the claim made against Bevan. However, all Bevan did was to access the passwords of people at Wright-Pat and find a way into the system and specifically read email exchanges on classified research into “anti-gravity” systems.
And for those who are of a skeptical mind, I am using the term anti-gravity as a general description, not to say that this was the actual term used in the documentation. It wasn’t. It was for more sophisticated. But that’s what it came down to.
Anyway, to the point: Bevan simply got the email passwords, logged on, read the info, and logged off.
Can that cause damage? Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless of what anyone thinks of Bevan and McKinnon and their activities, I find it highly suspicious that serious charges were going to be levelled at Bevan re intent to cause massive damage to the systems, but were hastily withdrawn when the judge asked to see the hard evidence of this.
I have no idea if real damage was done, but it’s to the court’s credit that they actually asked for the evidence to be shown.
By the way, I know Bevan and interviewed him (and some of the official players in the story) for my “On the Trail of the Saucer Spies” book. The Bevan saga runs deeper than many will ever know.
April 4th, 2007 at 8:22 am
I forgot to note in my original blog post that anyone interested in the Gary McKinnon saga should check out this:
http://freegary.org.uk/
April 4th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Greg:
Those are questions that get answered, if necessary, by an appeals court. The presumption should be that McKinnon will receive a fair trial, and not the other way around, as some of his defenders suggest.
Paul
April 4th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Paul
That should be the presumption; however, that certainly wasn’t the case with Matt Bevan.
Record shows that Bevan was certainly encouraged not to have a solicitor present during his interviews, and as a young kid at the time he was unsure but to his credit he got one.
I’ll tell you something really ironic too: (a) Matt’s legal people had to put a complaint in while the trial was going on because of massive interference on Matt’s home phone - it stopped after the complaint was made; and (b) Chinese Military Intelligence got the details of Matt’s newly assigned home phone number before it was actually up and running. All that is fact.
So, seems like the official world was not above doing a bit of its own hacking in this case.
Wonder if they got official permission or just (shock!) hacked? Hmmm….
April 5th, 2007 at 5:59 am
Paul,
You probably shouldn’t get an Australian talking about the US justice system in the US, with the David Hicks debacle fresh in mind…
Regardless of what people may think of hackers (there’s a wide range, from those who are just malicious, to those who simply get a kick out of testing their computer skill), I’m with Nick on the severity of the punishment (keeping in mind my original comment about ‘damage’ caused). My worry is simply that the fanaticism over protecting Intelligence and the secrets of government doesn’t end up with a show trial to scare off other hackers. The punishment needs to fit the crime, though none of us really know the details of that…as you said, hopefully that will all be considered when McKinnon has his day in court, although Nick’s example of Matt Bevan doesn’t instill the greatest confidence.
Kind regards,
Greg
April 8th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Having friends in both police and millitary computing Im not sympathetic at all.
But I want to be
And so, I think, would they, as they know full well if things had been a little different they too would have gone down that road.
This guy is a geek and gives geeks a bad name, he is also very irresponsible, and often in this world its the irresponsible people who do a lot of damage, regardless of their intentions.
Has anyone thought about the damage hes done to Ufology?????????
April 8th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Tengu
So everyone will be fully conversant with my position: Gary M was a fool to hack government computers, and if he thought he would not get noticed, arrested, charged and (probably) convicted, then he must have been living in a dream world.
My main concern - as I have stressed before - is that if he is convicted of his crime, then the sentence *must only* reflect the nature of his crime. Giving him a sentence that far exceeds his crime just to send a warning to others (which is one of the big concrns being echoed in the UK) is equally wrong.
That’s my main point and my interest in this case.