UFO Hacker News
Previously at this blog I have alerted readers to the weird story of Gary McKinnon, a British citizen who was foolish enough to hack into US Government computers in search of the secret UFO data that he believed was hidden there.
Of course, it was plain crazy for McKinnon to think that he could get away with hacking the computer systems of any nation and not get caught and/or punished.
But the biggest uproar of all came when it was revealed McKinnon was facing extradition and the possibility of jail-time (if convicted, of course) in a US prison.
McKinnon’s supporters and legal team argued that he is a British citizen, that he committed his crime on a British-based computer, and from a British-based address; and therefore should serve any sentence in a British prison.
Well, news has just come in that McKinnon has won his right to fight the extradition process.
This isn’t the end of the case, of course. Rather, it’s just the latest twist in a saga that is as strange and surreal as it is seemingly never-ending.
This entry was posted
on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 11:20 am and is filed under Breaking News, The Redfern Files, UFOlogy. You can follow responses via RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is not allowed.
del.icio.us Digg Reddit Ma.gnolia Technorati Help
- Related News Stories:
- UFO Hackers »
- McKinnon - The Latest »
- The Saga of the Hacker »
- UFO Hacking Comments »
- UFO Stuff »
|
Oct 22 2007 
October 22nd, 2007 at 1:07 pm
For a crime of such massive defense implications it certainly isn’t getting much in the way of mainstream media coverage over here in the US. And when it does get covered the article doesn’t mention anything about the US not offering anything in the way of evidence to the US or what it was McKinnon was trying to find.
Sadly, I’m sure this is how matters will progess.
October 22nd, 2007 at 4:37 pm
I agree with uv777bk. If it was such an incredible defense breach, why do you have to make such an effort to find follow-ups on this story? Maybe if this guy was of arabic descent the story might have been quite different…
And I giggle at the New Scientist article uses of adjectives; calling McKinnon a computer “expert” is rather inexact. From what I’ve read, the guy was just above average in his hacking skills, and was stoned with pot most of the time he did those horrible “crimes”. What he did manage was to put on the light the apalling lack of security discipline that big US Government officers held back when he managed to enter those sites. McKinnon biggest hacking “skill” came from the fact that most of these networks failed to have a propper password code! He did the US taxpayer a favor actually, showing how exposed to the attacks of more malevolent hackers those networks were.
I have the feeling this is going to take years until we see the end of it, and that eventually the bloke will be released, serving as an example of all the trouble you could get if daring to follow his example. But he will not go to jail, and if he does, it will be a minimum security installation and for only a couple years.
October 22nd, 2007 at 6:13 pm
As a former US federal agent for the USAF AND a former counterintelligence specialiist for the FBI, I stand on the side that he should be prosecuted for the hacking. He knew it was a crime when he did it, whether he’s an expert or not.
My understanding is that hacking is just as illegal in the UK as it is here. Since the crime was committed there, I don’t understand why it can’t be prosecuted and tried there, and if McKinnon is convicted, have him serve his time in the UK. I don’t believe we would extradite a US citizen anywhere if they committed their crime seated at a computer in the US, so it’s one of those situations that makes us look (again) like assholes.
I say McKinnon was a moron for doing what he did, really. But it does make one wonder how the hell a guy who’s not much of a computer expert could get into what he got into and cause such trouble. Unless there’s something of a counterintelligence nature going on here that we aren’t being told, it really looks like the US computer systems weren’t up to par.
Great.
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Having worked with Firewalls on the network at my place of employment, I find it odd that there was a machine open to the world that was seemingly then used to access the other computers in the network.
The reason I say this is that these systems are nailed down to begin with. Firewalls — and I’m assuming they were being used at all — have to be opened to allow people in and not the other way around.
So, I’m thinking that the only way McKinnon could have gotten in is by accessing the server serving up the public websites via VPN only to find that it was not password protected and had administrative access to everything else, or the rest of the system didn’t need administrative rights to gain access to.
Anyway, what I’m saying is someone must have opened the network up without even bothering to look at it’s configuration. And for this to happen the same way within multiple government organizations (who’s main consideration should be security) is either a really poor state of affairs, or someone else in and got did the real damage before McKinnon even got there.
Hopefully, someone with more netorking knowledge could put me right on this…?
October 23rd, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Guys:
All of you make good, valid points.
McKinnon was indeed a fool to do what he did. He’ll pay some sort of price for it - precisely what though, I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.
But there are indeed some very weird aspects to the story, such as the ease with which he accessed this material.
I’m reminded of a story that features in my book “On the Trail of the Saucer Spies.”
In that book I include a whole chapter on the story of a Welsh computer hacker named Matthew Bevan who hacked Wright-Patterson AFB around 1993/94 in search of UFO data but who, instead, found data on what in simplistic terms we would call “anti-gravity” research.
Even though he was hacking in 93/94 he wasn’t arrested until 1996. He was allowed to run with his hacking, in other words. The official world had to know what was going on, however. And indeed they did.
Scotland Yard and AFOSI were deeply involved, as were several other agencies.
Like McKinnon, Bevan apparently accessed with unexplained ease what was purported to be X-Files-like info.
Also like McKinnon, Bevan was arrested, and the US Govt wanted him charged with not just hacking but potentially causing damage to the systems etc.
Finally the case was dismissed and thrown out by the UK judge because US Intelligence refused to provide any evidence to confirm the damage, or what files etc Bevan had reportedly seen and hacked into.
If, however, as Adventureman wonders, this is all part of some weird counter-intel op, I do have to wonder: is it possible that some of these hackers (there was a similar one in the early 90s that made the UFO journals) have been set up? I mean, in the sense that someone knows they are looking for UFO data, and so they make it easy for them to find material - but that the material is utterly bogus.
That way, the hacker is drawn into, and kept in, a carefully controlled avenue while they are studied and assessed. The hacker doesn’t actually uncover anything substantially “real”
And, perhaps one of the ingenious spin-offs of this is that it sends out a subtle “maybe” signal to enemies of the US that just maybe the US really does have secret UFO technology.
Then, if foreign agents who are curious about US defence secrets come looking also for the “alien truth,” they too can be caught with no actual real defence secrets having been compromised.
Maybe that would explain (in part at least) how and why McKinnon, Bevan and at least 2 others accessed so easily what is purported to be classified, guarded, fire-walled, passworded etc etc, material of a presumably ultra-secret nature.
If it were proven that the material was faked as part of an Intel Op to reign in hackers, I have to wonder: if all McKinnon saw was bogus material to throw him off other trails, how would that affect the case against him?
October 23rd, 2007 at 6:48 pm
An interesting comment Nick. I wondered the exact same thing about the Bob Dean story, whether these whistle-blowers are pre-programmed to spread false info without being aware of. Kind of a “Winstonization” from an Orwellian dystopia if you will
But, just as with 9/11 and all the plausible conspiracy scenarios, we shouldn’t entirely rule out the high levels of INCOMPETENCE humans can reach, even if they happen to work for the US Government!
We’ll have to wait and see how this one unfolds.
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Let’s not forget that corporate entities LOVE the digital age to a point of irrationality. What bigger corporate entity can there be but a government bureaucracy? I can tell you that my branch alone went through three computer systems in as many years!
And I guess I’ll be the voice in the wilderness here, but this computer age AIN’T WHAT IT’S BEING CRACKED UP TO BE. I see a ‘profession’ that pushes a technology that always seems to have glitches and a need for this extra software and that extra hardware and it results in the lucrative support of an industry while making people complacent with security or simply not really providing what it promises. And if you have a system that works, that’s the first thing the IT guy wants to replace, inevitably with something that requires more hours and more people to accomplish the same or less amount of work — and usually because his buddy or some trade journal or (worse) a damned sales rep turned him onto. This is what goes in the government (US) and corporate America.
Sooo, all that to say: Yeah, that it was so easy to hack into may very well be because of the system just not being what they thought they had and because bureaucracy promotes mediocrity, no one was smart enough nor cared enough to realize it.
My counterintel reference was more in the thought that maybe McKinnon was involved (witting or unwitting) with a hostile service, but a CI dragnet op could be possible. I won’t say for certain here.
I think when it proves not to be a CI concern, that’s why you see not much done in the end.
October 25th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
uv777bk:
I don’t believe any of the systems Gary cracked had anything as sophisticated as firewalls or VPNs at the time. Gary *has* stated what his techniques were and they were extremely basic, taking advantage of some Windows design flaws. See my article for a few more details: http://www.littlemanwhatnow.com/2007/04/close-encounter-of-worst-kind.html