Disclosure should have happened by now thanks to hackers

From what I understand, Gary McKinnon hacked into NASA and other military computers all by himself. He confessed to the fact that he wasn’t even a professional. Point being what about all the other hackers in the world – how come they haven’t found anything worthy of a smoking gun of disclosure? Surely any other hacker out there should have by now, right?

I’m sure there are better hackers then Gary out there, he was only caught because he was sloppy – with all the hackers in the world where is the disclosure?

projectcamelot.org...

KC: OK. But as far as the hacker community - you said, I believe, in some things I read, that you came across a lot of other sort of "interested parties" that were investigating the same places you were, and were aware that there were blank passwords, and were able to get into via the administrative sites. Is that right?
GM: Yes. I mean, I would have been surprised if there wasn't anyone else, because it wasn't even really a "hack" to get into. It was large-scale fishing with blank passwords. And some of these places, you know, were pretty special places; they were places you wouldn't think wouldn't have firewalls or blank passwords.
KC: And this was what year that you were involved in this?
GM: 2000, 2001.
KC: So it's not that long ago. So computer systems should have been... especially for government, military and NASA... you would think they would be covered for things like that.
GM: Yes, absolutely. In fact I think there are supposed to be federal guidelines, you know.
KC: So in a way you did them a favor, isn't that true?
GM: Yeah, you could look at it like, that because I'm sure... I mean, the other connections that were there - Turkey, Holland, Germany, all across the world - you could see the IP addresses that connected to the machine and you could look it up and find out which country they're in and even which businesses own the IPs. And I don't know whether that was foreign governments. It could have been Al Qaeda. It could have been someone else just like me, just snooping around. Who knows?

[edit on 28-7-2008 by andre18]

Can't hack what you can't get to.

If the government has proof of something they absolutely don't want the public to know, they wouldn't keep it on computers with a connection to the net.

It's obvious that all the 'good' hackers are more concerned with hacking into Miley cyrus' computer/email/phone.


it's almost a full time job!

Originally posted by tebyen
Can't hack what you can't get to.

If the government has proof of something they absolutely don't want the public to know, they wouldn't keep it on computers with a connection to the net.

Actually you’d think so but that’s not true at all. Gary was able to hack into computer files at NASA and at Johnson Space Center! He was able to hack into NASA back in 2001, so it should make sense that other hackers at that time would have been going through the same files as him and found out the truth and yet here we are now and no disclosure….

And having been all over other NASA installations already - I asumed the blank password scanning method will work the same at Johnson Space Center - and it did. Once I was in there, I used various network commands to strip out the machines that were in Building 8. And I got on to those. And the very first one I was on literally had what she said. I can't remember if it was "Filtered" and "Raw", Processed" and "Unprocessed," but there were definitely folders whereby there was a transformation in the data taking place between one and the other.

These folders were full of images in a proprietary NASA format, or in a format I'd never seen before: no jpegs or gifs. They were also 200 to 300 megabytes in size. And being on a 56K dial-up modem, there was no way I was going to download that at five minutes per megabyte.

So what I did... The remote control program that gives you graphical control of the machine - I turned the resolution right down to, I think, 4-bit color and then on the desktop on the NASA machine, navigated to the folder, double-clicked on the first image. The application launches. The image comes up on the screen, but it's still very, very slow.

And what I saw, or was hoping to see, was what she was describing as a saucer, very definite imagery. And what instead I saw I assume was the Earth. This was in shades of gray. You had the Earth's hemisphere taking up about 2/3 of the screen and then halfway between the top of the hemisphere and the bottom of the picture there was a classic sort of cigar-shaped object, but with golf-ball domes, geodesic domes, above, below, and this side [gesturing to the right], and I assume the other side as well. It had very slightly flattened cigar ends. No seams. No rivets. No telemetry antennae or anything like that. It looked... it just had a feeling of not being man-made. There was none of the signs of human manufacturing.

[edit on 28-7-2008 by andre18]

hackers wont find anything

black budget stuff is too risky to be on the net

i dont think hackers will make disclosure anymore then anyone else

Rule Number 1 for hacking.

1: Don't get caught.

...Hacking a computer, and then going around telling everyone what you found, and showing evidence of it, is the quickest way to get caught.

On the other hand, if a hacker tries to explain what he found without providing evidence, and without exactly telling anyone that he "hacked" to get the information, he would just be another "conspiracy theorist".

I think the Gary McKinnon story is all show. The government doing another thought experiment.

Originally posted by Dark_Ace
hackers wont find anything

black budget stuff is too risky to be on the net

i dont think hackers will make disclosure anymore then anyone else

at first i thought hey good post, but wait I think alot of this info still has a paper trail and not so much computer, there is too much risk of something getting out that way

unless there is some time of othernet (internet) that noone has access too

like a totally different signal that gives it what it needs

who knows, good thought for a post though


yeah and youd think by now

There is also this thing called the "Honey Pot" to trap and track hackers. All kinds of "secret data" is stored there to give the illusion of being on a real network, gaining access to real files. They are essentially in a box gaining information that looks sensitive, all the while their network information is being recorded.

Carefull what you think you find in a hack because it just might be a trap.

Originally posted by ALLis0NE
I think the Gary McKinnon story is all show.

Certainly not, he's been sentenced to 60 years in jail in America - here's obviously seen something he shouldn't have

I did obtain unauthorized access to these systems. But they're piling on these ridiculous damage claims. And I've since found out that for it to be worth a year in prison in America for an extradition case, it has to be worth at least $5,000 damage, because it comes under cybercrime.

So as if by magic, lo and behold, every machine I was on I'm accused of causing exactly $5,000 worth of damage. It's patently untrue. And in my opinion, and the opinion of others more well-informed than me, the pressure they're bringing to bear is more to do with where I've been and what I may have seen.

I have worked many years in defense and know that all classified matrial is not available from the internet..I agree he simply found a trap that was set.

Yah...the real real secret stuff will still be on paper...or encrypted with quantum computers( personally think they have them) So no hacker could hack the files...assuming they are online...and he would have to physically get them if they were on paper..I doubt Mckinnon got anything substantial with black ops etc...probably other secrets but not black ops...

reply to post by BlackProjects


Since you have had experience in defence what do you make of this ‘blank password’ situation? Surely NASA of all places wouldn’t be stupid enough to have blank passwords for hackers to use to get into the system?

projectcamelot.org...

It was large-scale fishing with blank passwords. And some of these places, you know, were pretty special places; they were places you wouldn't think wouldn't have firewalls or blank passwords.
KC: And this was what year that you were involved in this?
GM: 2000, 2001.
KC: So it's not that long ago. So computer systems should have been... especially for government, military and NASA... you would think they would be covered for things like that.
GM: Yes, absolutely. In fact I think there are supposed to be federal guidelines, you know.

I can't speak for NASA but other defense contractors certainly require passwords meeting some minimum standard.. That has been the case since 2003 I know. I was not in the defence industry prior to that time. Often times particular drives must have approved access. All events are monitored such as log in ect and reviewed on periodic basis. There are classified networks but they have no access to outside world- period.