WHAT Does Gary Mckinnon REALLY know

You are not alone in wondering about this, but very much in the minority.

Most people I know think I'm a little looppy for even beleiving what he says about finding the list of 'non terrestial officers'.

In the past I have exchanged letters with the office of the British Home Secretary but of course they just repeated the 'official' lin like a record which is stuck in its groove.

reply to post by kirky


Kirky, I like the cut of your sails as they say.

In the IT world there is an expression, "if it is not secure, it is not yours". The NASA system has not been secure, at least until McKinnon was discovered. Anyone could access many of those same files and folders he has talked about by manipulating the url address back to index. From there anyone could view thousands of folders each containing thousands of photos and documents including those in a folder not yet airbrushed. All without ever encountering any notification of reaching secured files or “only authorized personnel beyond this point”, etc.

I remember one of the high school students from our mentor program showing me some of these really unique aircraft from the NASA site along with many other really cool photos. I never gave it much thought, at least until I heard of this story. It must be very embarrassing for the NASA IT department to be exposed as so incompetent as to allow such a breach.

The thing they are trying to pin on him is that they insist he installed some third party NT admin software on their systems instead of just viewing the photos and files. This software opened up port 6129 to additional vulnerabilities all of which should have been dealt with internally instead of pulling this kid into their misgivings and shortcomings.

If he gets a real lawyer and a fair trial, he should beat this with no problem as he can not be held to the same accountability as an employee in the service of NASA or our federal government. He has not signed any documents of confidentiality or non-disclosure, etc. He was an outsider who found and exploited a breach in the system, he did not need to “hack” or commit an act of electronic trespass, he found an open door and simply walked in. He’s a kid. Then again, getting a fair trial, that is the rub, isn’t it?

I guess the message here is, if you read our stuff, we’ll find you, and you should know better than to read our stuff! Too bad, so sad, every high school kid in America has had access to those same files and I am sure that many snooped enough to find some very interesting features. It would be my hope that it sparked some interest in the space programs and these people should grin and bear their lack of expertise and perhaps recruit some of these kids to help fix the issues.

But that’s just my opinion.

Eagan

Originally posted by eaganthorn every high school kid in America has had access to those same files

Well maybe there is the real rub...

He was not 'in America'

Many times 'browsing' at .mil sites I find an interesting document... without thinking I sent the link to team members... one in the UK one in Italy (Internos) and one in India (Mike Singh) only to find that they could not access the site...

So I sent it to a few friends in the USA... no problem opening the link...

May have something to do with it

Now on that other note... if as you say "every high school kid in America has had access to those same files " I would appreciate a copy because even though I have hung around many 'obscure' NASA directories I have yet to see a picture of the secret space fleet or a list of officers that serve on them


Sooo if anyone out there has this.... call me

Truth is he knows nothing He was looking at 4 bit colour images over dial up in a remotely anywhere window you could see a picture of an apple and think it was dog with that kind of picture.

Most people accept the whole UFO/Energy angle is just a publicity ploy though and one that hasn't done him any favours.

On another note he should be extradited real soon now I would think I wouldn't be surprised if he was already the news on it certainly went quiet.

reply to post by eaganthorn


Top o the morin tee yee eaganthorn

Strap in, it’s a long one, sorry I been away on biz last day or so..Yea m8 am only to familiar with the palaver regarding urls and images that were downloaded “clean” and then “going missing” and then being found again or elsewhere with the obvious airbrushing. Richard Hoagland goes into great detail about all that in his book with co author Mike Barra. It’s a Known Fact amongst those in the know that Nasa has done this for decades. Remember Nasa fired there top official after the book was released as he kept photos which were clean and without “obfuscation”. Good on him for ignoring Nasa’s orders to destroy them. Kept them for decades he did. But you don’t see him getting 70 years do you for releasing “top secret Nasa archives” No way they could fry him like the’re gonna fry Gary.

The book also describes a funny incident back in the late 70’s in where one of the Landers on Mars was sending back the first live feeds/images. All the monitors “colour” in the Mission Control centre were displaying the typical RED surface/atmosphere, which everyone has come to believe as true. The thing is, one of the main men there at Mission Control just happened to have his teenage son with him(it was a really big deal that day). The kid thought there was something fishy about the monitors, so he started to adjust the settings on them to display the “TRUE” accurate colours and it seemed like MARS was displaying a beautiful surface/atmosphere strikingly similar to our own earth with a BLUE atmosphere. Mmmmmmmm you might think.

So long story short, one of the Chief technicians suddenly spotted the kid at his work and lo & behold threw a seriously nasty fit, quickly re-adjusting the monitors back to “RED” whist yelling at security to “get that KID outa here” At the time Richard thought this was strange “he was there whilst this was going on” but just put it to the back of his mind. But we all know now that this was a deliberate ploy by Nasa to convince the public/everyone that Mars was inhospitable and could not sustain life or ever had for that matter.

Or soooo we were led to believe. How ever a little research now tells a completely different story, without rambling on (I do a lot of that as you will find out, hey I’m Irish, I talk fast and think quick) sites like Darkmission.com (Hoagland) and marsanomlyproject.com show atmospheres, vegetation water/lakes not to mention monuments, pyramids, faces and various other structures, evidence of massive wars and destruction is also being speculated/postulated, some have even spotted a couple more sphinxes. So have Nasa lied? Obviously without a doubt. But then again when has any government not. MARS man…quit with the lies man..LOL

The whole Moral of the story goes something like this. Most of the Governments around the world have lied. We know they have lied, even the sheeple know they have lied. Enough of the LIES…They classified all of this stuff, aliens, ufos, free energy bla bla bla nada nada..yea the whole shebang. They have hidden it away from us because we cant “handle the truth” maybe they were right then, but now when the world seems like its on meltdown…we need that friggin stuff, all of it, not just a drip or 2, but a really fast flowing torrent of all that wondrous technology. To hell with the consequences. The alterative is to continue with all the wars and bloodshed. 100 year war anyone…

If it all suddenly came out, and all the fundamentalist religious assholes go nuts and start wiping each other out because “they cant handle the truth” and global panic/chaos ensues because “the Aliens are coming, and the end is nigh” so be it I’m afraid. Maybe that scenario itself is just a natural but necessary evolutionary step in our stage of development as a caring and conscious species of Human Being. Maybe that’s the reason why ET/Aliens don’t come down here to often, we think we are civilised, but I question that because its seems like our animalist killing instincts are just too dangerous at the minute and we need to evolve and stop killing ourselves over religion/power and control. Maybe when we cross that bridge and become more enlightened and evolve to a higher consciousness ET will invite us out to play, well maybe not in the galactic way of things, but maybe in our own neck of the woods, you know, our own back yard/solar system, so we can cut out teeth..lol

Regarding your m8 showing cool photos, yea there’s plies of craft and stuff that are hidden away from General Public/mainstream media/government that its become scary even to theorise, because usually when people are saying “that’s impossible”, out comes more books/testimony by whistle blowers saying “no they really do have that stuff, and have had it for years longer than you can imagine.

Seems like the lines between fact/fantasy/fiction are becoming more blurred by the years that fly by.

Regarding of how Gary got into the pentagons/Nasa’s computers is of as much debate is as the subject of what he saw/read/witnessed or downloaded. The software and techy subjects of how he did this over a year 2000/01 could be mulled over forever.

That not exactly what interests me. It’s the facts that Gary said he did it. US Gov said he did. The US Gov wanted him on USA soil, he refused, so they wrangle international/national laws/human rights and now he faces 70yrs. Wow. If its of no importance other than a hacking offence why such ferocious sentencing and political waggling.

Without going over old ground, its plain to see once you look at it from all the angles that people on ATS know about…. hey presto ..another conspiracy that stinks to high heaven of media black out and cover-up/damage control at any price. A man life is of absolutely no importance to our corrupted governments mentality. WTF are the US/UK governments hiding and most here know the answers one way or the other.

I can’t speculate on the now very likely process of legal proceedings. American law frightens me. Over here your innocent until proven guilty. I know deep down that the US government can dress up this case with National Security matters so quite frankly we wont be shown the evidence and Gary will be banged up regardless. That’s the sad fact. Just tell all those kids at school that were looking to stop because I believe Gary is the scapegoat as to what you quite accurately pointed out as.

“I guess the message here is, if you read our stuff, we’ll find you, and you should know better than to read our stuff! Too bad”

…. Yea this is justice for ya m8y, or rather the lack of it…NO. rather the complete and absolute non-existence of it. But its also my hope that this is just the tip of a rather large and dangerous Iceberg and Gary will walk free, and be compensated, hopefully sooner than later. I AM holding my breath…

Thanks for the input pal, nice read.

Peace

Kirky

I feel that, if you fill a large cup with, let's say one teaspoon with water everyday? Eventually it is gonna overflow. That is what's happening now!.

"About Gary's problem"
If Gary was on a dial up/modem these probs are usual, with old stuff like that. And if he used the stack-based buffer overflow attack (it`s an ingenious, if complex, method for hackers to seize control of your server/pc.)
Could also backfire at the attacker.

System locks up when you run any external software
System locks up when you try to capture video or download pictures with a large size
System locks up during first configuration after seeing the white squares in each corner of the screen
Inability to capture video
System shuts down eventually...
So this could been what happend to Gary..?

(I worked as a Pc Technician since start, Unix, Amiga, ABC80, Win3.1, Win 3.11 etc,etc)

Kirky
sorry peeps another ramble fro me I'm 'fraid.
Haven't read the book yet and loath to buy it, real truth never has a price, not in monetary terms.
Do you not think this info is dripped purposely to people like Hoagland? They give out a bit-only what they want him to know, and then a story is spun around some truth, but not enough to do any damage, but we are trusting Hoagland to interpret that properly, also he's American so he could be happy to put out the stuff about 'how powerful we really are'. Want to know a secret about the most powerful force in our earth?
The human ego, and god we love to have it fed, so while I like Hoagland et al I'm aware that someone is massaging his ego in the background...'look John! You're in our club,, we can't tell you everything for reasons of security but get this out..We're the good guys.' Poo :yawn:

Look, politicians of any government not just British/Irish are in bed with anyone who will deliver the result they need, it just happens to be the US in this stage in history, give it a few decades and you'll be surprised how close the UK will be with China...and Russia, who are showing their teeth again when we thought their nukes had rusted, where did the new batch come from?

All those fourteen year old boys (and younger) in graves in the names of people who didn't know them then, don't know them now and wouldn't give a damn if they did.

In the names of the people whose dynasties still carry on living in huge palaces with wealth you or I will never begin to comprehend that if it was shared would end every want on this planet. Bit dramatic, but true. Take a look at where they stick the poor old guys who apply to become Chelsea Pensioners. It's disgusting. Those men are men you or I would die for, true heroes and like all heroes here and in the US and elsewhere in the world, treated like dross and expected to be grateful for it.

Poverty would not exist-it doesn't need to exist, it is a tool for people to manipulate others.

I'm not religious anymore but even I know the time comes when it's Time to Pay the Piper. Comes to everyone.
It's not worth it, regardless of whatever anyone's relationship is with God or what you think he/she/it may be; It is not mocked.

But, back to NASA, we have Hoagland talking about the 'public astronauts' emotional issues, drink...Boring...(they have always done that, it's not a story. Russia have been sending up drunk cosmonauts for years, nothing to panic about. Strange but true.

But have you seen Clark McClelland's site? JC. It says it all about NASA's attitude to ex-employees and why does he own all that Nazi gear, hmm? And aliens in the shuttle? I always thought there were cameras in the pay load...

Not even a whip round from any of thoses 'heroes' past or present for the wretched soul. And female astronauts in diapers? God Almighty. If NASA was any other business corporation the board of directors would be gone without their feet even touching the ground.
Except it's not, it is military. And someone should make them legally and publicly admit this.

And returning to the original point of McKinnon...eventually, because altho' this all sounds 'off-post'; his case and NASA are an example of everything that just doesn't seem quite right to anyone.. If he is such a threat to the US then could I propose the view that the US must be in `an awful lot of trouble? If he is as naive as supposed then, yes it is. Why?

To neo2012 - what the hell where they doing having blank passwords? Now either someone is an idiot or again, this was something someone wanted out whether it was true or not. Propaganda is the main weapon of any war.
To ANoNyMiKE - so everyone who has watched a music vid on youtube is essentially a criminal! Because a lot of people think downloading is when a picture has been saved, they don't realise it's when its appears on the >>>

If anyone hasn't seen the interview with Gary on project camelot, I advise them to do so. I think it's pretty clear from that what he did and didn't find. The limitations on what he was able to see are clear - remember he was using a narrow band connection and had a crappy old computer - this was some years ago.

The question is not whether or not everyone in the US had access to the files - it's the fact that everyone in the US and elsewhere COULD have had access to the files if they'd tried. It seems remarkable to me that no one else bothered. Indeed Gary himself says that he encountered many other hackers at work while he was doing his own business at Nasa and others.

So perhaps the question should be - who else out there did the same thing and got away with it?

As for Gary, I suspect this comes down to someone riling the auithorities and subsequently being made an example of. If he knew more than he's letting on, he'd have been foolish to keep it to himself. In fact the biggest thing he found was the hole in the wall itself - not anything on the other side.

LW

IMO- If he knew something too important, he would of died mysteriously.

reply to post by kirky


Great to chat with you. We'll do it again some time.

I unfortunately cannot find any ground to argue against your point or your expectations should Gary face these charges on American soil. It is a perversion against logic, law and common sense and I agree that England needs to grow a pair and stop this madness, to just say no. As well, the IT department at NASA, should just chalk up the experience as another lesson of security protocol, be thankful Gary wasn't some anarchist hell bent on destruction or a terrorist spy, make the needed changes and move on.

The only real lesson anyone is going to get from this episode is that our government can’t catch a real threat, can’t secure secret documents from novice computer users, but is very vengeful and really knows how to punish some poor unemployed kid from rural England for looking at pictures.

That is, of course, unless they simply want to give him the grand tour, show him everything and explain to him the bigger picture and the need to keep these secrets hidden from the world, in the hopes that he will not discuss or venture further into the realm of our governments secrecy, but I have such doubts of this being the case.

Eagan

I have always said that he knew much more than he said, which is going to be his bargaining chip out of the slammer. I say out in a year (quietly)

reply to post by kirky



So Gary fell into Satan's den ? Satan on Earth is the Evil Empire .
Gary is a hero , he had the courage to do what I and the rest of people would not do . Hiding Zero Point Technology is a crime against humanity .
The USA is engaged in warr for resources that could be left in the ground if the criminals in charge had a bit of common sense . I hope other hackers of not so friendly nations have emptied those Government sites of all the secrets .
This secresy BS is gone to far . Smash the secret keeprs

As has been posted elsewhere if he had known found anything of significance he would have had an "accident" way before any of this came to light.
If your part of the UFO conspiracy your not going to leave sensitive details on unsecure NASA and DoD servers just waiting for someone to pop along and access it.Information Top Secret and above is going to be held securely on machines outside access and limited in how it can be accessed.
I think Gary just saw some geeks at NASAs role-playing game info held on the server and took it seriously.

Originally posted by bmdefiant
I think Gary just saw some geeks at NASAs role-playing game info held on the server and took it seriously.

I've been thinking of that myself actually it wouldn't surprise me if he was looking at game files especially that non-terrestrial officer thing it sounds like it could be game data for what game I couldn't guess though a lot do use standard files.

It makes sense if he's telling the truth just an over-active imagination on his part.

reply to post by kirky


Good topic, i mean that to access the truth you have to be able to ask to right questions.

I've been following the Mckinnon case since it break the news:
Brit charged with hacking Pentagon, NASA

My first impression was he's just another black hat hacker without a girlfriend
Then I found he is a white hat hacker hungry for truth.
In my humble opinion, he was an intrusive seeker but not a destructive thief.
We may use an opposite sample to understand this:
Ehud Tenenbaum
Again
Before
Photo

I mean this other hacker is a well known troublemaker but for some reason he's not so dangerous even though he has been far more destructive.
Top 10 U.S. Government Web Break-ins of All Time

Why is Mc Mckinnon so dangerous that has to be imprisoned for life

Originally posted by karamba
Why is Mc Mckinnon so dangerous that has to be imprisoned for life

Most likely because he found evidence of the one thing they have worked so very hard to keep under wraps...

The secret space program and possible real alien interaction...

Consider this... EVERYONE here at ATS is looking for the same thing... absolute proof of this... people like myself, John Lear and Mike Singh actively search for stuff like this and dream of finding the real goods...

Even the skeptics are constantly screaming at us to PROVE IT and the believers are drooling to see it...

The fact that Gary didn't even do a simple screen capture and flood the info on the internet before they could stop it makes this whole case ludicrous.

You can bet your life that if a news hound found a scrap of something juicy 'lying around unprotected' it would be front page headlines the next day... (well that's how news USED to work anyway)

So now Gary is doing the max... and there are no results. Had he at least got the word out... it would have at least given meaning to his sentence...

As it is all that has happened is that all official sites are more keenly aware of just what IS available to the public and are clamping down...

Here is one example... the Army had a website about projecting sound right into your skull... they just recently pulled the site.

Called the "Voice of God" weapon

Army Yanks 'Voice-To-Skull Devices' Site
blog.wired.com...

Fortunately I was able to pull some pdf files before they 'vanished' but the point is with new internet directives and policies... instead of more freedom of information... they are clamping down..

A Web of Security Issues
www.defenselink.mil...

Web Site Administration - Policies & Procedures
www.defenselink.mil...

DoD Web Policies And Guidelines
Updated: 13-Oct-2006
www.defenselink.mil...

Now just imagine any one of us looking through public access directories and finding a document that some stupid person accidentally left in the wrong folder... and now you have downloaded a file that is 'sensitive' and you can bet your life that they have recored your IP when you downloaded the file... because it says so right in their T&C

Here's most of my blog entry on the subject just over a year ago (Sept. 8, '07). This, I confess, is why I've been very interested in the subject. I should also confess that I have a lifetime history of other unexplained experiences; mostly in the area of missing time. (begin entry, slightly edited for clarity):

www.rense.com...

As one with a pretty rich history of unexplained experiences, I'm obliged to report a very apparently psychic dream I had just a few hours before I read the above article (and was introduced to the entire subject/case) on Rense.com on 6/16/06:

The dream was that I was watching a military airshow of a sort. The aircraft were the same coloring as and looked much like the (Air Force) Thunderbirds, but were puffier: like larger T-38s (trainers). There were 3 or 4 of them ascending from my right to left. They split apart. One on the left and one on the right crashed into the ground (with fireball) simultaneously. Another then came barreling back toward me while doing FORWARD SOMERSAULTS; which isn't possible in known aircraft. (I don't remember any jet noise at any point; but am not 100% sure there wasn't any).

Not sure if it was the same somersaulter, but next thing I know I'm standing in a lane between 2 rows of hangars where he does a vertical landing about 30 to 50 feet in front of me. He opens the hatch. He's an angry redneck who shouts something at me. (Wish I could remember what he said). I turned and ran in slow motion... then woke up.

If that dream was only bizarre coincidence and the information McKinnon obtained is disinformation from NASA/the National Security state, then we still have the problem of diabolical government. We'd still have the sick insanity of someone at NASA with WAY too much time on his or her hands concocting fantastic bulls#*t as a front, a phony "classified" site apparently designed specifically for hackers... If I had to wager I'd say that's not the case. I believe the Bushwhackers are serious about extraditing him - a BRITISH citizen who commited the act on BRITISH soil - because he revealed real data. (end entry)

lightworth.blogspot.com...

The OP (and others) have effectively argued very cogently that GM is not being punished for the act of hacking so much as for (potentially) possessing knowledge that the US authorities wish to keep classified. For all their brilliance, achieved through creaming off top students, etc., the agencies concerned have shown themselves utter buffoons in this matter. Pursuing this man to the nth degree has achieved essentially two things:

1) ever-increasing world-wide publicity for the vulnerability of data held on US military systems, and concerning the degree to which these systems have been compromised by countless other people (governments included, in all likelihood) - all of which can only encourage anyone engaged in true espionage to seek out the high-level hackers (as opposed to the bungling GMs of this world) who've doubtless downloaded discs-full of sensitive data that could potentially be shared or sold

2) a scream from the roof-tops that there most certainly is information that, (with persistence,) could be accessed on military/NASA computers which said agencies would find unimaginably embarrassing.

I suppose I forgot one other thing: across the world the US administration as a whole loses any remaining respect for its claim to uphold high standards of human rights, in terms of its blatant disregard for even a modicum of proportionality in this matter. The 'World Policeman' is left looking like the Patron of All Bullies, or - dare I say it - the proverbial Corrupt Cop. Having been caught red-handed unable to do its job properly (protecting its nation's secrets from even amateur hobbyists,) it hatches a scheme to bury the guy who left it looking incompetent, and burningly red-faced.

Pathetic.

reply to post by kirky


I HAD to put Corso's book down halfway through; having spent some time in the military, the way he wrote the book really hit home with me in the way he describe the way he did things while in the service.

I haven't taken the book back up yet, not sure if I will. To this day, in my mind I treat the book like that of the One Ring in LoTR when Gandalf begins to pick it up off the floor after Bilbo leaves and knows he shouldn't.

Call it paranoid or not. I know something's up.

Hello all
Interesting this
taken from The Register

As accused Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon hopes against hope to avoid being extradited to the US, another reformed military systems meddler considers his own case - and how different the outcome was.

McKinnon is probably days away from extradition. Only a last minute plea to the Home Secretary "Wacky" Jacqui Smith - based on McKinnon's recent diagnosis with Asperger Syndrome - now stands between the Scot and a US trial for hacking into US government and military systems. Friends and family staged a demonstration outside the Home Office on Tuesday in a bid to draw attention to McKinnon's plight.

The handling of McKinnon's case is in marked contrast to how US authorities handled a similar one ten years ago. Like McKinnon, reformed computer hacker Mathew Bevan was charged with breaking into US military computer systems. Bevan was also curious about searching for evidence that the US military had harvested technology from crashed UFOs. Bevan's alleged crimes were cited as examples of cyberterrorism at Senate hearings in 1996.

But no attempt was ever made to extradite Bevan to the US. Instead he was prosecuted in the UK. The case eventually fell apart after 18 months, when prosecutors decided not to proceed.

Bevan put the legal fight behind him and has since gone on to become an ethical hacker and security consultant. Speaking exclusively to El Reg, Bevan said McKinnon is being used in a political game that has more to do with securing funds than deterring or preventing attacks.

"Clearly, lessons have not been learned since I breached similar systems and as I have always suggested - perhaps stopping the intrusions is not the goal of the administration," Bevan said. "Tacitly allowing access to machines by ensuring that default passwords or in fact access methods without passwords is suggestive of a system that really does not care too much about many of the machines connected to it."

Bevan questions why Windows PCs on US military networks are connected to the internet via direct IPs. Thousands of attackers regularly use the same remote access port accessed during McKinnon's hack, but little or no action has been taken in their cases, Bevan adds.

McKinnon has said that many other hackers had gained access to the same systems he was accessing, questioning why US authorities singled him out for prosecution. The fact that McKinnon did nothing to disguise his tracks and lived in a country with a friendly extradition regime probably has a fair bit to do with this.

Bevan supports McKinnon's contention that he was far from alone in rooting around US military systems. "You ask any military hacker about the machines they broke in to and they will tell you they were not the only people on those systems. Of course, they weren't the only people, as there were great numbers of people whiling away their time hacking computers."
Pork barrel ploy

McKinnon, according to Bevan, was far more than simply unlucky.

"Why is it that only a tiny number of those people ever face prosecution? It is clearly not because the others cannot be found. You cannot believe that out of so many people, Gary just happened to be caught."

McKinnon is being used as a scapegoat in a bid to secure extra funding to protect US military networks, according to Bevan, who reckons a commercial organisation would never get away with such trickery.

"I think it's all about timing and whether or not the hacker will make a good scapegoat whilst allowing the administration to request further money. The fear machine can keep churning out propaganda as per normal, but don't expect those machines to actually get better security. They are not businesses, have no shareholders and therefore do not have to answer to the same stringent rules and tests that the computer systems of corporations would."

Bevan compared hacking attacks to an infestation by pests. Both stem from a failure to follow basic housekeeping rules, he argued.


[edit on 14-9-2008 by kirky]