Gary McKinnon: High Court rejects appeal for UFO hacker

Gary McKinnon: High Court rejects appeal for UFO hacker

www.macworld.co.uk

The UK's High Court ruled Friday that a British hacker cannot appeal his extradition to the country's Supreme Court, narrowing the Londoner's legal options.

Gary McKinnon's attorney sought to join the case to an appeal against extradition filed by the attorney for Ian Norris, a British businessman facing charges in the US for alleged involvement in an cartel. The extradition treaty with the U.S. is viewed by many in the UK as enabling the US. to extradite people more easily from Britain than is possible in the other direction.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
uk.news.yahoo.com
www.abc.net.au
www.p2pnet.net
www.euronews.net

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Gary McKinnon Uncovers U.S. Off-Planet Space Navy?
WHAT Does Gary Mckinnon REALLY know
Linda Moulton Howe Interviews Gary Mckinnon In-depth.

Bummer, I was hoping he would win his appeal. Last I checked he is in bad mental shape over this whole ordeal. I think there are still some options, but as I understand it this is a BIG blow to his case.

The High Court ruled on July 31 that Gary McKinnon's extradition to the U.S. should proceed despite his diagnosis with Asperger Syndrome, a neurological disorder characterized by obsessive behavior and deficiencies in social interaction.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/8c914654cc5f.jpg[/atsimg]

Good Luck Gary!
-E-

www.macworld.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 9-10-2009 by MysterE]

There's that 'special relationship' in action. Everything about the U.S. government's approach to this has been farcical.

Hmm, a receiver of a Nobel peace accolade should not be engaging in this violation of morality and justice. Shouldn't Obama countermand this policy, after all he is now an ambassador of peace.

Alas, our new Supreme Court is operating well

It's crazy how what he saw as having fun wound up completely destroying his life.

Everything he's ever worked for, anyone he's ever loved, anyone who has ever loved him... it's all worthless now. He'll be tossed around in the court system until the day he dies, and for what?

Who wins?

Why are the courts being so harsh on McKinnon? It seems he is an intelligent guy who is far from a terrorist or a criminal. Wouldn't NASA attract less attention to their Black Op projects by letting him off with a slap on the wrist, and therefore getting it out of the daily media?
He did break the law but hasn't his lawyers proven that it was not malicicious or harmful, as well as the fact he did not have to actually hack any passwords? It seems that someone in NASA wanted him to get some attention.

Excellent news, another cyber punk gets his just desserts. Cyber terrorism isn't cool it's a crime.

If he's having a breakdown now, just think how he'll feel during his first night in a Supermax facing 10 years of hard time.

So we add his name to the list of Brits being shipped over here to face a real justice system.

Perhaps he can share a cell with Richard Reid and Neil Entwistle.

When you mess with the bull, you get the horns.

Originally posted by ninecrimes
It's crazy how what he saw as having fun wound up completely destroying his life.

Everything he's ever worked for, anyone he's ever loved, anyone who has ever loved him... it's all worthless now. He'll be tossed around in the court system until the day he dies, and for what?

Who wins?

Not Gary McKinnon, that's for sure.

The winners will be all the other hacker wannabes who were thinking about trying something like this themselves. Now that they are reading about how this is destroying the life of a guy who just wanted to have a little fun hacking, they might actually try to find other less destructive ways of having fun.

And a smaller winner might be the security of some computer systems. If making an example of McKinnon discourages others from hacking, then there will be that many fewer intrusion attempts for system administrators to deal with.

I wouldn't be surprised if he gets a long sentence to make an example of him, and then after serving a few years, he might be quietly released early after they've made their point that such behavior can't be tolerated.

Originally posted by Retseh
Excellent news, another cyber punk gets his just desserts. Cyber terrorism isn't cool it's a crime.

If he's having a breakdown now, just think how he'll feel during his first night in a Supermax facing 10 years of hard time.

So we add his name to the list of Brits being shipped over here to face a real justice system.

Perhaps he can share a cell with Richard Reid and Neil Entwistle.

When you mess with the bull, you get the horns.

You have GOT to be kidding me. I was cheering this guy on and will continue to do so for a long long time. This guys benefited the US more than anything else. Yeah, he shut down the NASA computers for awhile, but he exploited an outdated system and showed us simple flaws that we can secure.

The reasoning behind him hacking DoD and NASA was pretty awesome. He simply wanted to see what was there. He has the intelligence, resources and drive to do the thing, he hasn't got anything to lose. Why would he tell us about what he found (awesome stuff) and be lying?

There was no computer damage to NASA's network due to Gary McKinnons hacking, other than an embarrassed cyber security , that suddenly discovered how vurnerable their system was. The information that Gary hacked into dealt with the ' secret space program ' . I think the government is out to make him an example to deter future hackers. S+F

I seriously doubt this will ever get to sentancing. If the Gov were even halfway intelligent, they would hire him.

As far as no damage, he shut down the systems. He has admitted to 'messing around with things'.

What Gary accessed was information regarding the 'secret space program ' which included a fleet-to-fleet transfers of an ' off- planet astronaut corps. He was using a dial up modem at the time. Again there was no networking or hardware damage done to NASA's computer system. www.wariscrime.com...

[edit on 9-10-2009 by L.HAMILTON]

So the military complex wants this story to get air time?

Might have some similarities to the FBI's Unabomber trial in that some of Ted Kaczynski`s message did get air time because of the trial media.

Gary McKinnon did not have any kind of manifesto to publish like Kaczynski, but the publics understanding of UFO's, the military complex, and a lot of other ATS phenomenon might improve with a public trial.

The media has portrayed Gary as just a pot smoking script kiddie so I doubt he will be able to shake the world with much enlightened insight unless...

Poor boy hacking with a 56k modem & getting caught by the big bad wolf, this ain't no justice
* sarcasm

Originally posted by Arrowmancer
I seriously doubt this will ever get to sentancing. If the Gov were even halfway intelligent, they would hire him.

Well it's a knee jerk reaction by 'the most powerful nation in the world' because they are embarrased that some of their most secure systems were literally walked into by a pretty much average guy (I know he is mentally disabled, but he is of slightly above average intelligence... He 'disability' really allows him to focus or even obsess over his aims - a quality some could do with a little more of! - I wish I could focus sometimes).

America is embarrassed because with all the security the weakest point was still the humans leaving passwords as default, using very very simple passwords or not even using any at all.

From what I hear this guy didn't even pause to collect evidence such as screen grabs - that just didn't occur to him... I suppose that's a down side of his condition.

It's really sucky timing for the dude - right now when cyber attacks are as much of a threat as traditional attacks. If they could America would hang him high for this - and shame on them... Personally I think he did them a favour, imagine how a pro would be in and out and if he did leave a trace he'd make it look like Obama's grandmother did the hacking!

I wish my pussy assed kiss uup of a prime minister Gordon Brown would grow a pair and put his foot down - looks like all we have is a fatter, uglier more boring version of Tony Blair...

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

The winners will be all the other hacker wannabes who were thinking about trying something like this themselves. Now that they are reading about how this is destroying the life of a guy who just wanted to have a little fun hacking, they might actually try to find other less destructive ways of having fun.

And a smaller winner might be the security of some computer systems. If making an example of McKinnon discourages others from hacking, then there will be that many fewer intrusion attempts for system administrators to deal with.

And here is another completely mis-informed person. 95% of the hacking done these days can be traced to 2 points. APCNIC and RIPE. That would be Asia Pacific and Europe. Most of which come out of China, and the remaining few Russia and East European Net blocks. None of which will ever extradite their citizens. Burying McKinnon will discourage nothing, except the search for truth.

But who needs truth right? You have an oppressive government that is on the verge of fascism. So enjoy your march to the new Fatherland. And congrats on the Nobel Prize to your president. Yup, completely destroys any faith in that prize that might have been left over after Gore got it.

..ex

reply to post by Arrowmancer


From what I have read about this case the program this guy used was not all that advanced. He got lucky or I guess we could say unlucky.

I don't think this man should have the rest of his life ruined. However, I do wonder what he was thinking? Did he think he was going to get away with what he was doing? Did he somehow think it was alright?

Mckinnon is a fraud.

He used the ufo community and the ufo community used him.

He turned down a plea agreement and his supporters have constantly misstated the facts.

He's pathetic and I feel sorry for him, but clearly he has chosen this path.

Had he accepted the plea, he would have served his time and been out by now...probably 2 years ago.

But the ufo community encourages him to fight to push the ufo community's agenda (the agenda depends which faction, Project Camelot, Greer, Burisch, etc).....and Gary uses the ufo community to encourage more sympathy.

I've written probably over a hundred posts on this subject before being banned at OMF and I actually posted a lot at Avalon before it went pay to post.

I've constantly been attacked for my opinion.

Hacking is wrong, but if he really believed in his cause, he would gladly stand up to and at least go to trial, or accept the plea as a badge of honor.

There is no honor in his actions of the last few years.

Is there?

[edit on 10/9/2009 by murnut]

Jon Ronson wrote an excellent article which alludes to Gary's deceit.

But I thought the most heartbreaking thing happened when he started giving interviews to journalists from UFO magazines and podcasts. He said that the photograph of the spherical, smooth object he saw buried away at the Johnson Space Centre – the one he told me had looked like a UFO but was probably a satellite – was definitely a UFO.

Very Balance reporting from the author of "The Men Who Stare at Goats"

www.guardian.co.uk...

reply to post by Now_Then

embarrased that some of their most secure systems were literally walked into by a pretty much average guy

99% of the military systems connected to the internet use only *public key authentication* algorithms to track the proliferation of documents and communications.

If the truth came out at the trial that these public key encryption systems *just authenticate* documents without hiding the content what would happen?

Gary was not decompiling security modules then writing and distributing descrambler warez for profit. His exploits are beginning to sound more like a rerun of the movie "The Net". Curious net surfer finds "Beethovens ghost" and discovers military network is wide open.