Gary McKinnon Update w/ Obama and Cameron

Cameron and Obama discuss computer hacker Gary McKinnon-BBC News UK

The article is a basic rundown of the hacker case, some interesting quotes:

At a press conference in Washington, the prime minister said Mr McKinnon was accused of a "significant crime" but hoped for a "way through".

American authorities allege that between February 2001 and March 2002, Mr McKinnon hacked into dozens of US army, navy, air force, and Department of Defense computers, as well as 16 Nasa computers.

They also say Mr McKinnon altered and deleted files at a US naval air station not long after the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001.

In May, Home Secretary Theresa May agreed to an adjournment to delay a High Court decision on whether his extradition could go ahead. The government will review the case.

Obama's input on the discussion was pretty basic. US Presidents are not involved with extradition matters, US and the UK are close allies, and there needs to be stronger cyber security.

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Gary McKinnon claims he was seeking evidence on UFO's, and you can find his interviews on youtube.

What the UK and the US have yet to say is what he was really doing and what he found/what he did.

The responses from the UK and the US have been very vague as to what Gary McKinnon actually did, instead the conversations are taken over by extradition laws.

Thoughts?

He should not go to jail for exposing the flaws in the system.

Cameron is Obama's bitch, before he was elected I think i recall him having the stance that Mr McKinnon would not have to serve any jail time in the states.

They also say Mr McKinnon altered and deleted files at a US naval air station not long after the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001.

Of course they'd say this, anything they can do to affiliate him with acts of terrorism.

Gary McKinnon is a good man, who was doing what was right. I'd do the same in a heart beat, but never publicly admit to actually doing it.

What he did was illegal, but the US government trying to say he's deleting files is simply ridiculous, I, nor anyone else who is familiar with Gary McKinnon, would actually believe that.

Gary McKinnon should be freed and left alone by the authorities. He is a great man, and a hero in my book, and in the future years this will be made apparent.

He is one person who will be wrote down in the history books. And he has my prayers.

The guy is a legend..... I meen if there are UFO's that the government of the USA is aware of and they are keeping it secret from the rest of the world then they deserve to get hacked.
They are not my government and i did not vote ( ) them into power.

On a side note the more fuss they make over the guy the more it shows they have something big to hide..... Like a list of "non terrestrial officers"!

And while we are at it setting him free, I suggest we rewrite the laws to remove all computer crimes currently on the books, because after the legal precedent of letting someone go free based on assumed good intentions there won't be much need for the laws anyway.

reply to post by Helig


It wasn't my attention to start this thread about cyber laws or extradition.

Gary McKinnon states he hacked into computers to find evidence of UFOs.

US states Gary McKinnon hacked into computers and caused damage.

The US is not being very clear about what Gary McKinnon actually did. Hopefully this is the beginning twist of the lid on the can of worms, because when you are vague, you're hiding something.

The US could make a statement for example, Gary McKinnon hacked into computers looking for information on weapons, names of spies, or payroll information, social security numbers, they could make a list of things, and they haven't yet. And if they did it, it sure as well better match the actual places he hacked into.

Damage to what? What do they mean by damage?

Did he just hack in to cause damage? Or did he pick specific computers and departments to hack into for a search on UFOs?

There has to be more recent information on this case.

reply to post by game over man


The number of computers compromised is stated at 97 from what I've read, and total number of machines impacted by his actions is figured to be about 2300 machines (2000 in one location, 300 in another).

As an entry level IT person I make about 33k a year (works out to about 16$ USD per hour). If I were to spend 10 hours on each machine compromised (I would personally probably put more time into it given the nature of the systems) at my pay rate it would take about 15,520$ in hours-to-pay in order to fix all the systems.

The above rough number is a gross over-simplification of the situation given that these were military systems that were compromised and the pay rate for the people who would be dealing with the aftermath is far above the numbers I tossed out above, more than double in most cases. Then you have the fact that without inside knowledge of policy and procedure there is no way to know if it was as simple as changing a password (highly unlikely) to fix the compromise or something that required completely rebuilding the system from a backup and default image, file integrity scans (imagine scanning 10 TB of data for any nasty bits of code left behind, then do it to 97 machines.)

Just like there is no victim-less crime there is no computer crime that does not cause damage in one way or another. Just the act of breaching the security means that the computer cannot be trusted and must be turned over with a find tooth comb to ensure data integrity and make absolutely sure that there were no pieces of code left behind from the intrusion that could allow the attacker back in. Personally I would have blown brand new clean images into any compromised system, its not worth the risk to simply plug the hole and hope for the best. All the time by the technicians, supervisors, managers and every other person involved in the cleanup process charges their time to the incident, so its not hard see where 800k can come from when such a large number of systems had been attacked.

By your own post you say that both he and the US government concur that he did in fact compromise those systems, yet McKinnon makes an attempt to explain it all away as harmless because he was just looking for government proof of UFOs and Free Energy. Call me crazy but thats not a good enough excuse for what he has admitted to doing.

I understand the urge to root for the underdog, I really do. The problem I have with this whole thing is that there are a large number of people who seem to want to dismiss this guy's actions completely and give him a free pass. What would stop me from then say targeting somebody like the NYSE and attacking their networks, causing Trillions of dollars in damages by disrupting trade on a global level and then simply saying I wanted to prove that the markets were controlled by a cucumber that had been molding in the back of Ben Bernanke's fridge for the last 2 years? A noble goal doesn't diminish the acts committed, and the moment we start making exceptions for such things is the moment society ceases to function at all.

reply to post by Helig


So you're saying that he simply wanted to mess up some computers?

No motive?

Garry McKinnon is no more...hes entered the limbo of the dissapeared ones...The US Govt will burry him given the opportunity.
he certainly deserves some credit for what he accomplished though...and if i was the US govt, id hire him at salary get him explaining to our computer geeks how he got in and put him to work trying to find other holes in the system for us!
Instead hell spend thirty years behind bars somewhere....what a wasted talent.......
It makes the govt look very egg on face to keep the lid on any details as to what actually transpired, as well as adding some credibility to the mans statements about what he did find.

I'm British and I think he's nothing but a moron, he did delete data by the way quite a lot of user accounts from things I've read and damaged a whole network of machines, left threatening messages and made absolutely no attempt to stay undetected.

This is right after 911 and he's leaving threatening messages on US military computers about how he's going to continue to disrupt seriously he's an idiot.

If it was a kid then I'd maybe sympathise a little but this is a guy in his 30's who refuses to accept any responsibility for his plainly illegal actions, only years afterwards did he claim he was looking for UFO's I suspect in the hopes of media attention and when that didn't work he has now went to Aspergers.

I think he should just be handed over he's a waste of taxpayers money and he's really not worth the hassle.

Originally posted by Teknikal
I'm British and I think he's nothing but a moron, he did delete data by the way quite a lot of user accounts from things I've read and damaged a whole network of machines, left threatening messages and made absolutely no attempt to stay undetected.

This is right after 911 and he's leaving threatening messages on US military computers about how he's going to continue to disrupt seriously he's an idiot.

If it was a kid then I'd maybe sympathise a little but this is a guy in his 30's who refuses to accept any responsibility for his plainly illegal actions, only years afterwards did he claim he was looking for UFO's I suspect in the hopes of media attention and when that didn't work he has now went to Aspergers.

I think he should just be handed over he's a waste of taxpayers money and he's really not worth the hassle.

WOW never heard of this accusation besides the government with no proof? Can you provide some link or instance of evidence to these claims? Hmmm well i don't believe you mate. Apparently you are assassinating his character with the same crap claims from the US gov. Im an American and IMO he encroached on waters he was not suppose to sail... and seen things OBVIOUSLY he was not suppose to see like black projects. I believe him and i say the pentagon is full of sh#%!!! .

I remember him saying in an interview with project Camelot he could not get the photos of the craft he seen but he described seeing a huge cigar like ship in earth orbit with the letters USA on the side like a space naval ship. He said he did not have the kind of access to delete files for the same reason he could not save files and photos "administrator" privileges of some kind i guess. It would take a massive effort and time to destroy the OS on these systems. They are hiding something and he is a hero.

[edit on 21-7-2010 by Unknown Soldier]

Sometimes, when nobody else is doing it, you need to go through extremes to expose the truth.

I love (or hate) the way they throw in 9/11, as if that has ANYTHING to do with it or changes the significance of him hacking before or after this date. Poor guy. I wish he had stolen lots of documents, if you're gonna go to jail for hacking NASA you should at least harvest some fruits of your labour, I mean, it's possible that he could've changed everything but all we have (as normal) is his word about what he found. But I suppose it wasn't easy on dial-up.

reply to post by Unknown Soldier


Gary McKinnons mother was on coast to coast a while back and during the interview she mentioned that Gary was a conspiracy theorist and had stupidly left messages regarding 9/11 being an inside job amongst other things on their computers. There can be no denying that he did these things. It came straight out of his own mothers mouth.

reply to post by Frakkerface

it's possible that he could've changed everything but all we have (as normal) is his word about what he found. But I suppose it wasn't easy on dial-up.

I've heard him say that he was able to view the images but not able to download them as he was on dial up which is nonsense. To view an image of any sort online it has to be downloaded at least as a temporary file so he should have been able to save it. Secondly, this "hacker"seemingly didn't know how to use his "print screen" key and save the image as a jpg. I don't believe a word of it.

EDIT: to correct typo

[edit on 21-7-2010 by RMFX1]

reply to post by RMFX1


So you believe he didn't do any of it or that he was just lying about what he found?

I believe that he messed around in their systems and was caught. I do not believe for even a second that he found any evidence of free energy or UFO's as he claims that were being repressed.

He also claimed that there were hundreds of other hackers on their systems at any given time. Do you not think that if that were really the case there would be plenty of other people who had hacked into the system that would have also seen what he claims to have seen and also managed to come out of it all with even the tiniest piece of evidence if any of it was true?

It's nonsense.

Doesn't really matter wheter he really found anything or not. What matters is everyone knows about his case and it's publicly known. If he found some evidence (which I'm sure is somewhere in NASA among other places), then the better. If he didn't find anything it doesn't matter, because the fact he's saying he found something hidden about free energy and ufo's puts the US and UK in a tough position on its own considering it is most probably true. So either way the US and UK have to come out and say and do something regarding this issue sooner or later. Gary is just a piece of the puzzle in the haystack, eventhough what he came forward with was a good thing. Let's wait for the things to unfold.

reply to post by Cybernet


It does matter when people here are hailing him as a hero for doing nothing at all other than trespassing and getting caught.

Should he be extradited? Probably not, not unless they can come up with some hard evidence before hand which shows that he did infact cause damage while he was in there.

Should he be punished for his crimes? Yes, of course he should. The only question is whether or not that punishment should be served in the UK or in the US.

He also said that he found a log that listed non-terrestrial officers, which i think is interesting, and some of the logs he found were ship to ship transfers, he believes that all this is evidence that the US military has a secret battalion in space. He thought by having this information that he could negotiate with the US government but they were not too worried about it, maybe because they knew how crazy it would sound to the general public?