Gary McKinnon

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Gary McKinnon, also known as Solo, (born in Glasgow in 1966) is a British hacker accused by the United States of perpetrating the "biggest military computer hack of all time." Following legal hearings in the UK it was decided in July 2006 that he should be extradited to the United States. In February 2007 his lawyers argued against the ruling in an appeal to the High Court in London,^[1] which was turned down on April 3.^[2] He still has the possibility of appealing to the House of Lords, and his lawyer has stated that he will do this,^[3] using the argument that because the alleged offences were committed in the UK this is where he should be tried. On July 31, 2007 the House of Lords agreed to hear the appeal.^[4]

Contents 1 Background 2 Statements to the media 3 NASA Documents 4 Radio play 5 References

[edit] Background

The computer systems administrator is accused of cracking into 97 United States military and NASA computers in 2001 and 2002. The computer networks he is accused of cracking include networks owned by NASA (although these were not password protected), the US Army, US Navy, Department of Defense, and the US Air Force. The US estimates claim the costs of tracking and correcting the problems he allegedly caused were around $700,000 .

McKinnon was originally tracked down and arrested under the Computer Misuse Act by the UK National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) in 2002 who informed him that he would face community service. The Crown Prosecution Service refused to charge him. Later that year he was indicted by the United States government. McKinnon remained at liberty without restriction for three years until June 2005 (after the UK had implemented a new extradition treaty with the US [which the US congress has not ratified]) when he became subject to bail conditions including a requirement to sign in at his local police station every evening, and to remain at his home address at night. In addition he was banned from using a computer with access to the Internet. There have been no more developments in respect of the charges relating to United Kingdom legislation but in late 2005 the United States began extradition proceedings.

If he is extradited to the US and charged McKinnon faces up to 70 years in jail and has expressed fears that he could be sent to Guantanamo Bay.^[5][6] He has said that he will contest the extradition proceedings and believes that he should face trial in the UK, principally as he argues that any alleged crimes were committed there and not in the United States.

In an interview televised on the BBC's Click programme,^[7] he claimed that he was able to get into the military's networks simply by using a Perl script that searched for blank passwords; in other words his report suggests that there were computers on these networks with the default passwords active.

[edit] Statements to the media

During the length of time between his indictment and beginning of extradition proceedings, with a growing media interest in his case, Gary McKinnon has had a number of opportunities to address the media.

At the Infosecurity Europe 2006 conference in London on April 27, 2006, McKinnon appeared on the Hackers' Panel. When asked how his exploits were first discovered, McKinnon answered that he had miscalculated the timezone — he was using remote-control software to operate a Windows computer while its user was sitting in front of it.

McKinnon has admitted in many public statements to unauthorised access of computer systems in the United States including those mentioned in the United States indictment. He claims his motivation, drawn from a statement made before the Washington Press Club on May 9, 2001 by the "The Disclosure Project", was to find evidence of UFOs, antigravity technology, and the government suppression of "Free Energy", all of which he claims to have proven through his actions.^[8]

In his interview with the BBC he also claimed that "The Disclosure Project" says there is "extra-terrestrial in origin and [they've] captured spacecraft and reverse engineered it." He also claimed to have downloaded a low-resolution image of "something not man-made" and "cigar shaped" floating above the northern hemisphere. He said that unfortunately he did not manage to get a screenshot or recording of the image because he was "bedazzled" to see the image, could not remember the capture function in the software RemotelyAnywhere, and that he was "cut off" from his connection.^[9]

The charge that he perpetrated "the biggest military hack of all time" is disputed by McKinnon who characterises himself as a "bumbling computer nerd". He refers to previous documented incidents of cracking including May 2001 when as acknowledged by U.S. government contractor Exigent International one or more hackers broke into a U.S government server storing satellite software and stole code. Evidence led investigators to an e-mail service in Sweden but the culprits were never apprehended. In 1997, two California teenagers and a trio of Israeli hackers were arrested for cracking into Pentagon servers. Israeli hacker Ehud Tenenbaum, then 18 years old, and his two teenage accomplices were not extradited, but were prosecuted by local authorities. McKinnon has also claimed that on many occasions he noticed other crackers unlawfully entering the same systems and suggests that his activities were not unique. The U.S. Pentagon has for example in the past cited as many as 250,000 attacks in a single year.

[edit] NASA Documents

In 2006, a Freedom of Information Act request was filed to NASA for all documents pertaining to Gary McKinnon. NASA's documents consisted of printed news articles from the Slashdot online news agency, but no other related documents. This is consistent with NASA employees browsing internet articles about Gary McKinnon, the records of which are public domain. As NASA is not a law-enforcement agency, no other documentation related to Gary McKinnon should be expected.

The records have been uploaded to the internet for review, and can be downloaded here.

[edit] Radio play

On December 12, 2007, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a radio play about the case, The McKinnon Extradition by John Fletcher.

[edit] References

"The State vs. The Hacker" by Nigel Watson in UFO Magazine, Vol. 21 No. 5, July 2006, pp32-37.