British hacker Gary McKinnon has finally lost his latest High Court bid to avoid extradition to the United States to face charges for breaking into US military and Nasa computers in 2001 and 2002. McKinnon was tracked down and arrested under the Computer Misuse Act by the UK National Hi-Tech Crime Unit. After his arrest, and without a lawyer present, McKinnon admitted to hacking, but denies it was malicious or that he caused damage costing $800,000 (£487,000). The argument of his lawyers was not that he shouldn’t be tried, but that he should be tried in the UK and that his extreme Asperger’s Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, should be taken into account, especially since it could lead to suicide, if he was to be extradited.
However, the judges said extradition was “a lawful and proportionate response to his offending”. He faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted in the U.S. of what prosecutors have called “the biggest military computer hack of all time”. He accessed 97 government computers belonging to organisations including the US Navy and Nasa. Justifiably the U.S. is pretty sensitive about these things and under a 2003 treaty, agreed in the aftermath of 9/11 attacks, the U.S. is able to extradite a British citizen if it can prove to the UK courts “reasonable suspicion”.
Now, exactly what was this hack? McKinnon has always insisted he was looking for classified documents on UFOs which he believed the US authorities had suppressed. This is not a normal guy here. This is a mega geek who believed in UFOs. We’re not talking terrorist material. He’s been described as a 43-year-old “UFO eccentric”. There has been a “Free Gary” campaign backed by 100 MPs and celebrities like Bob Geldof and Chrissie Hynde.
As you’ll find on his Wikipedia page, he used the name ‘Solo’. The US authorities claim he deleted critical files, from operating systems, which shut down the US Army’s Military District of Washington network of 2,000 computers for 24 hours. As well as deleting US Navy Weapons logs, which rendered a naval bases network of 300 computers inoperable after the September 11th terrorist attacks. McKinnon has denied causing any damage, argued he accessed open, unsecured machines, and says the financial loss claimed by the US was created to justify the “reasonable suspicion” for extradition.
He also left this message, quite clearly the ramblings of something of a consipracy theorist nut: “US foreign policy is akin to government-sponsored terrorism these days? It was not a mistake that there was a huge security stand-down on September 11 last year…I am SOLO. I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels.”
You can just imagine Gary – like so many borderline-genius geeks all over the world – hacking into computers from a darkened room in his flat in Wood Green, north London, leaving dumb, self-aggrandising messsages born largely of his Asperger’s condition.
So, what should the U.S. do. It’s quite simple really. They should hire him. Use him in the same way that the skills of so many black-hat hackers have been turned towards contributing to a network’s security, not undermining it.
In fact McKinnon’s case reminds me very much of the story of John Forbes Nash, Jr., the subject of the 2001 movie A Beautiful Mind starring Russel Crowe.
Nash was a mathematical genius who suffered from extreme paranoia, paranoid schizophrenia and clinical depression. He seemed to believe that there was an organisation chasing him, in which all men wore red ties. He also mailed letters to foreign embassies in Washington, declaring that he was establishing a world government.
However, he worked at MIT and Princeton’s mathematics department, and is today recognised as a leading thinker on game theory, one of the principles the U.S. government used in their strategy to deal with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He shared the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
Should Gary McKinnon therefore be left to rot in a U.S. jail for the rest of his life? Or should his skills be put to better use?
How about no.
Seriously, there are plenty of smart people who aren’t nutjobs who could help to properly secure government systems, and if they choose to get serious about security, they’ll find them.
In response to Patrick:
“…who could help to properly secure government systems…”
Yes there are, but the civil service in this country is stuck in time. It hires from a select educational background who whilst they might make good managers and administrators, do not necessarily come out in front when it comes to technology. (insert sheep noise)
On the subject of civil service supplementing their skills with outside consultants – the track record is very mixed.
About your descriptive term ‘…people who aren’t ____…’. You are probably intelligent enough to distinguish a condition from an illness or choose a word more sensitive to the guys family at this time.
Amen, supposing that there are a wealth of ‘normal’ geniuses out there just waiting to fill the shoes of someone like Gary is a bit naive.
What really bothers me was his hack – scanning for default and blank passwords? Is the government really that stupid? (Yes.) They should have plugged the holes, cut him check and been done with it.
Hacking is not a skill, it is an action, and needs to be punished. The action shows a lack of judgement, we don’t need anyone like this near security responsibilities. The reason for existing mediocre government labor is due to PC affirmative action BS in our government and educational institutions. Opportunity should go to the most qualified, not the somewhat qualified and needy.
Clearly they should hire him.
so that he can happily have access to all the information he ever wanted to verify UFO conspiracy theories?
If the US is hidding information about “UFO’s” they are wrong because what they are today they owe us,. They have used public funding for all their “black programs” and nobody know about it. This is like the case of the workers in Area 51, they were sent to burn toxical material and they suffered because of this and when their families complained the US Court basically told them: “Hey we are US government and that base does not exist so we can do whatever we want with your money”… I believe he should be enlisted in the government and provided with the level of commitment he should have. Sure, it was wrong to “break” into the system but think of this, who is more guilty, the owner of the house who left the door wide open with money on the floor or the “thief” who just got in his hand to take some money to eat?
US Government has been covering a lot of things misscalled “secrets” , we are the people and we made them and now they attack us using our own money, tax payers money. We deserve the right to know the truth…
“who is more guilty, the owner of the house who left the door wide open with money on the floor or the “thief” who just got in his hand to take some money to eat?”
That’s very easy to answer :p The thief is more guilty. If your question was “who is more stupid” the answer would be different
In an abnormal world, you will need abnormal people who think in abnormal ways to attack abnormal enemies who think in abnormal ways.
Normal people cannot achieve the results of abnormal people.
I guess why all my friends call me weird. I like that. coz they do not see what i see…
Give the guy a job!!!!!!!!
Who knows.. maybe he is right..lol… are we alone in the universe..
Give the guy a job in jail
http://www.clasilistados.org.uk
Seriously Mike? Did you forget to mention that the systems he accessed had blank passwords? Did you forget to point out that the British police questioned him and decided that there were no charges to answer? What about the threats made by US prosecutors that he might face a millitary trial and maybe even time in guantanamo if he resisted deportation. It might have also been worth mentioning that the extradition treaty is entirely one sided and allows the us to extradite uk citizens but doesn’t work the other way round.
Instead you decide to skip over the facts and write a nothing story about how governments should hire “hackers.”
I really thought that most tech news sites were a bit closer to getting these kind of stories now.
Actually the treaty does work both ways (that’s why it’s a treaty( – though some could well argue that it’s been a tad one-sided of late, with most extradictions going to the US, not the other way round.
The US requires Reasonable Suspicion to extradite a UK citizen – the UK would need Probable Cause to extradite a US citizen – which is a different (and more stringent) level of legal complexity.
Well that’s one of my points addressed. I wasn’t aware that it had been ratified in the US I thought it was still pending.
What about the rest. This is shoddy writing with virtually no research. You could have gone to el reg and read one article before churning this out, and it would have been better informed.
Exploiting blank passwords does not make him a hacker.
LOL, the government should hire me. I can do dictionary attacks and find default passwords, too. I bet that I could teach a lot to people about creating strong passwords.
Neither. Gary Mckinnon is not a hacker per se; he used off the shelf software.
Don’t you do any research?
This. From what I read in the past it was less hacking and more “hey look, they have like 0 security on these NASA computers”
Hire him of course !!!
Should a bank prosecute a bank robber … or hire him?
Should a vice squad arrest a pimp … or hire him?
Should a police department arrest a murderer … or hire him?
1. yes – He can help to make the bank secure
2. No
3. No
Why yes on 1? You realize most bank robbers just pull a gun (or bluff that they have a gun) and the tellers hand over the money…
maybe they can teach the tellers how to tell a real gun from a fake gun???
Watch The Onion movie and you will understand.
I don’t know.
Only the American government knows what really happened.
If he did something that was complete genius then, of course it may be an idea to hire him under similar conditions as Frank Abagnale (the fraudster later hired by the FBI).
If “all” he did was find unsecured machines with no passwords etc… the American Government should be more concerned about getting a new security team.
Hire him,,he has the talent
Freedon of information act, dont forget that. The only thing is that this “act” is only used at the government convenience.
You have to look at it from a Government standpoint. They probably feel the need to ‘make an example out of him’ to send a message to other hackers.
My cat has managed to get in to computers with no passwords, simply by sitting on the keyboard.
Should the FBI hire him?
That was a terrible analogy.
Quite right, you can’t extradite a cat.
Yes. Hire the cat.
Does the cat have assburgers?
u can has assburger
Best response ever! +1
“You can just imagine Gary – like so many borderline-genius geeks all over the world – hacking into computers from a darkened room in his flat in Wood Green, north London, leaving dumb, self-aggrandising messsages born largely of his Asperger’s condition.”
You could probably label the guy with half a dozen different disorders if you want to. His Aspergers was only diagnosed recently. If you went into the street and diagnosed everybody that walked by there’d be more mentally ill people than not.
His skills are not extraordinary, though above that of an ‘average’ computer user. Time and effort generally gets a better result than skill, and I’m guessing that’s the case here.
The US is acting in a fairly predictable manner, they’ve been embarrassed so they’re lashing out aggressively to prevent it happening again. Short-sighted response but entirely inevitable. People should be sacked for not doing their job properly, but instead those people claim they were victims of an evil genius – and they keep their jobs, meaning the same thing will happen again.
Should the US gov hire him? I don’t think he would necessarily be very keen to take the job…maybe with a few threats and promises though.
I can see the news headlines now.
THE US GOVERNMENT’S NEW JOB APPLICATION FORM – HACKING INTO NASA
Copycats around the world might just try it. The US want to make an example of such a high profile case, the publicity is in face bad for him.
Sentence him to 70 years of work in a tedious government job.
Most of us will never know what exactly he did and what actually happened. hate those with attitude ‘ I wanna kill him coz he stole half eaten candy from my unlocked car’.
All I can see is he exploited some unsecure system setup by some halfwits, and they are going to pounce on that poor chap now.
get over with it guys…
Would you feel the same if that was your bank account he hacked into and stole from? What do you mean my account is “empty”… you should hire him…. now how can I pay that mortgage?
How about if that was the FAA, CIA, DoE, DoD, or any other government acronym?
I don’t care if you leave your front door unlocked, but if some one walks in and takes your stuff that is theft. Sorry, do a crime pay the consequences…
If he is really disabled, then that is mitigating circumstances and he will receive a lite sentence or probation.
As for extradition, it is our right to ask for extradition… just as the UK and dozens of other countries can ask for extradition for criminals. Otherwise end the treaty and US hackers go have fun in the UK government and banking systems.
He’s not a genius, borderline or otherwise. He’s a script kiddie, of which there are thousands. He’s also – asperger’s all aside – nuts. The US Gov does a very bad job of securing their computer systems and needs real help doing so, not guys like this.
Should the U.S. be able to use a treaty established in spirit if not in letter to deal with terrorists to make an example of a guy with his condition, or should he be tried in his own country which is perfectly capable of dealing with his crime which he has admitted? Seems like a no-brainer to me.
I’m surprised that his condition only came to light following the charges against him, I can’t help but think that is quite convenient. Then again even without his condition (which I think clouds the issue) he should still be tried in this country. The U.S. will clearly seek to make an example of him.
Hire him? He’s a moron and a script kiddie.
“This not a normal guy here” is missing an “IS”
TFL should hire him to fix the effing signals on the underground.
So he claims no malicious intent, but he did actively cause damage to machines and left a message saying he “will continue to disrupt at the highest levels.”
Perhaps they have a computer unit in guantanamo bay
Proof-read?
Gary McKinnon is not a genius nor a ‘hacker’ (which I might point out is not the correct use for someone who breaks into systems un-authorized, You’re getting confused with ‘Cracker’).
He used PCAnywhere and other such low level admin tools from the late 90’s to connect to machines that had default passwords on them (or none at all) using his modem.
What he did was not technical, nor advanced in anyway. The media has blown this up to be some kind of movie-like war games super crack.
He was a lonely man sitting in his room using PCAnywhere. What he did was nothing that a novice could have done with basic understanding of networking and security.
If he was hired by the US intelligence services he would be like a lamb to the slaughter. The true ‘hackers’ are master engineers, taking technology and altering/enhancing it to perform another task is hacking truly means (and not breaking into systems).
What McKinnon was did nothing more than what war-drivers do now by driving around looking for unsecured wifi networks, connecting and browsing users personal hard disks.
“So, what should the U.S. do. It’s quite simple really. They should hire him.”
Typical naive, irresponsible response from TC. Ignore the fact that he faces charges of committing a crime, put a farcical tongue-in-cheek spin on it instead!!
Are you serious?
Come on, you have to put a little more thought in to a proper article Mike.
If you’re going to try and write thought provoking articles you need to read about the topic at hand.
Come on people, the article might not be about to win any prizes, but regarding the hiring of criminal hackers – it’s happened before, so the premise is valid.
What’s more, it’s not like they have great IT employees at the moment, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to get in anyway…so why not give him a job, he can’t do any worse than what they’ve got already…
Punishment also serves as a deterrence to others. He might have only been looking for UFOs. The next guy might stumble across top military secrets and then decide to make some extra beer money selling them to Osama. Or the Chinese. Or the Russians. Or the Martians. Punishing this guy might make the next guy think twice about typing NASA into a script. Though I doubt it.
As a side note regarding Nash… not only did his work on game theory contribute to strategy in the cold war but is also one of the founding concepts of modern economics as well as a multitude of other areas such as AI and multi agent systems.
In terms of Gary this is pretty tuff and I’d say that 70 years in prison is a tuff sentence for someone with not so bad intentions, its pretty obvious that the guy isn’t a terrorist!
Why is Nash being compared to this guy? Just because they both were diagnosed with a mental condition? They’re “condition” were completely different. Last I heard Nash’s only error was to think he was working for the government. This guy was did something against the government. This man is much more fully functioning than Nash. He has the ability to distinguish between right and wrong much easier than Nash.
Personally, I think that if he did use basic software such as PCAnywhere and got in to unsecured computers then fair play to him. The problem here is that the US Government were foolish enough to have unsecured computers. Also, if they were unsecured, then why the hell did they have sensitive data such as Navy weapons logs and the like on said computers?? Its a simple case of they goofed up on their security, and are bringing the hammer down as hard as possible to try and save face, to hide the fact that millions of taxpayers money may supply them with ammunition to create walls of fire, but not firewalls where they’re needed. They should learn from this, not lash out at it
RE: skippy’s comment, I completely agree with you, not only on what you said, but also I wouldn’t exactly say that Gary was a genius, though that’s not to say he is talentless.. the guy obviously knows his stuff!
The Pentagon should evaluate this mans skills and possibly offer him a consultancy. However, being that the event happened so many years ago prosecution seems the more likely course. Certainly Asperger’s Syndrome is NO ‘excuse’ for a crime of this magnitude.
Hang this guy in front of the main entrance to the Pentagon as an example for others.
Something tells me that the British Gov. won’t enjoy us using the extradition treaty as a recruitment tool…
Hire him. No question about it
Hire him. No question about it…
You have a typo. I think it should be used not sued
“he sued the name ‘Solo’. “
That Hacker should go to Jail.
there are plenty of genius out there, that are not nuts.
hacking is a crime and should be treating as such.
would you hire someone that come to your store or your house and burn everything to the ground?
in my opinion Hacking is not different than stealing period we should stop rewarding that kind of behaviors. One of my website was hacked by a guy in germany and that idiot had the decency to give me his email so he could help me protect my site, he did not even think that my website was my living, my business, the place that help me pay for my medical bill etc…
for him it was just a game. You know what you play with people effort, well society should send you to jail and give a strong sentence …this isPaul Aloo opinion
You are really really ignorant. Hacking for information that he was neither going to sell, or use against the U.S. is not a crime, if he was hacking to find gov’t secrets to sell to the highest bidder, then maybe lock him up. All he did here was help the Gov’t find a major flaw in the system before someone that could have done real damage busted in. yeah you are ignorant
yea and twitter should hire their hacker.
i definitely say no!
yes, he may have the skills, whether or not his intention was not malicious but still he might have forgotten the codes of ethics.
on the other hand, i still appreciate his talent!
http://ultimatesupramcy.blogspot.com
No one seriously thinks the US should hire this guy as a “security expert”. The article was written with this slant to generate page views. And it worked… look at all the comments.
So they should recruit a known paranoid conspiracy nut with extreme Asperger’s Syndrome? No.
Hire him.
As someone who has Aspergers Snydrome I am glad that Gary McKinnon will be extradited to the United States to stand trial.
No brainer. hire him.
I know how you feel about newspaper organizations but they at least proofread their posts.
Wrong Movie, go with “Catch Me if You Can” as it fits your open question. Good movie to boot.
typo “societ” => “soviet”
There is no arguing that the guy did something wrong…and in the past the US Govt. has cut deals with guys like him…they discontinued the practice because it was getting crazy…every 2 bit wanna be was trying to crack the network for a big payday full time job.
The guy broke a law. He needs to get punished but why not offer to let him see any UFO material he wants in exchange for all the details of his hack and a reduced sentance. Despite what the media would have you think the # of leet hackers is pretty darn small…we caught one…let’s learn from him…