UK hacker McKinnon on US list
p2pnet.net News- Gary McKinnon, the British hacker accused of penetrating US government computers between February 2001 and March 2002, is "vigorously contesting" extradition, says the BBC.
McKinnon, who says he was able to hack key US defense establishments because of poor security, states there was no malicious intent.
"They might say that my installing a remote control program opened them up," he said, "but it didn’t. The access was already there. I didn’t even have to crack passwords."
He also said he was ‘frightened’ to find US defense systems were so open.
"The British public need to ask themselves why British citizens are being extradited to the USA when the US government has not signed the extradition treaty between the two countries," McKinnon’s lawyer, Karen Todner, is quoted as saying in ther BBC story.
The US is also after DrinkorDie’s Hew Griffiths.
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See:-
BBC – UK ‘hacker’ fights US extradition, July 27, 2005
no malicious intent – The Gary McKinnon case, p2pnet, July 15, 2005
Hew Griffiths – www.drinkordie.com, p2pnet, May 11, 2005
July 27th, 2005 at 6:25 pm
So the American armed forces don’t run any sort of Anti-Virus or Firewall on their networks? Do they not have a schedule for patching/updating system files? Did they, infact, leave some machines on their network with file and printer sharing still enabled? Apparently this guy did not actually ‘hack’ anything. Didn’t even need to crack a password at any stage, he used freely available tools, namely a port scanner and whatever his remote access tool was, could even have been pcanywhere!
They say he accessed a total of 97 computers over the course of 13 months! How lax was/is the network security within the american armed forces? Apparently his actions were “intentional and calculated to influence and affect the US government by intimidation and coercion”. Hah, where does it tell us about how he tried to blackmail them or sell sensitive information to China? It doesn’t…, he didn’t… He deleted a few log files to try and cover his tracks.
IMHO the american gvmnt are completely embarrassed by this whole thing and want to make an example of this poor sap who was just dumb enough to get caught. I mean it hardly sounds like he’s some sort of master hacker, maybe he’s played Uplink a few times and thought he knew the drill?! I don’t mean to insult Mr McKinnon by saying this. I just think that if it was so easy for him to get access then imagine how many people with more technical knowledge were able to get in and cover their tracks more efficiently.
To me this is just another example of the classic american bully tactic in action. No offence to all you regular joe yank’s out there but your administration are a bunch of wankers. So full of their own shit that they actually believe that they can do what they want and the rest of the world will stand back and allow it to happen. At least Tony Blair knows he’s in charge of a runt country and tries to make some friends in global politics. Gee Dubya seems to think that his way is the only way, that might is right and that he can damn well do what he pleases. Well fuck you bush, and the camel you rode in on.
H
July 27th, 2005 at 7:47 pm
[on his hacking adventures]
“The US Space Command,” he says.
“What was the most exciting thing you saw?”
“I found a list of officers’ names,” he says, “under the heading ‘Non-Terrestrial Officers’. It doesn’t mean little green men. What I think it means is not Earth-based. I found a list of ‘fleet-to-fleet transfers’, and a list of ship names. I looked them up. They weren’t US Navy ships. What I saw made me believe they have some kind of spaceship, off-planet.”
“The Americans have a secret spaceship?” I ask.
“That’s what this trickle of evidence has led me to believe.”
July 27th, 2005 at 11:01 pm
I’ll drink to that ……..
July 28th, 2005 at 8:52 am
I always new it.
July 28th, 2005 at 11:37 am
This guy should be sending the U.S. administration a hefty invoice for pointing out this ridiculous situation. George Ws mob never ceases to amaze me. They are obviously a bunch of total, unprincipled twats. Yeah all right, I had figured that one out ages ago.
Ho Chi Mihn