June 8
"Gary McKinnon, 39...unemployed former computer engineer is accused of causing the US government $1billion of damage by breaking into its most secure computers at the Pentagon and Nasa. He is likely to be extradited to America [from Britain] to face eight counts of computer crime in 14 states and could be jailed for 70 years..."He's been interested in UFOs for some time and believes the Americans are holding back information - although he didn't find any proof."..."
Tonite on C2C:
"First Hour: Computer security expert Kevin Mitnick will comment on a hacking effort against US military networks..."

70 years in jail for stubbornly believing in a Conspiray Theory... :roll: see how this stuff can be dangerous for your health? #-o

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Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes? -- Groucho Marx

there's a moral to this story somewhere; maybe by the time I come back Sunday night, I'll have thought of it.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

The US government should hire the guy!
At least Brazil is co-operating with his wishes:
Brazilian Air Force Opens Its UFO Files to Public

When Brazil produces, I know I can count on you to break the story here. Keep us posted. :wink:

somehow i don't think they are actually concerned with the wishes of a computer hacking woo-woo. especially one who may be spending a major portion of the rest of his life behind bars...

edited to add:

an interesting quote from the 'article'- ROFL! =D>

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Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes? -- Groucho Marx

If the US wants to extradite him they can have him. It will save us from keeping the waster on benefits for the rest of his life.

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By asking questions we sometimes get the wrong answers, from wrong answers we learn to ask the right questions.

interestingly, according to other US news sources (CNN, but still) the maximum penalty would be only 5 years.

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Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes? -- Groucho Marx

No, no, that's just five years until the trial... :^o
What would Singapore have penalized him?
If he pleads insanity, would it be off-set by his demonstrated computer 'skills'?

since everyone does what the government tells us to, we have no crime... :wink:

seriously, most if not all kids here only switch on their computer to chat online or play computer games...

besides, internet usage is monitored so no one dares anything like hacking...

[edited to repair link]

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Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes? -- Groucho Marx

8-[

Hi Singapore Government! *waves*

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Now while I might be amused by Cthulhians, I don't necessarily distrust them to carry out the functions of government. -- JayUtah

What's it like being a skeptic in the Middle East? Check out my blog.

Isn't that from the movie Earth Girls are Easy?

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Photons have mass? I didn't even know they were Catholic.

Hey, I´ve watch that one.

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Of course, if such files actually exist (I doubt it), they would not be on any computer with internet access (especially windows ones). They most likely only exist in paper form secured somewhere.

When I first heard about it I was impressed with his skill, but after reading that article I see that he hacked into windows machines and/or machines with poor passwords. meh

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Intelligent design

Right; none of the compromised computers were secured, as Mitnick pointed out on the radio show, so a high level of sophistication was not required after all. Mitnick further surmised 'chasing UFO material' was not really the goal, but didn't say what he thought the hacker was up to. Also, because the suspect is a British citizen, Mitnick felt it might take the legal system up to a year to actually get him to the U.S. if he chooses to appeal extradition.

Hmmmmm.... indulge me here for just a moment... So if this guy didn't find anything maybe its an indication that there isn't anything to find.... I realize this is a lot less fun to ponder and it doesn't make good tv or good movies, but it just might explain his data... or more precisely his lack there of... :-k

It has always astounded me that in this country where no secret, including the identity of deep throat, seems to last forever, everyone is sure that the government can keep a lid on this huge secret. UFO's don't boggle my mind... the idea that someone could believe that our government could have successfully kept it a secret all these years boggles my mine.

Update: Well, it now appears that Mr. McKinnon is claiming that he found out all sorts of things during his hacking adventure...see here. Yep, UFOs, free energy, he saw it all. Hmmm...seems like his story has changed a tad over the last 11 months!

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An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

ROFL...the banned him from using the internet?!1?1

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Very telling quote:

I understand how breaking into a locked building and entering it is considered "breaking and entering."

Please explain to me how entering apparantly abandoned building with no locks on it (to break) constitutes breaking and entering.

Please explain to me how stumbling across (whether by accident or design) open files on the Internet constitutes any sort of crime whatsoever.

"I looked, and I saw, your honor, that the files were unprotected, apparently abandoned, with a combination lock set to 0-0-0. I opened it, and the files were there for the taking."

Since when did the government begin holding its citizens liable for the government's ineptitude to secure important things?

Think about it - what's the first thing people are taught in basic training (for those of you who've been through it): Secure your footlocker! Who's responsibility is it if someone takes something from an insecure footlocker? I guarantee the government will not an additional investigation if the asset was unsecured. They'll simply fry the guy who failed to secure it.

Now things seem to have changed. The governments are frying people for viewing things online that they're "not supposed to view."

What happens if I Google a link, it takes me to a site where some government employee classified information? Am I responsible because they failed to secure the information? Am I going to jail for 60 years?

I think it's media hype for ad sales, and government hype to prove a point. If it really had "$1 Billion" in damage as it claimed, that "damage" was only either get more money from Congress, probably to fix the gaping holes that are apparently out there if some guy like GM can actually hack this stuff. But that's like telling the cops you need $100 for a better lock because the guy who just entered my house walked right in when I failed to lock it.

I certainly hope calmer heads more well-versed in legal matters hold to the truth of the matter in court.

So long as he's in custody, yes. Once out of custody, they'd have to somehow prove it was him, vs whatever friend he might have been staying with.

Because you are knowingly entering someone else's property without their permission, which is illegal. And your analogy doesn't really hold. It is more like he was going to an office building with hundreds of windows and doors, all but a few of which were locked, and systematically searching until he found one of the few unlocked windows or doors. That is definitely breaking and entering.

He was systematically searching for security holes in order to knowlingly access other people's computers without their knowledge or permission using software expressly created for that task, specifically targetting US government computers he knew he should not have access to, then intentionally retrieving documents he knew he should not see. This is not like stumbling upon some random web page on the internet, he was intentionally accessing a US government computer that he knew he should not be on without their knowledge or consent. How is that not a crime?

Oh, right, I am sure that argument would hold up for stealing lost luggage at the airport, or climbing through someone's unlocked window in the middle of the night and helping yourself to their jewlery. Same goes for computers, he was knowlingly going somewhere he should not go and taking things he should not take.

Since when did the government begin holding its citizens liable for the government's ineptitude to secure important things?

That is because the footlocker is in a public place and easily accessible to many people. I guarantee you if it was discovered that a foreign civilian was breaking into a US army base and helping himself to the contents of peoples' footlockers by trying likely combinations on the locks, there would be an investigation.

This is completely different. First of all he wasn't accessing web pages, he was accessing computers. That is completely different. Second, if a google web page takes you to a site that warns that this is a private US government site and that you could be punished with years in jail for viewing, yes you are defintiely responsible for still viewing the information despite the warning. He may not have had a warning, but intent is obvious because you can't accidentally access a computer, and he has already admitted to systematically searching for security holes in government computers (you do have to prove intent in many cases, which he already admitted to). Breaking the law is still breaking the law no matter how easy it is to do.

It would be really easy for me to walk into a store, find a spot not covered by security cameras, and star pickpocketing stuff. That doesn't make it legal. That doesn't mean I won't get into trouble if caught just because the store didn't have complete video camera coverage. It is still a crime even if the store made it easy to do. (I would never, ever do this of course, it is just an example)

It is your responsibility to obey the law, not the victim's responsibility to stop you.

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My Website: The Black Cat's Web Page

At a bare minimum, it is still trespassing. Which is still illegal.

How do you "stumble across" things by design?

Well, first off, you have to believe the guy. For one, he is claiming to have found a lot of classified material on machines connected to the internet, which is not generally the case. What's more, he's claiming the stuff he found had to do with aliens and free energy and such. Isn't it equally likely that he's just nuts?

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Things like this are usually on a per-crime basis. If he did it 14 times with 5 years per crime that would be 70 years.

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I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.
-Steven Wright



My Website: The Black Cat's Web Page

Even if the US government did release its UFO files, if there are any that haven't already been declassified, they would either not be believed or wrongly taken as evidence for alien visitation. The US government has already declassified a bunch of info, UFOlogists have either twisted it to fit their opinion or dismissed it as more misinformation. No amount of information the government could declassify would satisfy them.

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I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.
-Steven Wright



My Website: The Black Cat's Web Page

[QUOTE=Gillianren]Well, first off, you have to believe the guy. For one, he is claiming to have found a lot of classified material on machines connected to the internet, which is not generally the case.[quote]

Really. Check www.globalsecurity.com.

If it's nuts, then he doesn't have any valid information. If he's not nuts, then he does.

So why is the government reacting as if he not nuts?

WOAH!!! I say this because I'm NOT a CT, and because I'm trying to mitigate the problems between those who are and the people (the taxpayers) who pay for tracking down all the crap from those who are.

The guy's got a few screws loose. Perhaps he has none loose, but he just found some good into on NSA.com and decided to run with it.

So what? The killer thing here is twofold:

1. What, exactly, was the information that he breached?

2. Was it really worth $2 BILLION?????????????????????

Oh, come on! If the Gov't were that inept! This is absolutely insance from the dollar amount beyond.

Does this mean we give 60 years to every crackpot who manages to hack through the world's supposedly tightest security systems?

That doesn't exactly do wonders for helping us maintain our reputation for the world's most powerful nation on the planet...

I would think it would look FAR better for our nation to simply plug the hole and say, "What hole?"

I'm sure this is the definative choice of options, given one.

If I understood correctly, he most likely had to get past any outward security (like a firewall or an uthentication system) to find those open systems on their network. It's more like breaking into a locked office building, then searching for the offices within that building whose doors are unlocked.

I thought it was pretty clear that the network wasn't open to the public.

This I can partially agree with. The network and system administrators need a bit of a lashing, especially for that "blank password" insanity.

You jumped the tracks a few paragraphs back, and you just barreled full-steam over the cliff with this statement. None of what he claimed to have found (or didn't find, depending on when you believe him ) was publically available information.

That doesn't follow. He went snooping because he was a CT. There might well have been things that would be a real national security issue - no ET required. Even without that, they want to stomp down hard on things like this as a lesson for others who might like to do the same thing - especially kids that get kicks out of that sort of stuff.

I doubt we'll ever know that. I also doubt it has anything to do with ET.

My guess is no. Claimed damage figures are often a work of fiction as well. No doubt a lot of that is the cost of cleaning up security.

*shrug* It is just another deterrent. Security is never pefect. The best way to secure things is to limit real access: The really sneaky stuff isn't going to be available on the public network. But there is always a war between good security and ease of use. In the real world, you have the security people that put heavy shackles on things, often forcing people to use suboptimal hardware and software. Then there is a limit to how many security folks you have. On the other side are bosses that want jobs to get done, so you have some people doing things they shouldn't as workarounds to the security. And then there are the idiots . . .

Many years ago, on a computer used through California universities (old style networking), a friend* found a way to pull all userids and owner's names. He was able to grab several powerful IDs by trying the names or obvious nicknames as passwords. Everybody knows that you shouldn't use your name as a password, but some people do it anyway. Fools are the biggest problem for security.


*No, it wasn't me, it really was a friend. I wouldn't mind taking credit for it - the laws are different and it really was many years ago - but credit where credit is due. The real trick was pulling the IDs and names out of the file.

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Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

the files are mor likely on the same computer with proof of weapons of mass distruction.

I thought we had proof of weapons of mass destruction for some time now.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

I am not a hacker. But if memory serves me correct, an unsecured building on the side of a public highway is not considred "locked" if reasonable means by average people (turning a doorknob) gains them entry. To these people, that's apparently what happened. They simply stubled across a building, turned a few handles, and they were in. To them, there was no apparent attempt to secure the building.