No Charges In UK For Gary McKinnon 148
clickclickdrone sends this news from the BBC:
"Computer hacker Gary McKinnon, who is wanted in the U.S., will not face charges in the U.K., the Crown Prosecution Service has said. Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC said the chances of a successful conviction were 'not high.' He announced the decision some three months after Home Secretary Theresa May stopped the extradition. Mr. McKinnon, 46, admits accessing U.S. government computers but says he was looking for evidence of UFOs. The U.S. authorities tried to extradite him to face charges of causing $800,000 (£487,000) to military computer systems and he would have faced up to 60 years in prison if convicted."
this: (Score:5, Informative)
The UK CPS declined to prosecute him originally and further decline to do so now.
This trumps all other arguments.
Re:this: (Score:5, Interesting)
McKinnon even sued the CPS over their decision not to prosecute him, and lost (judgment here [bailii.org]). The CPS really don't want to prosecute him.
Re:this: (Score:5, Informative)
The UK CPS declined to prosecute him originally and further decline to do so now.
And yet, McKinnon said he'd be willing to plead guilty if he was prosecuted in the UK.
By letter dated 5 June 2009, the Claimant made further representations and indicated that he would be willing to plead guilty to an offence under section 3 of the 1990 Act. Accordingly, the Director was invited to reconsider the decision not to prosecute, since the evidential test was now satisfied, having regard to the wider public interest which, it was asserted, pointed to a prosecution in the United Kingdom. The Director was further invited to "have full regard to Article 3 and Article 8 of the Convention".
Perhaps, it would have been too much of an embarrassment to the US if the guy had only received 6 months probation and a 1000 fine when what they really wanted was to set an example and have this autistic guy up-rooted from his own country/family, bullied and raped, and locked up in a Federal prison for the next 60 years.
caused $800,000... (Score:5, Funny)
Could he come & cause $800,000 to my computer system too? I could use the upgrade...
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Only if you have evidence of UFOs
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Sure I do, I run a secret international organization that fights against aliens.
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Huh? No you don't, I have never seen you in one of the meetings.
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I'm the guy behind the screen (terrible skin condition) shouting the orders at everyone. So who are you? The scientist or the engineer?
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I'm the walrus.
Re:caused $800,000... (Score:5, Informative)
He didn't of course.
It's an outright lie by the US prosecutors, since they appear to lack any kind of moral fiber.
It's equivalent to having a burglar walking in the front door then the homeowner claiming costs for upgrading all the locks are due to the burglar.
Sure, they needed to trash and reinstall all of the machines. But they would have needed to do exactly that anyway when an internal audit showed they were insecure.
Re:caused $800,000... (Score:5, Informative)
For the record, according to one of the court rulings [bailii.org] he was accused of the following:
"Between February 2001 and March 2002 he gained unauthorised access to 97 computers belonging to and used by the US Government... From those computers, he extracted the identities of certain administrative accounts and associated passwords. Having gained access to those administrative accounts, he installed unauthorised remote access and administrative software called "remotely anywhere" that enabled him to access and alter data upon the American computers at any time and without detection by virtue of the programme masquerading as a Windows operating system.
Once "remotely anywhere" was installed, Mr McKinnon proceeded to install his "suite of hacking tools" – software that he used to facilitate further compromises to the computers which also facilitated the concealment of his activities. Using this software, he was able to scan over 73,000 US Government computers for other computers and networks susceptible to compromise in a similar fashion. He was thus able to lever himself from network to network and into a number of significant Government computers in different parts of the USA. The relevant ones were:
Once the computers were accessible by Mr McKinnon, he deleted data including:
He also copied data and files onto his own computers, including operating system files containing account names and encrypted passwords from 22 computers. These comprised:
Mr McKinnon's conduct was intentional and calculated to influence and affect the US Government by intimidation and coercion. As a result of his conduct, damage was caused to computers by impairing their integrity, availability and operation of programmes, systems, information and data on the computers, rendering them unreliable. The cost of repair totalled over $700,000."
Slightly more than a burglar walking in the front door and claiming the costs of upgrading the locks. More like breaking in (maybe through a weak door), completely trashing the place and leaving.
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Judging from all that, I guess some CISO has a lot of explaining to do. He failed on all three fronts miserably.
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Judging from all that, I guess some CISO has a lot of explaining to do. He failed on all three fronts miserably.
Awww how cute. You really thing IS in CISO stands for Information Security. I am going to enlighten you - it is just a misspelled JS as in Job Security.
CISOs main role is delegating responsibility, not securing infrastructure. Everything can be wide open and unsecure as long as you have a piece of paper stating someone else is responsible for it.
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The sad thing is that you're probably even right. Most CISOs I've met have written more papers to cover their ass than to cover their field of responsibility.
I know I'm "doing it wrong". But I tend to think that I owe my company the honesty (please refrain from reading further if you're already ROFLing, just trying to keep your sides from splitting) to actually do my WORK instead of just covering my rear end.
As a reward, we had a LOT of attacks lately, none of which were successful. And in our last external
Re:caused $800,000... (Score:4, Interesting)
Did he damage all that crap? possibly so, if it ever went to court. Did he do stupid things involving computers? possibly so, if it ever went to court. Was it " intentional and calculated to influence and affect the US Government by intimidation and coercion"?
That's beyond laughable and imaginary hypothetical rhetoric, to say the least. It actually puts the US prosecutors into question as far as sanity.
Re:caused $800,000... (Score:4, Informative)
Was it " intentional and calculated to influence and affect the US Government by intimidation and coercion"?
Well the damage was obviously intentional, and it was calculated to influence the Government (even if it didn't) as evidenced by the note he admitted to leaving behind which read:
"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 "
That sounds rather like an attempt at intimidation and coercion (however pathetic) to me...
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Common misunderstanding. Laws apply to wherever the law says it applies - that's one of the principles of individual sovereignty. If the US (or the UK) wants to pass a law making it a crime to do something in another country, they can. The only limit is their ability to enforce that.
In this case, though, it is arguable that the "act" was carried out in the US - certainly the damage was suffered there.
However, that doesn't mean there isn't a huge hole in the current multinational framework for criminal (and
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Quite possibly no, he didn't. The quote from the CPS:
"The potential difficulties in bringing a case in England and Wales now should not be underestimated, not least the passage of time, the logistics of transferring sensitive evidence prepared for a court in the US to London for trial, the participation of US government witnesses in the trial and the need fully to comply with the duties of disclosure imposed on the CPS.
The prospects of a conviction against Mr McKinnon which reflects the full extent of his a
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And yet, the UK prosecutor isn't charging him with anything. Could all that 'damage' have been made up by the US?
Re:caused $800,000... (Score:4, Insightful)
The UK prosecutor can't be bothered to charge him, because the damage wasn't done in the UK (so there isn't really any public interest in prosecuting) and the US didn't want to hand over all the (sensitive) evidence (of the details of all their military computer networks) to the UK authorities (for them to be made available in open court).
The CPS not bringing a case doesn't mean they think he's innocent, just that they don't think it's worth the trouble to try to prosecute him.
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The CPS not bringing a case doesn't mean they think he's innocent, just that they don't think it's worth the trouble to try to prosecute him.
That's pretty much the default attitude of the CPS; prosecution is really too much of a bother and expense. Police officers always say CPS stands for "Couldn’t Prosecute Satan". You need to keep that it mind when asking "why wasn't X charged?"
Re:caused $800,000... (Score:4, Interesting)
OK, my analogy was flawed, so I'll switch to a non analogy.
They connected insecure systems to the internet.
The result is that they needed to inspect and repair all of those systems regardless of whether McKinnon existed or not.
The only reasonable response to finding the computers were potentially hacked would have been to put the entire lot offline instantly, no questions. What if it had been a much more competent foreign agent?
How did they know that a Chinese government hacker hadn't subtly altered the readiness logs of the ships [*] at Weapons station Earle? How did they know other logs were not already filled with subtly but much more dangerously flawed data?
Look, I'm not claiming what McKinnon did was good or right or legal.
But claiming that he caused those costs is simply not true.
They caused the costs through the most monumental security fuckup. The fault is entirely on them. McKinnon highlighted that they needed to spend the money RIGHT NOW to fix it.
[*] for fuck's sake! They had logs about battle readiness on warships on the open internet and editable by almost anyone and they have the temerity to blame their fuckup one lone nutball? Words fail me.
Hit the nail on the head with sledge hammer.... (Score:2)
Now for the obligatory /. car analogy:
I leave my laptop on the front seat, get out of the car, lock all the doors, and walk away. Some passerby looks in and sees the 'OH, Shiny!' sitting there and then reaches in the open window and takes it.
I cry foul!
Where the major difference between the analogy and the network breaching comes into play:
Most everyone will agree the theft was wrong, they still consider me an idiot for not rolling up the windows, but the network lack of adequate security seems not to caus
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In the real, physical, tangible world there are behaviour conventions that are either ingrained or that we learn as children.
These are largely, at present, absent in cyberspace which, rightly or wrongly, is regarded as different.
Hence, the "unlocked door/open window == an unsecured server" argument is a pile of poo just like ur mom.
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It was also aledged that McKinnon wasn't the only person gaining access to these machines. McKinnon said the computers were like an open book and lots of people were in there. Sure, the damage was done, if you say so, but it may not of all been McKinnon.
Gary M. not the problem, lack of adequate security (Score:3)
More like breaking in (maybe through a weak door),...
The quote contains the root of the problem.
If these compromised networks had adequate security to start with, Gary M. wold not have gotten in.
As long as the mindset of 'convenience/budget overrules security' this stuff will keep happening frequently. /. all the time, and have for years....thousands of comments by IT folks on /. complaining that their pointy haired bos
There is a good reason banks spend the money to install those expensive, elaborate bank vaults for the money to be kept in.
We see that here on
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But that isn't how (most) crimes work. It is (in many places) a criminal offence maliciously to gain unauthorised access to computer systems, and thus those who do so should get punished. Arguments of proportionality of sentences, precise wordings of the offence and the purpose/merits of a criminal justice system aside, whether other people are also doing shouldn't really be an issue.
Whether or not other people are to blame (the operators of the system, other people breaking the law) is a separate issue, an
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Key words: accused of.
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Well yeah... when you arrest someone or try to prosecute them for a crime, it's all just accusations. In this case, it is unlikely to be proved in court due to there being no trial. The US are alleging he did this and caused this much damage, which is why they want to put him on trial...
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If someone wanted to extradite somebody from the US, they'd have to come up with a lot more than accusations. Probable cause, which is generally interpreted so strictly as to mean proof of guilt.
Turnabout's fair play, no?
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Probable cause is not the same as proof of guilt. Wikipedia quotes a definition of the former as "a reasonable amount of suspicion, supported by circumstances sufficiently strong to justify a prudent and cautious person's belief that certain facts are probably true" - which is a much lower test than proof of guilt.
And it's pretty much the same test for extradition from the UK, which requires "reasonable grounds to suspect" (or a national equivalent). Whether a US judge is more likely than a UK one to find a
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No, the prosecution want to prosecute him in proportion to the amount of embarrassment caused to a load of asshat brasshats.
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Never even read the summary? It seems he accidentally the computer.
Is he free? (Score:4, Interesting)
So if he's not getting extradited, and there are no charges in the UK, is McKinnon a free man?
Re:Is he free? (Score:4, Funny)
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So if he's not getting extradited, and there are no charges in the UK, is McKinnon a free man?
Yes, I think so. That's what not being charged generally means (if that sounds sarcastic it's not supposed to be -- simply IANAL.)
"... will not face charges in the UK, bringing to an end a 10-year legal battle."
"Janis Sharp, Mr McKinnon's mother, said the news was "amazing" and she was grateful the case was "all over now".
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Aren't there laws in the UK that allow holding 'suspected terrorists' for as long as they want? So not getting charged may not mean much.
Re:Is he free? (Score:4, Informative)
Aren't there laws in the UK that allow holding 'suspected terrorists' for as long as they want? So not getting charged may not mean much.
No. For "terrorism" it's 14 days, after a reduction from 28, and an attempt by the government to increase it to 42. See https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/human-rights/terrorism/extended-pre-charge-detention/index.php [liberty-hu...hts.org.uk]
See http://www.yourrights.org.uk/yourrights/the-rights-of-suspects/police-powers-of-arrest/police-detention.html [yourrights.org.uk] for the case for normal offences (24 hours, possibly extension to 36).
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There was also a form of house arrest in use (supposedly for people who couldn't be tried for security reasons, I think) that was used to severely restrict people's freedom. This was applied if the right people believed "We really, really think this guy is dodgy" but couldn't say why, at least not in a public forum. The house arrest approach was adopted after a ruling by the Law Lords (would now be the Supreme Court, I think) saying that indefinite detention in prison without trial was not legal. The "su
Re:Is he free? (Score:5, Informative)
So long as he stays in the UK, yes. The US still has an extradition warrant against him, so if he travels to another country he could be extradited from there (although it would depend on the judgment of those courts). Traveling to the US would obviously get him arrested.
Re:Is he free? (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe he will be abducted~
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It would be a waste of time and money. They already taught him his lesson by putting him through the process.
He will be watched for the rest of his life, however.
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Waste of time and money? You're talking about the country that has two rather pointless wars running, you think they care about a waste of time and money?
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Yes, I do think that. You seem to be of the opinion that the US government is going to extra-judicially abduct a public figure from an allied country for a minor offense. They might do that if he was some faceless terrorist in Yemen who they can't keep tabs on easily, but for a British nutcase? It's not worth the trouble. Do you know how many people they would have to abduct if they did they for every extradition charge that beat their rap?
You only need to abduct people who you can't use the system to d
Not for long (Score:2)
Only until he pops up on Seal Team 6's list.
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So if he's not getting extradited, and there are no charges in the UK, is McKinnon a free man?
From what the article said as long as he stays in the UK his a free man. If he goes to any other country that the US has an extradition treaty with he could find himself on a plane to the US. So basically his punishment here is that he can basically never leave the UK again.
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I guess the wrong thing wasn't illegal then. At least not in the place where he did it.
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He faced 10 years of extradition hearings with the threat of being extradited to a less civilized legal system hanging over his head. There were consequences and he has faced them.
Reverse the charges (Score:5, Insightful)
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You don't charge people who made mistakes in their jobs unless they did so with criminal intent, and I encourage you to attempt to prove that in a court of law. They can be fired or demoted or have nothing whatever happen to them at all. Although someone clearly failed in their job, and possibly should be fired, responsibility was probably shared in small parts by dozens of people who were lax at their jobs. Such is the problems with having a huge government bureaucracy: huge problems, and no one person
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You don't charge people who made mistakes in their jobs unless they did so with criminal intent, and I encourage you to attempt to prove that in a court of law.
Uniformed members of the Armed Forces responsible for managing the DoD assets affected by this were theoretically vulnerable to being charged with, for instance, dereliction of duty. The Uniform Code of Military Justice is funny that way. If command could argue that the systems managers had a duty to secure the systems, the failure to do so would b
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Awkward language. I meant to say he broke a US law, and there is an extradition treaty that allows people to be extradited from the UK for breaking US laws.
And sure, he was in the UK at the time. That doesn't matter except that he can't be taken immediately into custody from the UK. He still broke a US law and entered a system based in the US. It's going to be a hard thing to argue that the US has no right to go after people who break into US government systems that are hosted on US soil just because t
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Iran Called! (Score:2)
Iran called. You're guilty of unislamic behavior in the US/UK/anywhere. Please report to Teheran's Torture and Corrections department tomorrow... They too have extraterritorial laws, we should respect that, right? Hahaha.
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If we had a treaty with Iran for such things, then yes, you could be arrested for that in the US and held for an extradition hearing. Of course, the extradition treaties are usually clear about the sort of offenses allowed for extradition and what sort of punishments could be expected. In both cases, it's almost impossible that the US would sign such a treaty with Iran, even if we didn't hate their guts, because the US will not sign a treaty that does not allow it's citizens the freedom of speech and reli
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You already have a treaty. It's called interpol, and Saudi used it last year to have a cartoonist extradited.
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No they haven't. He isn't a tehrrust, and the amount of actual damages was not sufficient to make it a serious financial crime, which is why Hollywood accounting was applied.
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We are talking about a military organisation. This is their REQUIREMENT of being secure. What would you say if they had provided a google map interface to launch nukes (click where you want it to detonate!) and a little kid found this nice little game and nuked the western half of the country ? Still the kids fault ??
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Hey, all he wanted to do is play a nice game of chess.
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It depends on the severity of the negligence to say for sure whether some of the blame is to be put on the CISO. One thing is certain, he dropped the ball seriously here. If he had been working for me, he'd have been looking for a new job (or some rope) the next day.
Especially in an environment where security is one of the key assets, things like this MUST NOT happen. At the very least, they MUST NOT happen for such a long time. Getting into a lesser important security area, ok. But at the very least it has
The guilty ones (Score:3)
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My guess is that any investigation into this security SNAFU would end up uncovering a memo stating something like 'We've finished securing the network using the full $10.25 granted by congress. Please dedicate more funds next year.' After that any investigation would suddenly find itself without funds and be quickly shut down.
A reason breaking is separate from entering (Score:2)
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he guessed the passwords (Score:2)
This is Dumb (Score:2)
Hack into a foreign government's computer system and cause $800k worth of damage, violating international laws in the process? Extradition is blocked.
But if you're Richard O'Dwyer and do something completely legal in the UK and causing no direct monetary damage? Theresa May goes out of her way to bend over and let Uncle Sam do his dirty work.
The difference? One guy was looking for UFOs, the other had a website that had links to pirated content. Logic, right?
My feelings could be summed quite well by a lo
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To be fair, O'Dwyer largely only has himself to blame though. In accepting the deal with the US to pay them $20,000 and promise not to break any US laws again (which is fucking sick, since when did the US get to hold British citizens to US legal standards?) he ended the situation early, but didn't let enough pressure build on Theresa May to go the same route.
I think it's almost a certainty that O'Dwyer's extradition would also have been blocked eventually once appeals etc. were exhausted and enough politica
Re:proofread a few lines only? (Score:5, Insightful)
Damages they are claiming though come from having to fix the vulnerabilites that let him in in the first place. That and the money spent on the legal bills for embarassing them.
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Money better spent on a crazy British dude than the Chinese hackers who would have found the holes next.
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No. Its the cost of having people scour the systems for any damage he causes, compare the data against backups to chance for changes, deletion and any programs he left behind, for tracking him.
This isn't One computer, it's a lot of computers on a lot of systems, and it costs money to have people do that work.
As well as possible legal bills.
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and it costs money
It would have cost the same with or without McKinnon. Unless you think it's reasonable for them to leave unsecured computers connected to the net until such time as they happen to notice an exploit.
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McKinnon is accused of deleting a load of "critical system files" from a number of key military computers (shutting down various networks), along with over 2,000 user accounts from Army's Washington DC(?) network. They wouldn't have had to fix all of that without his interference.
As for the computers being unsecured, afaik there is no way to completely secure any network connected to the Internet, although I don't know how much work he had to do to break in.
Re:proofread a few lines only? (Score:5, Insightful)
They wouldn't have had to fix all of that without his interference.
Please NEVER EVER get a job in security.
Ever
Ever
Ever.
Once such important systems had even been found potentially compromised, they become entirely untrustworthy and cannot be used.
They noticed McKinnon by sheer blind luck.
If it had been a competent agent of Mossad or something they would never have noticed. Or by someone as competent as the guys that made Flame.
But the fact that they were wildly insecure meant that they would have had to shut down the entire system basically instantly and repair it.
They were bloody lucky it was McKinnon and not someone else.
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They would have had to shut down the computers/networks, but (and at this point I should declare that I'm not a computer security expert) presumably had they simply discovered the flaw, they could have taken them down in a controlled, scheduled way, and then combed through the stuff to check for problems at will. This way it seems the networks were crashed by McKinnon, which strikes me as being likely to cause much greater short-term problems and thus costs.
And no, I have no intention of getting a job in se
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Good thing you pointed that out.
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I heard they tried to muzzle him, but he had them over a barrel. There's obviously mortar this story [enough - Ed]
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If it had been a competent agent of Mossad or something they would never have noticed. Or by someone as competent as the guys that made Flame.
They were bloody lucky it was McKinnon and not someone else.
You assume that it WAS only McKinnon. Skilled attackers could have been waltzing in and out of that gaping security hole for years before McKinnon spoiled it for them by drawing attention to it. Who knows how many government secrets have found their way into unfriendly hands because of this?
Re:proofread a few lines only? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes they would IF they were doing their jobs. As soon as it was found that someone from the outside could (even in theory) gain access to those machines, they were untrustworthy and needed to be wiped completely and re-installed. For all we know, actual enemies had been playing in those systems for quite a while and would still be there if not for McKinnon bumbling in and making noise.
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He had to fire up Terminal Services Client (now known as Remote Desktop Client), and log on as administrator, leaving the password field blank.
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Shouldn't all that work be done anyway? If they had an insecure system, then it might have been hacked by others before and after McKinon. So why should he bare all the blame for it?
Re:proofread a few lines only? (Score:4, Insightful)
Surely if you discovered computers important to national security were unprotected, were using default passwords allowing easy access, or hadn't been appropriately patched and maintained, you would have to treat these machines as potentially compromised whether or not you know someone had accessed them.
As a result, all the costs you mention, other than the legal ones, would necessarily have to be incurred anyway.
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You say "if you discovered". That's the point. It wasn't a problem before, because they didn't know about it. And you'd be amazed how many people would say that without a hint of irony.
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Wouldn't they have to check the systems anyway after discovering they were vulnerable? A break-in points out vulnerabilities in a system, but it is not the cause of those vulnerabilities and if one person can break in, others can as well.
If someone else had found the same vulnerabilities earlier and alerted them without breaking in, would that person be charged for the costs of reviewing the systems?
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Oh man....wait....it's almost like they *FIXED* this.
but yeah yeah collateral damages, etc etc. keep up the imagination there.
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Bullshit numbers.
He may have cost them that much in man-hours to clean up the mess, but he most certainly didn't cause any physical damage.
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How do you know that? hmm?
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He may have cost them that much in man-hours to clean up the mess, but he most certainly didn't cause any physical damage.
Not entirely.
It would have cost them that much to clean up the mess when in the absence of McKinnon an internal audit had shown that all those systems were insecure and potentially hacked by neferaious foreign national spies.
The machines were insecure and needed fixing.
That is the case whether or not the flaw was highlighted by McKinnon.
I'm not claiming he's the good guy in this (though
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Internal audit? What internal audit?
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That was an awfully long way to say "yep, I agree."
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You get drunk and hit someone with your car. Are you also responsible for the careful search of all the other roads in your state, since it's possible you've also hit someone else so they might be lying in a ditch somewhere?
He's responsible for what he DID - break into a computer, not really a major crime when you think of it. He's not responsible for the costs of checking if he did anything else. Once it's been revealed that the system had crap security, that check should have been done anyway - how many o
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Actually it was 97 computers (possibly 96). From which he was* able to access a further 73,000 networked, US Government computers. He shut down "the entire US Army's Military District of Washington network of over 2000 computers for 24 hours", and rendered some 300 computers at US Naval Weapons Station Earle inoperable for a while, including one "used for monitoring the identity, location, physical condition, staffing and battle readiness of Navy ships
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I buy 3000 rolls of toilet paper drive to the middle of a busy interstate and dump them in a huge pile.
Please take photos!
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It's possible deleting a load of critical system files (shutting down various military networks) and removing over 2,000 user accounts may have caused some of the damage (both long-term costs of replacing, and call-out fees for technicians during the short-term panic of working out what was going). If you want more details of what he is accused of, read the first few paragraphs of this judgment [bailii.org].
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It can. Not directly by damaging files, but indirectly by requiring a verification on all those files because they COULD have been tampered with. Now all it takes is a LOT of data with originals stowed in some hard to reach place and you're getting there.
Re:Loony (Score:5, Funny)
No, he has Asperger's syndrome, which, from what I can gather, is way for IT guys like us to behave like absolutely fucking pricks, and we just have to hold up the card "Asperger's" and everyone is supposed to accept our miserable attitude. Apserger also apparently extends to hacking into systems we have no business being in. Apparently, providing we have this wonderful social ineptitude disease, we don't face the consequences of any of our online actions.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I think I'm going to go out at lunch and kick some little old lady in the ass. "Asperger's!"
Did you really just have an uncalled for, violent, frothing rage at people with "social ineptitude disease"? You know, it pays to look both ways before crossing Irony Street.
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No, he's laughing at the people who think assburgers is a defense for committing crimes.
It could be a defence if it is relevant to the matter of intent. Person A might buy a bomb to commit a violent crime. Person B might buy a bomb to see how they work - maintaining strict safety precautions for working with explosives at all times. Person B could well have Asperger's (there was such a case - including both Asperger's and all the safety precautions) - and the Asperger's diagnosis could be directly relevant to showing that there was no harmful intent or even negligence - just an unusual, rather
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