And I never understood

how it came to be used as a positive in *any* sense.

Heck, given the quite justified explosion of damnation of people saying women who dress provocatively are "asking for it" when they are raped, I always found it decidedly odd that it was OK if a bloke was on the receiving end.

And as pertains to it happening in prison, this should have been used as an example of how badly run prisons are and how they are used for retribution not for justice in far too many cases (one would be too many, but zero would likely have to remain a goal to attempt forever, rather than an expectation).

It's repulsive that it isn't though.

hmmm, ok Sarah....

How about pointing out that it wont have been a mystery to him or to other members of the "hacking" community what happens to those that embarass US government agencies ? Or that he decided initially to decline the kind offer of plod to keep him out of the US system, electing to hang tough (maybe in the hope of the US giving up on extraditing him - not going to happen) and apparently conduct much of the case by megaphone, heavily publicising every move, playing the system like a violin at every turn ?

It's hard not to characterise him as someone desperate for publicity and a certain celebrity, who honestly believes that laws apply to others, not him personally. After all the misuse of computers act has applied here for some time, and as a sysadmin he will have had a full appreciation of this,

Of course, now the position is looking decidedly uncomfortable, so he's interested in the offer left with him from 6 bleedin' years ago. This rather makes the assumption that the boys in blue/CPS are still interested and consider the deal still open, and that Wackie Jackie et al don't decide to intervene. The attraction of extradition for some political and policing types is simple, it exports him and the cost of a fair trial, his fair defense counsel (let's face it he was a sysadmin, he was never going to afford OJ's defense team) then fairly locking him up.

He has after all 'fessed up, so outside of the mind of one G. McKinnon some kind of detention was always on the cards. It's just a question of where, how much and how nasty a state sponsored holiday resort was going to be involved.

If the decision is taken to prosecute him here, perhaps he'll actually shut up in the interests of not enraging the beak/cops/ home sec further, then again.......

no title

at the US peeps who claim we do no prosecute white collar crims....

At least we do not make them president :) cough BUSH cough

Gary is obviously a bit of a numpty but does not deserve what teh US will do to him.

@M

"Please note I don't know what a 'grit' is."

Think of a cross between porage oats and semolina - and it tastes as good as it sounds; Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmmmmmmm.

@ Sarah Bee

I'm a bit surprised at the comments as well - is the US legal system now so all pervasive that no-one else's legal system has any value? This is a bad precedent boys and girls.

Grits...

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grits so maybe copyrighted, or something..

'Grits is a Native American corn-based food common in the Southern United States, consisting of coarsely ground corn*. It was traditionally served during war.'

*I have put this asterix in so the text is not a direct copy, but a modified one, or some such legal scheme to avoid me being strung up.

Anyway, that's what grits is/are.

ttfn

what no grits icon??

@bubba free!

>he committed a real crime and as such can be thrown to the dogs.

If you say so, I personally think this case is just the US employing bullying tactics and using propaganda to stop people even thinking of connecting to their firewall-less unsecured servers.

where did he commit the crime

i would like to point out that he did not commit his crimes in the USA he was in Britain when he gained unauthorized access to US military and NASA computers which means he committed a crime in Britain against a USA organization. he didn't commit a crime in the USA as he was never there to commit one.

> how personally people are taking this

I guess its because for a lot of us computer criminals are lowlives who make our jobs less fun and our lives more difficult. If there were no computer criminals we'd all be able to spend a lot more time making computer systems usable and helpful for the right people. instead we have to spend an unreal percentage of our effort making them unusable and unhelpful for the wrong people and I for one resent it. Its not fun and its not what I want to spend my time doing.

@AC

The same $MuslimNation(s) that the US sends people to when they haven't got the answer they want using methods they are allowed to within US custody. Yes, I'm sure he should feel blessed that it is the rootin' tootin' US that wants his blood.

The McKinnon case is another example of bad laws being used on bad people. He did do something extremely stupid, and illegal and he has no decent excuse for it. However the extradition treaty we have with America is the issue:

1/ If McKinnon had been an American and hacked into the UK MoDs sentence he could not be extradited.

2/ If McKinnon is extradited there is very little control over what America can do with him (they have to give assurance he will not be executed).

3/ As has been shown with issues such as Guantanamo and wiretapping what the US goverment is legally allowed to do means very little in stopping them doing the illegal.

4/ Sufficient evidence exists of mistreatment of prisoners and 'detainees' within US custody that we cannot be sure he will be treated humanely.

5/ The crime he has commited, although serious, does not appear to be anywhere near as big as the US goverment has made out. It is highly likely they intend to use him as a scapegoat for poor security and as an example, something they can get away with without much political backlash as he is not a US citizen.

Sending ANYONE to the US without checking evidence, having more information on what they will do with him and frankly without massive improvements in Americas behaviour regarding prisoner and detainee treatment is something we should not do.

@ Title

Sort of porridge made from coarsely ground corn.

@ Re: Second attempt minus censored comments..

He's probably on legal aid.. We begrudge our taxes being spent on him.

BTW, is "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime" still off limits?

Odd

McKinnon should get done in the UK- he was in the UK, his computer was in the UK and technically the hacking signals that went to the computers came from some local router- he just instructed them to send it via a string of other routers- not a single electron from his PC- potentially not a single electron from the UK- would have reached those computers that he hacked.

It was a simple hack- looking for blank passwords on administrator accounts- that any half decent sysadmin should have secured. The "damage" caused was re-securing the network and saving face. Re-securing the network against his attack would have taken all of 10 minutes (disallowing blank passwords on any account) and malware-checking wouldn't have been that hard either- just take a closer look at the logs from the firewall (assuming they have one) and see if there's anything "odd". Pretty much anything further was unnecessary for securing against McKinnon.

I'm not saying let him off- he committed a crime. But he committed it over here and should be tried and jailed over here as well. Not for too long- he's not a threat to society. His punishment should be on-going (no use of computers, docked salary until the proveable/useful damages are paid off, lots of work in-the-community, etc etc.) for a good long time too. That way he helps society rather than just being locked up.

The military are just embarrassed....

... by their utter incompetence. Quite surprised at NASA though, although they are obviousy too busy with scientific boffenry to bother securing their own network with crazy stuff like passwords for admin users etc.

There is no way he caused all that damage though, any idiot can tell that. It's just to cover up their own incompentence and a way of deterring others.

He did find alien pics and stuff though didn't he, job done.

Proportionality is missing

That's the first issue. If was going to get deported to the US and get a sentence of a couple of years, no-one would give a damn.

But he's going to be tried under terrorism laws by the most paranoid US administration(*) since MacCarthur's time. If he gets less than 20 years I'll eat my hat. What he did was wrong, but not 20 years wrong.

Second, had this happened the other way round the US wouldn't extradite to the UK, period. The treaty is lop-sided(**), and if that doesn't piss you off it should - today it's Mckinnon, tomorrow it's someone who sells gambling services to US citizens, thursday it's some poor sod with "Bush is a Cock" on a banner.

(*) Technically true for the next week

(**) Fuck you very much David Blunkett, you should have felt the small print.

Let's be honest

He broke into another countries military computer system. It's a crime. Now the fact that he is an absolute idiot (apparently he really didn't even "hack" per say) has nothing to do with it. The US military computer system may be a leaky ship, and I doubt he caused as much damage as they claim, but he did break the law.

Send him over, trial happens in US, and due to the treaty the UK has he can serve it in the UK.

I don't get what the big deal over all of it is really.

The Ernest Saunders defence strategy

"The Scot, who was *recently* diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome"

From Wikipedia

"Saunders claimed he was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease, a common form of dementia; if so, he made a recovery unique in medical history. Alzheimer's, like all dementias, is usually incurable being a progressive degenerative disease of the brain. Saunders has since maintained he must have been depressed."

Stand by for a miraculous recovery from Asperger's post-trial.

I need some clarification

After hacking into Army, Navy, NASA and Pentagon computers, Israeli Ehud Tenenbaum was allowed to be tried in Israel instead of the U.S. (... where he received a hand slap, and is now in Canadian prison for stealing $2 million).

Therefore, I need some help figuring out which one of these is true: Israel == U.S., Israel is a state of the U.S., or the U.S. is a colony of Israel.

re: Try him in the USA

How? The crime he is being extradited for was no crime at the time in the US. He breeched UK law but the CPS didn't think it worth the expense for the "damage" done.

Also, do you think that the UK residents who are wanted for crimes against Islam will be extradited to Iran? Why not? Maybe because they wouldn't get a fair trial in Iran.

Same here.

so the problem with "try him in the US" is that it wasn't a crime in the US at the time, he isn't a US citizen, he never went on US soil and the crimes he DID commit are not worthy of extradition.

The US didn't send their soldiers to the UK courts to give testimony.

The US removed US soldiers from Iraq when they committed a crime in Iraq and refuse to accede to the UN and international war crimes tribunal.

So why try McKinnon in the US?

Willy-waving.

oh geez, now I'm confused

The suggestion that if he was looking for ET evidence, it means that he may not be "all there" - from our resident ET!?? Actually, that may be sort of apropos ;p

Of course there is a doubt - even if the judge agrees with that defense at his trial and declares he's nutters, there will still be doubt. Without doubt, where would all the lovely conspiracy theorists be?? On that note, these comments have rehashed everything that has already been said a million times over *except* that it's some sort of US government conspiracy. I must say, I'm disappointed.

Just send him over there already

OK the US military were at fault for not securing their systems properly, but if you accidentally leave your front door unlocked and I wander in and go through all your stuff and potentially help myself to anything I like the look of you wouldn't just say "Oh sorry, my mistake. Off you go then". You'd expect me to be prosecuted for entering your premises illegally.

Forget what he claims he was doing, he broke the law. The moment he made the decision to access someone else's' systems, for whatever reason, he was choosing to break the law and deserves to be punished. Why are we wasting so much time trying to stop him being sent over there to face up to his crime?

The problem is

The problem is that the US never ratified the treaty they are trying to use to extradite the chap. Whilst the UK did sign it and bend over for the US every time they say "yeah, send us some prisoner cause our human rights with Guantanamo are like, irrelivant" the US refuse to do the same.

Anyone remember how they refused to send over the video from the bomber that blew up the British tank? Or refused to send over the pilots to face trial? That was someong *killing* people and they said no, yet kick up a stink over something as trivial as an idiot with too much time on his hands.

Yes the guy should be punished, he should be sent to prison, but in the UK because until the US sign the treaty, the treaty should not be in effect, and for no other reason.