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back to article Sweden to prosecute alleged Cisco, NASA hacker

The prosecution of a Swedish man charged with breaching the computer networks of NASA and Cisco Systems and making off with sensitive source code will be transferred to Swedish authorities, US federal prosecutors said Monday. Philip Gabriel Pettersson, aka "Stakkato," was indicted last May and accused of hacking into Cisco and …

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  1. John Hawkins

    Give the lad a wash, clean clothes and a job

    Call it corrective detention if you like, but someone like that just needs a good project manager to keep an eye on him and something useful to do. Would be a shame to let him go to waste.

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  2. Frozen Ghost
    Alien

    cough * Gary McKinnon * cough

    So why on earth have the US tried to deport Gary McKinnon for so long when they are happy to send someone with a similar offence back to a European country?

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  3. Martin Usher
    Black Helicopters

    Typical hype

    If I was given the "source code" for Cisco's IOS I wouldn't be able to do anything with it even though I know exactly what it is, how it works and what its used for. Prosecutors live in a SciFi world, a world where individual secrets, documents, pieces of code and what-have-you provide the missing piece to the puzzle that brings the tale to a successful conclusion within the time allotted for the programme. Real life is very different; if you don't believe me take the (freely available) Linux source tree and (widely available) documentation and build something else using its "secrets". "You will be some time."

    I don't want to encourage people to go grovelling around in other peoples' systems -- and filching source code brings the serious possibility of leakage of IP to open source work -- but this kind of overacting needs calling out like the ham it is. (IOS could probably do with a makeover, anyway -- its getting more than a little long in the tooth.)

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  4. Andus McCoatover

    Could be the Nordic system(s)..

    In perspective:

    Here, in Finland a "mate" of mine was banged up for severely beating up his missus, including anally raping her in front of their young kids. Bastard, I was great friends with both 5 years back.

    Reason? She stayed with girlfriends overnight, whilst wasted.

    Understandably my "mate" got time. Also, obviously lost a damn good job as a sales manager in a hi-tech telecomms company, despite knowing little Finnish, and his last real job was as a waiter at a UK hotel.

    3 years (First-time offenders get an automatic reduction of 50%, so he'll serve 1½ years). She got €20,000 from the Gummint, which my "mate" has to repay*.

    At the end of which, they're gonna deport him. To a country of his choice - either UK or Italy.

    I guess either the US/Swedish authorities thought it'd be cheaper for him (alleged Cisco hacker) to serve - what - 1 year suspended sentence, rather than US system upto 50 years. THEN deportation.

    Or, are the US trying to show the 'reciprocal agreement' works?

    *Point is, if this muppet in the article can get 50 years (5*10) plus a quarter of a million quid fine for tapping a keyboard, how does my "mate" get off with 18 months, no fine (once he scurries into Italy, he's basically untouchable), for almost killing his wife? Where the fuc*k's the justice???

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    1. Wommit
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      Silly boy...

      Don't you realise that the American government has these draconian laws to protect __**IMPORTANT**__ things. Things like _____*****PROFITS*****_____. While your lady friend doesn't have millions of <insert currency here> to give as "donations" so of course none of the politicians are going to try and look after her.

      Please remember that the governments priorities are not real peoples priorities.

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      1. Andus McCoatover
        Reply Icon

        Yep, I'm a silly boy indeed.

        Totally agree.

        OK, I'm gonna sit on a wooden bridge with my Prince Charles' ears and play a banjo from now on ;-)

        I'll change my 'nick' to "wingnut" if it'll help. Nah.

        (I actually got paid to STOP singing karaoke. Seriously! Made enough for a couple of beers in 30 seconds...Nice earnings! Almost beat Mr. Jobs' earning rate. Mercifully, I didn't choose "My Way", else I'd have been shot: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/feb/09/sinatra-my-way-killings-philippines).

        Why I write this shite, just so Sarah can have the pleasure of hitting the 'reject' button, beats the living daylights out of me. G/F has pig-flu, and I'm cooking an elk at the moment. (Yep. Bastard getting it to walk into the oven..) Anything else irrelevant anyone wants to know? 'Cos that reply to my previous diatribe was, er, well, pointless.

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