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World's biggest hacker held
By Rob Singh, Evening Standard Last updated at 00:00am on 08.06.05
Gary McKinnon.
A London man described as the "world's biggest computer hacker" has been arrested.
Gary McKinnon, 39, was seized by the Met's extradition unit at his Wood Green home.
The 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 to face eight counts of computer crime in 14 states and could be jailed for 70 years.
The former Highgate Wood comprehensive-pupil was granted bail today at Bow Street Magistrates' Court.
Most of the alleged hacking took place in 2001 and 2002. At one stage the US thought it was the work of the al Qaeda terror network.
Friends said that he broke into the networks from his home computer to try to prove his theory that the US was covering up the existence of UFOs.
He is accused of a series of hacking offences including deleting "critical" files from military computers. The US authorities said the cost of tracking him down and correcting the alleged problems was more than £570,000. The offences could also see him fined up to £950,000 if found guilty on all charges.
He was arrested yesterday evening but the US first issued an indictment against him in November 2002.
Prosecutor Paul McNulty alleged that McKinnon, known online as "Solo," had perpetrated "the biggest hack of military computers ever". He was named as the chief suspect after a series of electronic break-ins occurred over 12 months at 92 separate US military and Nasa networks.
McKinnon was also accused of hacking into the networks of six private companies and organisations.
It is alleged that he used software available on the internet to scan tens of thousands of computers on US military networks from his home PC, looking for machines that might be exposed due to flaws in the Windows operating system.
Many of the computers he broke into were protected by easy-to-guess passwords, investigators said. In some cases, McKinnon allegedly shut down the computer systems he invaded.
The charge sheet alleges that he hacked into an army computer at Fort Myer, Virginia, where he obtained codes, information and commands before deleting about 1,300 user accounts.
Other systems he hacked into included the Pentagon's network and US army, navy and air force computers.
Reports when he was first indicted said that McKinnon found his career as a computer engineer tedious.
One message updating old schoolfriends on a website read simply: "Computers (Yawn)".
Friends said he was desperate to prove that the Americans had mounted a huge cover-up to deny his belief that aliens had visited earth.
Andrew Edwards, who has known McKinnon since their days together at Highgate Wood comprehensive, said in 2002: "Gary told me all he was doing was looking for proof of a cover-up over UFOs.
"He's been interested in UFOs for some time and believes the Americans are holding back information - although he didn't find any proof."
Outside court, his solicitor Karen Todner said he was disappointed it had taken the authorities this long to bring him to court.
She said: "This decision for extradition is driven by the American government. Mr McKinnon intends to contest this case most vigorously.
"Of particular concern to him is the treatment of other British nationals under the American judicial system which inspires little confidence.
"We believe that as a British national, he should be tried here in our courts by a British jury and not in the US."
Reader views (30)
I think while he was hacking the military network, he did not understand the severity of what he was doing and the subsequent consequences of his actions.
Nobody in their right mind would do this if they knew what would happen if they got caught.
For those of you who say he should be employed by the U.S government and he is obviously very talented, but how could the U.S Government trust him to work with them?
70 years is a long time and I think one of the reasons for the length of the sentence is to keep him away from a computer for the best part of his productive life.
- Danny, Sydney, Australia
Well if he could hack into all those locations, then the government should have applied secuirty against the loopholes... he just outlined the stupidity of the governments computer engineers... low class losers..
- Alex, Australia
Hacking not a crime? who's to say by this man hacking military computers he did not leave a bigger loophole open for a larger hacker and/or terrorist to do something to destroy a entire country?..Or ona smaller level to wipe out your entire personal bank account? I dont think you would be calling this man a genius then when you left penniless.
- Jennifer, New York
He is a smart Man. A smart man who was just looking for truth.You cant trust anyone anymore these days so he used his skills and tried to uncover the truth. Yes he committed many computer crimes here in the U.S but i think we all should be great full that all he was doing was just looking for "UFO files". He had the governments computers at his disposal and all he did was look for UFO info.. he could have done much worse if he really wanted to. I think the government should just look at this as a learning experience. They should hire him to strengthen our governments computer networks.
- Nicholas, chardon united states
OMG this dude is awesome!!!!! Don't jail him hail him!!!
- Harry Green, Ipswich
The FBI use 18 firewalls last time I checked. He shouldn't have been locked up, and every security network has a backup feature anyway. Who really cares if he deleted files about UFOs. If the FBI had nothing to hide, why would he have to go into topsecret? If they had something to hide, surely he would have been shot. Its happened before. I'll say that they're not sure if there is or isn't aliens. When they are sure, they'll do what they want with the rest of the hackers that do that and manage to get traced.
Btw, China will invade America. I'm not telling you my sources.
- Richard Burdock, Manchester, England
He has mind blowing talent so th govermant should forgive him for his crime and make him employ of its bigger company becouse he his so use full for that
- Sonu, India
The guy knew what he was doing, he himself must be living on Mars if he believes the Americans will let him get away with it. If he was that brilliant, he should have written his own source code, and passed it on to those people he attacked. If the man had talent, then they would have had a look at him. It is a very serious crime, and a lot of the comments on here are taking it for a joke. I wonder how he's feeling this, he must be filled with joy at the prospect of being in one of America's jails. But hey, if you commit the crime.....
- Britannic, Birmingham UK
I think the government should hire him... He's intelligent & they can use his knowledge to protect the country, if i was the governement?? I would hire in immediate effect.
- Tp, South Africa
usa is claiming to be most powerful country on earth and Barak Obama the leader of that state. a young man has brought that great country to its knees by the knowledge he might have gained from his own home in wood green while drinking a cup of tea. 70 years imprisonment for gaining that knowledge is a bit little.
khaled : kurdistan
- Khaled, london
I don't think he deserves jail time,with a brain like his,the U.S goverment should consider taking him on their side...
- Margaret Rollo, Loutraki,Greece
it might not be 70. i think the goverment is gonna hire him.
- Wow, Ont, Canada
i didnt know Canadians dislike the US...
hmm... well, he's indeed talented... sigh.... bt still, hacking into other ppl's networks isnt right... bt then 70 years is too much (dun think a brainy like him could live that long) n the gift he possess will clearly b a waste....
UFOs... it's a pity he didnt get an answer for that.. i'd like to know if they did visit earth...
- Hmm, msia
70 years? not enough, he should be locked away for life, maximum security prison , where he can be somebodys lady friend , people like him should be wiped out from the face of this earth and never be heard from again
- Kolin Brown, ILLINOIS USA
Angela, I can tell by your comments that you are like 95% of the American public: dumb, deaf and blind to the fact that there is a whole world beyond your tiny spec of a soon to be irrelevant country. Your health care sucks, your citizens are kept illiterate and uneducated by your government so you never question why they do what they do. Ever wonder why the majority of the world hates you and doesn't really care what you think? I say thank God "good ole America" has finally been bankrupted and brought to the ground so that no more innocent human beings will have to suffer the arrogance of people like "Gorgey the monkey W" and you thinkng you eserve respect while the rest of the world deserves nothing!!!
- Al, Canada
what a greatful he is a wonderful man they must honour him
- Mahmoud Lotfy, cairo egypt
Can you people not read?? There was harm done by this man hacking into our nations computers. Though he might have said "all he was doing was looking for UFO evidence", he also went on to delete critical files that were very important to our government. Hello, at one time they thought he was al Qaeda terror network and you call it harmless? The comment about using a firewall or other security feature, this is why people call him brillant no firewall is going to keep him out, and the government uses very high tech filters. Hell I could break through a simple firewall! This man deleted personal accounts, loads of information and cost my country alot of money!!!!! I hope he rots in jail!!!While he may be "brillant" he chose to use it in an illegal way, and deserves severe punishment..Thank god for our good ole American laws, he will remeber what he has done to our country the rest of his life..and I doubt he will have much access to what he loves..computers!!!!!
- Angela, U.S.A. and proud of it!!!!!!!!!!
By reading all this, The guy Who IS arrested ix soo mush talented that he can use NASA's Pc By sitting at his own home . . !
if his intelligance is brought in right i guess NoNe OF the guy can Compete him
- Arvind, Amritsar,india
Yes, he is very talented. We shouldn't put him in jail.
- Nt, Nt
I think he is just talented but not honest. He was caught by very talented.
- Jacki, London
I believe he is very much talented, we should not waste his talent by sending him to jail, instead we should use his talent and ask him to work in nasa and protect the country from other such hacks.
- Anshuman, pune,india
What are we doing, we need to have this guy on our side!
- Jack, wa
I think he is very talented person than pentagon and other states computer network engineers. That's why he could able to broke into those networks. So what US government have to do is, take him into service and use his talented knowledge to develop and maintain high security to against computer hackers. I am personally appreciated his talents in the view of computer networking.
- Sampath, Colombo, Sri Lanka
I think that's what he deserves destroying a nations military computers is a severe crime. If it were me he'd be sentenced to life.
- Nikerulez222, U.S.A
The fault was belong to US.
Why The Pentagon and other didn't use "Fire-Wall" or something like security options in their computers. By the way, the punishment is big.
- S. Rai, Nepal
l337
- L33t, tooting london
He is not innocent but this type of punishment is too big for him and also wasting his brain in jail. He should get only a small punishment because he was only searching for the proof of UFOs.
- Javed, Uran, India
Harmless. He was just trying to find answers that we so desperately would love to know and we feel we are being lied to by so-called people in power.
If he isn't hurting any body, stealing money or damaging people's lives, why should he be sentenced to a jail term? Surely outfits like the FBI could use him for his help. If he is the only one to crack the codes, he is obviously very gifted and would be a waste to hinder his talent in a jail cell.
- F.Elcher, London, UK
Well. . . did he find the X-Files?
- Franz, London
Hacking is not a crime as others think. Some of the empire countries think it as a crime. But it is part of the software world.
- Saman, Colombo, Sri Lanka
