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British Hacker Gary McKinnon Fears Guantanamo

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I don’t know what he was thinking really, tampering with US military or governmental systems without some SERIOUS protection.

A British man accused of being behind the largest ever hack of US government computer networks could end up at Guantanamo Bay, his lawyer has claimed.

Gary McKinnon, from London, denies causing $700,000 (£400,000) damage to military and Nasa systems in 2001-2.

Bow Street Magistrates’ Court was told the 40-year-old feared a prosecution might take place under US anti-terror laws if it agreed to his extradition.

Jailed under the anti-terror laws, a little extreme for hacking no?

It’s not like he’s the member of an opposing countries cyber attack squad.

What’s worse is if he’s subjected to Military Order Number One – a legal procedure which enables the president to specify that suspects can be detained indefinitely..

If he gets that, well he’s basically screwed.

Mr McKinnon is accused of hacking into computers in 14 states, including at the Pentagon and naval weapon station Earle.

At an earlier hearing his lawyers suggested his actions were not malicious – he had been trying to expose lax computer security and access what he believed was withheld information about UFOs.

It seems to be pretty sensationalist though, from what I know he used some pretty standard out of the box tools to hack into some poorly secured peripheral systems. He was trying to expose the flaws rather than use them for some malicious purpose.

But well, the lesson is there, don’t mess with things you shouldn’t..and if you HAVE to, cover your tracks ;)

Source: BBC UK and more at Yahoo!

I also found a VERY interesting interview with McKinnon over here.

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Comments

  1. Yeh well it was to be expected that Guantanamo Bay will serves as some trash-bin to send all repressive elements to. Regardless of what they exactly did, people can always get sent over there because they were a threat to national security, or some other B.S. concept.

    Today you’ll end up there if you crack into not-properly protected networks — tomorrow if you signed that on-line “Stop The War and Impeach Bush” petition.

  2. Or if you do something really subversive like breaking a DMCA scheme…

    It does sometimes scare me the amount of power the US have and it’s all self regulated, self approved power..

    Just found a really interesting interview with McKinnon, will add it in the article.

  3. We have all the reasons to fear them, Darknet. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely. ;)

    If you say or do something that doesn’t fit into their plan of action you could end-up being kidnapped and shipped to another country for torture interrogation.