Hacker Trashes U.S. Army PCs; Faces 70 Years

[bounty]

http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Mckinnon

"I am SOLO. I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels"

He also claims that he found evidence that the US reverse engineered UFO's. I'm gonna go ahead and call bull$#!+ If we had UFO tech why would we still use regular planes? Free energy... OMG! His defense is a con. Followed by the assburgers con. He's a cracker, a wanna be Mitnick, he should get 5 years in prison for his trouble.

I'll bet some admin knew those systems were insecure, but probably didn't have the political backing to make changes. I think most admins are not morons, they're held back by budgets and stubborn bosses.

 

[2GooDrumr]

Just because you can locate and possibly abuse security flaws doesn't mean that you can effectively fix them as well. He's just a petty criminal really. If he'd brought my company's network down for 24 hours I doubt he'd even get jail time, but then again we're not as dependant on computers as any nations standing army.

I agree that he must be punished. Lately hackers have been having a grand time with the media industry's systems and I find it amusing frankly. However, to attack a government system is over the line. The information warfare Russia used on Georgia was somewhat unnerving. I'd really like to see the U.S. government make changes following these kinds of events and possibly ease the accused's sentence for helping to at least point out flaws if not fix them, but that will never happen :-/.

 

[grieve]

I wonder what he found out about UFO's?

I have a VERY hard time believing any life-force with the technology to travel to earth would crash… That’s just my opinion.

I believe there are other life forms... I don’t believe they would crash into Earth, oh yah and not just earth….just so happens it is the USA because they cover %6.5 of the earth’s land area.

 

[doomsdaydave11]

[citation][nom]fudgeboy[/nom]HAHA! if the US army had half a brain they would lock him in a laboratory and get him to help develop their security!not saying that what he did was right, they COULD treat it like jail and not pay him or anything. but they should defiantly try to learn from the kid[/citation]

Yea because convicted criminals always help out when they can, just like in the movies.

And yes, regardless of how other criminals are treated... threatening the infrastructure of the USA should not be something to be treated lightly.

 

[jeroman]

The UFOs seen over the southern US in the Cold War were probably the Stealth Bomber prototypes. They go to the most superstitious place they have, gut some cows and do test flights at night. No-one would guess these were aircraft without knowing what the government's agenda was. Add that to the hype, disinformation, etc... I'd say the US govt. would be the best place to look up info on "UFO"s.

As for 70 years or death... That is bullshit. Honestly, if he didn't do anything malicious there will be evidence to show it and any money spent on investigation is money they spend on investigating anyway.

Do they force criminals to pay for their own investigation!? Not even for murderers. They should check and see how many files destroyed, servers shut down, computers fried. They'll get very little. But then of course, they need to make an example. Terror tactics and hypocrisy are regularly used by governments the world over.

 

[giovanni86]

This guy did something that i wish i could do, i just wouldn't get away with it nor would i even have that type of ability to be patient to actually hack a network like that. But give or take i say this guy did whatever he thought was alright in nature. He did it, who cares, seriously i hope he doesn't serve any time. How many ppl were killed when he did this. None? Great! Did he really do any damage? NO! Give me a break guys, this is the real world give the guy a fucking break. 70 years just because of that mother of fcken god. In all regards our country is fcken gay, stupid, our government is corrupt. I say we all go insane and over-throw our government and just create chaos. 70 years!!! fck man i swear. I say give him like 4 years/2 years most i mean he did not kill anyone. Life is the most important thing, breathing, knowing your alive each day. He didn't kill anyone for fck sake get some senses. Who gives a fck about what he hacked wtf do we have that everyone else doesn't already have. Our nation is pathetic. My 2 cents

 

[doomsdaydave11]

[citation][nom]giovanni86[/nom]This guy did something that i wish i could do, i just wouldn't get away with it nor would i even have that type of ability to be patient to actually hack a network like that. But give or take i say this guy did whatever he thought was alright in nature. He did it, who cares, seriously i hope he doesn't serve any time. How many ppl were killed when he did this. None? Great! Did he really do any damage? NO! Give me a break guys, this is the real world give the guy a fucking break. 70 years just because of that mother of fcken god. In all regards our country is fcken gay, stupid, our government is corrupt. I say we all go insane and over-throw our government and just create chaos. 70 years!!! fck man i swear. I say give him like 4 years/2 years most i mean he did not kill anyone. Life is the most important thing, breathing, knowing your alive each day. He didn't kill anyone for fck sake get some senses. Who gives a fck about what he hacked wtf do we have that everyone else doesn't already have. Our nation is pathetic. My 2 cents[/citation]

The US is the most powerful and influential nation in the world. Go back to Cuba comrade.

 

[stickler]

It's common practice to employ honeypots in many sensitive networks. This keeps the hacker busy doing his thing, prevents sensitive data from being obtained, and leaves a snapshot of his deeds.
From what I've read about this episode, this guy effectively shut down 2000 government computers for 24 hrs.
I've been responsible many times in the past to clean up after idiots just like this one.
Just for a small business network the IT costs can run around $150k to stop and isolate the attacker. Then craploads of time cleaning up all the workstations, not to mention increased monitoring of the security for months afterward to ensure no hidden backdoors have been missed.
Most people don't realize that hacking is considered high treason during wartime.
Dumbass!
So all the posts from people that have no clue, technically speaking, what they're talking about and attempt to defend a hacker's actions and state the penalty is extreme... why bother posting your sentiments if you haven't a clue of what you're defending?

 

[idisarmu]

I bet it's not just UFO information he was after... no one is THAT geeky... right?

Off topic: I'm finding it increasingly difficult to resist the urge to become a grammar nazi and scream and yell at people who say: "you should of done this" instead of "you should HAVE done this"

idiots... learn some proper english! It seems that people who only speak English are less intelligent and less able to communicate effectively with their own language than people who have a firm grasp on English and 1 or 2 other languages. (English/dutch/french for me personally)

"He didn't thrash anything he just hacked into them to see if the government was covering up UFO's...if he wanted to damage them he COULD OF did some serious damage." Nice fail, fonzy.

 

[Guest]

He didnt hack anything. He only logged into computers that were not password protected....hundreds of government computers with no passwords set. No they shouldnt hire him for security, there was NO security on these systems to break.

He then installed remote access software so he could dig through the systems. The only 'damages' he did was installing the remote access software. So maybe a couple thousand worth of damages to check the systems he accessed and remove the remote access software.

The 700,000 damages figure is completely made up. You need to cause 5,000 in damage to a system for it to be a certain crime. When they first caught him the number was MUCH lower. But funny it raised to an exact dollar figure of 5,000 per system later.


Dont get me wrong it was a crime to truspass on the computers. But his actions certainly do NOT justify a 70 year prison term, let alone death.

The real issue here is embarrassment. Hundreds, or thousands of government computes with no passwords set....come on, this is completely unacceptable.

 

[giovanni86]

[citation][nom]doomsdaydave11[/nom]The US is the most powerful and influential nation in the world. Go back to Cuba comrade.[/citation]
You mean we used to be, back in the day. Not anymore, we are ranked like number 3 now or was 4. Cuba, haha i didn't even come from there. All natural born American, mexican, italian. =D. Are country is pathetic, that just proves it right there hahaha.

 

[alphagenesis]

He found an unlocked door and chose to snoop around. His actions give no indication he intended to stop.

Maybe he was just looking for info on the aliens. The key point is that he was aware of a security hole in the network of a friendly government. Instead of reporting it he engaged in actions that increased the vulnerability.

Had he reported the problem immediately a job offer might have been an option. To suggest such a thing now is ridiculous.

He missed his opportunity to act with integrity and honor. Some jail time is probably appropriate. The best punishment would be an order preventing him from owning or accessing a networked computing device for the rest of his life - unless he did so under the supervision of law enforcement of a government employee. Prevent him from consulting on the topic with others as well.

Note the hint about what's coming in our legal system. Why pay to incarcerate a person when removing their access to something is just as severe.

 

[fwupow]

The Government wants to make an example of him in order to SCARE future hackers out of trying to break in.

They need to use the SCARE approach because they can't make their systems secure.

 

[giovanni86]

I could not agree more. last two comments, agreed!.

 

[wavebossa]

Anyone who thinks this should not be a punishable crime is fairly ignorant.

At the base of this story, it doesn't matter (principally at least), what he was or wasn't looking for. The fact is that this information is classified and it is a federal offense.

After that part is established, then you look at what he was doing and see how that compromises (or doesn't) security. While I do agree that he the US Army should not be this easy to hack, that does not excuse his action in any way shape or form.

Think of it this way, reading someone else's mail is a federal offense. Now if someone was continually going through your mail, it wouldn't matter what they were looking for, you would still feel violated because so much COULD have been found (identity theft is a real bitch in case you didn't know)

 

[wavebossa]

Saying this guy should be "given a job" It's such a stupid notion that I can't shaking my head reading some of your post. So... i'll only say this once.

The government knows about most security holes that their system has but they have to balance inter-connectivity and security in order to have maximum efficiency.

Would you give a robber a security job after breaking into your store?

 

[darkguset]

Ok, to all these people that said i have no idea how "military" works and how much damage it was done to them i have one thing to say. If you REALLY feel like you need to hide something of such importance, then you DO NOT PUT YOUR FREAKING IMPORTANT FILES ON THE INTERNET! That is why SERIOUS PEOPLE HAVE INTERNAL NETWORKS! So shut up with pretending you know all, and we are the stupid people. When you know that your servers are accesible from ANYONE on the Internet, of course you might get hacked no matter what security measures. So go get a life and learn a thing or two regarding how computers and the Internet works. Serious government agencies have important data on non-public accesible computers, either inside or outside. So spare me your "knowledge" on everything.
Also to the people who say he caused damage because of this and that... now if a man with a dial-up modem can do all that from the other side of the world, even with pre-built tools (which means they are already on the market and hence the military "should" be ready for them, then those people are all useless and again, they should be the ones who get the jail time, because they knew all about those tools and they did NOTHING about it!
Also, no UFO's and crap in my oppinion, this was just his defense line to cut him some slack, old and tried but i don't think will help him much, lol.
Also regarding the agents and spies that MIGHT have been revealed and may be killed if found out. How many are there? 1000? 5000?
There are 50,000 people killed each month all over the world! So who gives a s*** about your 5,000 spies that MIGHT get killed. Those 50,000 people ACTUALLY DIE. Not to mention that if people's lives were on the line, and it was so easy for this guy to hack the systems, then that means, the admins of those systems did not care about your 5,000 agent's lives that much to protect them. It is all common sense, so spare this guy's actions and focus on what really matters. Your "military" system sucks big time! This guy was not the admin, someone else was! Find HIM and punish him.

 

[darkguset]

[citation][nom]wavebossa[/nom]Anyone who thinks this should not be a punishable crime is fairly ignorant.At the base of this story, it doesn't matter (principally at least), what he was or wasn't looking for. The fact is that this information is classified and it is a federal offense. After that part is established, then you look at what he was doing and see how that compromises (or doesn't) security. While I do agree that he the US Army should not be this easy to hack, that does not excuse his action in any way shape or form.Think of it this way, reading someone else's mail is a federal offense. Now if someone was continually going through your mail, it wouldn't matter what they were looking for, you would still feel violated because so much COULD have been found (identity theft is a real bitch in case you didn't know)[/citation]

Agree to a level. Now what happens if your post was so important to you and lives of people depended on it? Would you leave it in the middle of the street with a piece of paper saying that it would be an offense to read it, or guard it properly? Now since you seem like a common sense man, you tell me... also tell me what MOST people would do?

 

[darkguset]

[citation][nom]rambo117[/nom]US government norton firewall protection[/citation]

ROFL, probably!

 

[darkguset]

[citation][nom]fwupow[/nom]The Government wants to make an example of him in order to SCARE future hackers out of trying to break in. They need to use the SCARE approach because they can't make their systems secure.[/citation]

Probably, but not really effective. Robbers know that they will go to jail, still there are people being robbed all over the world every single day. Nothing stops them. Same with killers, serial killers, paedophiles, etc etc...
In my oppinion, jail will only consume the US government resources to house him, feed him, etc, etc. Also jail sounds far fetched in peoples minds, they don't realise what really is because they have never being there, hence they do not feel that much scared.
Give him a huge fine though and you will see how much he will start to care! If you take all his possesions, not only the government will save on money, it keeps the jail empty for more serious criminals and they earn money by taking all his possesions. That would REALLY hurt him, everybody wins! Not to mention that if he goes to jail, he will probably come out with more "connections" with the crime in any way and he will probably want to take revenge, and this time i don't think he will be using a computer! He can easily now become a terrorist or something. So, give the man a lesson and try not to "create" a terrorist out of him. It will be stupid if after 20 years there are 10 people killed from him because they wanted to take him to jail instead of paying a huge fine.