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I can't believe I am backing the US govt, but he deserves to be made an example of.
He is not even an American citizen
He claims of what he found there (but of course he was not technically capable to make even screenshot) are so laughable it is not even worth mentioning them.
Yes? Do you really believe that?
this English guy isn't part of "the public" that owns it.
He is not English.
I can't believe I am backing the US govt, but he deserves to be made an example of.
I can think of many thousands of hackers and online criminals that I consider to be more deserving of punishment than this guy. But then they cannot catch them, can they?
I can think of many thousands of hackers and online criminals that I consider to be more deserving of punishment than this guy. But then they cannot catch them, can they?
I am sure they will be dealt with in good time.
But hacking into a US Government agency is just plain idiocy.
There are just some things you should not do, unless you are prepared to get into deep &%$! over it.
I can think of many thousands of hackers and online criminals that I consider to be more deserving of punishment than this guy.
Well I don't think you or anyone else can make that determination because we really have no idea what he hacked but considering the targets they very well could have contained some very sensitive data. As I mentioned before hacking for example a bank isn't any comparison to hacking into computers that could possibly put peoples lives at risk or compromise the national security of the U.S.
The argument they are public computers is ludicrous, if he stumbled upon some computers he was able to just waltz into then it may be an argument. There's laws that make trying to break security and protection measures a crime which is apparently what he did.
He is not even an American citizen
Precisely, and he did not commit any crime on American soil.
I can think of many thousands of hackers and online criminals that I consider to be more deserving of punishment than this guy. But then they cannot catch them, can they?
The argument they are public computers is ludicrous
No, it's not. It's quite important to McKinnon's defence. If an administration, the legitimacy of which rests on defending the public interest, then conceals information on publicly paid-for systems in its own interest and against the public interest, this, itself, is an illegitimate act and one would be hard-pressed to argue that undermining such an illegitimate act in order to revert the status quo to democratic norms is a crime.
As such McKinnon's defence is internally consistent. Whether it actually fits the facts or whether it is a narrative concocted after the perpetration of a foolish and pointless criminal act of snooping is a matter yet to be determined.
I accept that McKinnon is not a US citizen and agree that it's not really his place to undertake unilateral action to safeguard US democratic freedoms (since that does appear, more or less, to be what he is claiming to have been up to).
Precisely, and he did not commit any crime on American soil.
And Osama bin Laden is not American citizen either and never committed crimes on American soil, or did he?
This is really a trivial case - what the guy now does is waste UK taxpayer money on his hopeless case, I am pretty certain he is not paying his lawyers to do all this work and it is very expensive - I'd be suprised if that cost less than £250k, for this alone (taxpayer money waste) he deserves to go to jail, but for the rubbish he spouts to "justify" his actions he should get the chair in my view.
Just look at what this guy says: "Old-age pensioners can't pay their fuel bills, countries are invaded to award oil contracts to the West, and meanwhile secretive parts of the secret government are sitting on suppressed technology for free energy."
Ok, so this guy was rooting for pensions on Unix boxes, trying to get them free energy, LOL!
It's quite important to McKinnon's defence
He better pack his bags then. :P
That's some of the worst logic I've ever heard! So because the U.S. can not find Osama bin Laden, NO terrorist should be punished?
And that is some of the worst logic I have ever heard.
But I love the way that both McKinnon and the Washington administration claim to be representing the best interests of the US public and demonising the other party.
You can't prove a negative, so NASA can never prove that it doesn't have the information McKinnon claims he saw on their systems. On the other hand Washington presumably can't prove McKinnon didn't find such information.
Can't we just have a TV vote like on American Idol?
I am just disappointed men in black did not raid his home (could he sue).
What is weird is people here seem to be defending him.
Or are there alterior motives to promoting this story.
Can we agree that when we start attacking each other's logic substantive discussion is over?
A resounding yes to that. ;)
[edited by: BeeDeeDubbleU at 12:34 pm (utc) on June 29, 2008]
Why was it allowed to happen?
The main reason why it happened is not the insecurity of defences at NASA, but the illusion of being able to do these things without being caught and punished for actions - this is precisely why he should be extradited to serve a long prison sentence, as a warning to others that doing such things on the Net does not go unpunished.
The fact that server were not very well protected is not very relevant to this important thing - in Europe for example a lot of houses have glass and wooden doors, very easy to break in, so should we blame homeowners for not installing iron doors to prevent break ins or maybe the criminals who do such things?
All I can say is that the Network Administrator for what he / she is worth has failed in their job to monumental proportions.
I know the job isn't easy as you find your being hacked on a daily basis and I know from personal experience of doing this job that you need to be on top of it for the latest tricks.
As the saying goes, they were "asleep at the switch."
You have to ask yourself why NASA and the US Government does not want to provide evidence of the file tampering or planting of files and what files that were compromised. I know it would mean that they have to then show / give access all areas to all the files that they say have been interfered with.
Why the objection, is the data too sensitive, would it uphold the claims of McKinnon? You have to ask yourself why they want to silence him.
All systems have an audit trail that shows who was in the system, so why not publish these facts to the relevant authorities or will it just show how open and insecure the NASA / Government systems really are...
[scmagazineuk.com...]
