In UK, Hacker Demands New Government Block Extradition 349
Stoobalou writes "Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon has called on the newly elected British government to put its money where its mouth is and tear up his extradition order. US prosecutors have been trying to get McKinnon before a New Jersey court for seven years after they caught him hacking into US military and NASA computers looking for evidence of UFOs. David Cameron, the newly elected prime minister, and Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, had both voiced their support for McKinnon's campaign against extradition. Other ministers in the coalition government had branded the extradition unjust. Clegg had even joined McKinnon's mother, Janis Sharp, on a protest march."
Re:my take on this as an aussie (Score:1, Interesting)
What is the difference between hacking the Pentagon because you believe in aliens and hacking the Pentagon because you believe in Allah?
Re:A little perspective from the UK (Score:3, Interesting)
The UK already has adaquate laws for the prosecution of the crime, and the crime was committed in the UK
Was it? I'm sure there is case law to deal with these instances, but one argument is that typing occurred in the UK but hacking occurred in the US. The last time we had this discussion, I proposed the following thought experiment:
A French person with a rifle shoots across the France/Germany border and kills a German. In which country did the murder occur?
Re:But now (Score:2, Interesting)
If they commit the crime abroad and against a citizen of another state I guess the local justice can do what the fuck they want. And the foreigner traditionally does not have the same level of protection of a citizen. For this reason treaties are signed that allow him to contact his embassy, for example, have a right to an interpreter, etc. But without a treaty whoever has him in their hands can try him.
Also, one's own country could be too light on punishment with that, or could have no laws against the particular crime. For example Vatican does not recognize some financial crimes, so that their citizens (like cardinals) are not punished for those. Another country that seldom punishes his citizens for crimes committed abroad is the US, especially when the responsible is a military. There is a long list of complaints against US bases around the world for this reason. The US have convicted and imprisoned many foreigners in their history. On the opposite side, in one recent case a US citizen was convicted in Italy for killing an British citizen, and the US acknowledged that the trial was fair.
Finally, if one's own country is not democratic and does not respect human rights, my government should *never* send anyone there. If they commit crimes they will be tried where they can defend themselves.
So there *are* reasons for not trying a person in his own country, sometimes, and each case is different.
Re:If you get paid into a foreign bank account... (Score:3, Interesting)
Because of the large exemption, the IRS also has little incentive to even try to enforce the law unless you're an executive or something and they suspect you have a substantial salary.
Except for recent rules where expats are required to report any foreign bank account with more than $10K and failure to do so can result in serious penalties.
The principle of the matter. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is what happened to the NatWest Three, a UK based offence against a UK bank. Of course they were extradited to Texas where it was felt they could hit them with more offences for longer sentencing and with an easier conviction (of course there is a huge tinfoil hat conspiracy regarding using these as fall guys in a forced plea bargain to cover up Bush administration involvement in the Enron scandal but that is an argument for another day)
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2003/ukpga_20030041_en_1
Re:But now (Score:2, Interesting)
I think lots and lots of community service, fixing PC's for the elderly or refurbishing PC's the low income earners, is the right way to go with non violent crimes like this, which frankly are pretty victimless.
5 years doing helpdesk support every weekend for free would cure him of any urges to break into other computers. hell he'd probably vomit at the sight of a pc after that.
Re:But now (Score:5, Interesting)
that's the problem in this case. Under the new 'fast track' extradidion, a British court never gets to consider whether there is evidence to justify the charge.
That's important in this case, because although Gary admits that he hacked the computers, the key point is what level of damage he did. There is a strong implication that the damage numbers were concocted in order to meet the threshhold required to justify extradition.
Essentially, in order for the extradition to work, the US have to state damages above a certain level. Gary's team contest that the $700k damages alleged were simply concocted to meet this level.
Given that Gary hacked into computers that just had the default windows password set - and that the damage was calculated by figuring the cost to audit and fix this breach, there is at least an argument that this should have been done anyway, and isn't damage caused by Gary.
Unfortunately, Gary doesn't get to make that argument until after extradition.
Re:If you get paid into a foreign bank account... (Score:1, Interesting)
It doesn't matter, you'd still violate US law.
In fact, the first $ 90,000 earned abroad is exempt. Also, you are credited for foreign taxes paid, assuming the US likes the countey. So your only fucked doubly if youjr earning more than $ 90,000 in Cuba, Iran, etc.
That said, there is still the fucking insanity of needing to file!
Re:No big deal, let him go (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, I wonder why the people who failed to secure that network, which supposedly contains sensitive information, are not on trial.
Re:But now (Score:4, Interesting)
However in order to be extradited the US Gov had to show damages above a certain level.
WHich they *blatantly* fabricated. $700k to audit windows computers to fix a *default password*? That cost was already sunk - they would have had to change them anyway, or they shoudl have done!
ANd uner the one sided, inane extradition treaty you cannot fight this until after you have left your home country behind...
Re:Oh dear , how naive (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it's telling how quickly Obama jumped on the chance to congratulate David Cameron, and get Clinton to send the new foreign secretary over to the US after the coalition decision was made when taken in the context of how the Obama has treated Britain since he became president- he's basically shunned the UK, despite the old government bending over backwards for them.
I think Obama is actually concerned that the new administration will in fact stand up for itself, and recognises that the US wont get such an easy ride anymore, and so is playing the charm offensive from the off.
I believe the speed in which Obama moved to give his blessing to the new adminsitration, and to get William Hague over to the US is more telling than anything about the relationship- I'd say it's a sure sign that Britain will be much less the US' lapdog under the new government. This is probably partly to do with the fact that large parts of the main coalition party, the Conservatives, are quite xenophobic and are still living under the delusion Britain rules the world. I'm not generally a fan of that overly patriotic viewpoint, but if it means it creates pressure to keep the UK a little more independent from the US, then great.
Re:A little perspective from the UK (Score:5, Interesting)
"I rather suspect that that imbalance is what causes many people much disquiet."
Actually, I suspect it's largely patriotism. No one wants to see one of their citizens handed over to a foreign power with no worthwhile favour in return, and yet, that's exactly what the Labour government was proposing.
I'd wager this has been fed by the fact we've got some of our soldiers dying in a war, that, once you cut away the rhetoric, really had fuck all to do with us, and made us less secure in that we're not as much a target as the US- prior to that, we weren't really a target for Islamic terorism because we were so tolerant of islamic communities. It's further not helped by the fact that when the US manages to kill some of our soldiers in a friendly fire "accident" (I wouldn't call it an accident, I'd call it incompetence) they refuse to assist in the coroners investigation by witholding the gun cameras. Add to this the threats of withdrawing security cooperation with us when our courts wanted to release evidence of our secure services being complicit in torture of British citizens by US forces and you begin to see why there is such a backlash.
Probably, if the US hadn't been so difficult over so many things over the last decade, despite us giving them something that can't really have a value put on it - the blood and lives of our soldiers in support of their war - then they could've gotten away with this extradition and a lot of people wouldn't have even batted an eyelid at the case.
But no that didn't happen, and so people in the UK have simply had enough, and McKinnon has become the catalyst for which people are standing up and demanding that our government starts saying no to the US.
Re:But now (Score:1, Interesting)
No, it cost seven hundred grand to track, verify and fix the damage done. He broke into 97 networks. Let's pretend that there are an average of 100 computers accessible from the node that he compromised. That's 9700 machines. Now pretend that it takes an IT tech and average of 1 day to verify that each machine is secure / clean up if it is not. That's 8 hours for each machine: 97 * 100 * 8 = 77600 man hours. At only $10 an hour you get over seven hundred thousand dollars worth of time taken up fixing the mess.
Those numbers are more than likely inflated for the number of machines requiring cleaning but it's more than likely that a team of much higher paid techs / consultants had to spend a good amount of time checking and fixing the networks. And we're not factoring in lost productivity while all this is going on. Unfortunately, if you break into a network you create a whole lot of work as is is now untrusted and needs to be made trusted again.
I think McKinnon is a harmless idiot but he knew what he was getting himself into and the penalties for doing so. I'd prefer my tax money (UK) not to be spent holding his trial and potentially imprisoning him here for the US, cold hearted as that may sound.