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NASA hacker: I'll plead guilty in the U.K.
Self-confessed hacker Gary McKinnon has told U.K. prosecutors he will plead guilty to charges in the U.K., a move that could help him avoid extradition to the U.S.
McKinnon has been accused by U.S. prosecutors of "the biggest military hack of all time," after entering NASA and Pentagon systems. His solicitor, Karen Todner, sent a letter to Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, to say McKinnon would plead guilty if tried in the U.K. under the Computer Misuse Act (CMA). The letter was sent on December 23, Todner told ZDNet UK on Monday.
Gary McKinnon
(Credit: ZDNet UK)"Gary has committed offenses under the CMA, and has been diagnosed with Asperger's," said Todner. "I think it's time the DPP recognized that. Gary will plead guilty."
Todner said that under the CMA, McKinnon would receive a different sentence from the one he would receive if tried under U.S. law, as in the U.S. he would be prosecuted on charges of causing damage to military systems. She added that it is "generally accepted" McKinnon would receive a more lenient sentence in the U.K. The Londoner currently faces trial in the U.S., pending the outcome of an appeal to the High Court.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) told ZDNet UK on Monday that it had received Todner's letter. "We can confirm we received the correspondence, and are considering that correspondence," said a CPS spokesperson, who added that no timescale could be given as to when Starmer would make a decision about the prosecution.
At the time of writing, 80 members of Parliament have given their support for an early day motion that the government request repatriation for McKinnon should he be tried and found guilty in the U.S. Prime Minister Gordon Brown in November spoke publically about McKinnon, boosting hopes he would serve any sentence in the U.K.
The self-confessed hacker, who was also known as "Solo," is accused by the U.S. government of hacking 97 U.S. military computers and causing over $700,000 of damage by deleting files. McKinnon has never denied accessing the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and NASA computers, but denies causing extensive damage. He claims he was initially searching for evidence of extra-terrestrial life, and later found evidence of antigravity projects. McKinnon faces up to 70 years in prison if found guilty by a U.S. court and, as it stands, would serve his sentence in the U.S.
Tom Espiner of ZDNet UK reported from London.
Harder punishment for crimes, yes. You do the crime, you do the time. We're not talking about something stupid here.
Hacking should be a tough punishment....
Still, he must be a wack job. Looking for E.T. ? LOL
(PS _ I'm making fun of his defense motion NOT the affliction, so I don't wanna hear it. Kthxbye.)
First of all get your facts straight, I live in the UK we don't pay 65% tax here (we also have a great universal SOCIAL health system). Plus what does oppression have to do with taxes anyway????
Next, think this through a bit... the guy is a nut (or not) whatever... he doesn't want to be sent to Gitmo for breaking into a computer system which should have been better secured to begin with (if it really had all this VERY secret information). You'd think the US military should have better safeguards in place (as you seem to trust them with some pretty dangerous weapons).
The US has become a very aggressive, oppressed, and paranoid country. What do you think he was looking for? The date the US will invade Iran? Come on.. get over it. About the most corrupt thing here is the US government (with their little secret prisons, invading other sovereign nations, and convenient removal of basic human rights to anyone THEY see fit (without any need to explain themselves and without ANY control).
I hope this guys gets off free...
UK's universal health system is a poster child of 'how not to do universal health care'.
Spoken by someone who was born in UK and lived there for the first 25 years of his life.
We're not talking about Gitmo here anyway, that place will be shut down soon. The guy commited a serious freakin crime, what does he expect to happen? a slap on the wrist? He willingly and knowingly broke a serious law, he needs to be punished acordingly. While hanging him probably isnt an option, something serious still needs ot be done.
I do not actually think he will ever extradited, his lawyers are persistence and stubborn and his support from the public and from parliament and the prime minister, means it almost certain that the cps will accept his plead and he will get a slap on the risk, probably 18 months suspended sentence. If not that just make the charges disappear on nation security grounds
Also until American congress agrees to the same extradition treaty for their citizens that we have for ours then we should not be extraditing any one to the USA .
I believe the police and MI5 and CPS have a rather long list of IRA supporters who funded their terrorise activities from their base in the US, that they would not mind being extradited over here.
How long should George W Bush spend in jail for breaking into various middle-eastern states he had no right to enter? (Smoking gun video? Don't make me laugh).
Is it really a secret how many fish fingers are loaded on to US Navy vessels? If so, why are they on (apparently) unprotected computers accessible via the internet? Why are those computers able to access other computers that did have "real" secrets on? Why do the admin accounts on those computers have no passwords? Come on, even my 70 year old Mum knows to do that. And back up her data, too. Surely whoever in US military IT was responsible for security needs at least as much of a butt-kicking as this spanner looking for Alf...?
Is it any surprise the Oxford English dictionary is a better reference source than Websters? If the compilers of that book can only think of one definition for hacking, and we're putting the spotlight on just one word of that definition, I suspect we could probably do better. It's not one of the worlds most complex and nuanced languages for nothing, you know. Be less selective, please.
It's pretty apparent that using your intelligence and contemplating the consequences of your actions isn't a particularly common trait among Americans, so perhaps McKinnon, rather than try to explain the difference between what he's accused of and what he allegedly did (let's face it - none of us here actually know for certain what he did, do we?) should just find God - that seems to allow any number of "Get out of jail free" cards (being alcoholic, drunk-driving, cocaine-abusing etc) in American society.
Hell if he did that it'd only be his nationality that'd stop him running for president, and if the governator* has his way, even that wouldn't be a problem.
* and the shadowy forces in his background
Er, he didn't need authoriSation, there were no passwords set on those systems. If he'd needed authoriSation he wouldn't have been able to "hack" them. I think most of you don't understand what actual hackers actually do. Wandering into military databases should require serious decoding and decryption skills. All he had to do was find one of the apparently abundant computers which didn't even have a password. He had all the "authorization" he needed. It's like leaving the keys in your ignition, leaving the door open and walking away from your car. If you do that, you know your car is going to be stolen. If you don't password protect your systems, you KNOW someone's going to wander in there. You should all be grateful it was some UFO seeker rather than a member of the Taliban, or one of your very own home grown terrorists.
The only reason the US government wants to see him jailed is because he showed up what a bunch of incompetent morons they are and how very little they know about system security.
"He should be hung. I DON'T LIKE CRIMINALS. THIS STUFF NEEDS TO STOP."
You should be hung. I DON'T LIKE MORONIC COMMENTS. THIS STUFF NEEDS TO STOP.
Gary McKinnon should be hung, but GWB should be allowed to walk free? GM should be hung, but Rumsfeld and Cheney are in the clear? Some guy who accessed "secret" government files should be hung/fried/jailed for the rest of his natural, but the people who took your country into an illegal war, and who have introduced laws that allow them to read your emails (thereby accessing your secret files) are fine by you? Glad to see that the worlds current superpower is populated by educated folk.
And FYI the National Health Service may not be perfect, but at least our chronic/terminally ill patients don't have to fight insurance companies to get the treatment they need and HAVE ALREADY PAID FOR!
- by whedonworship January 14, 2009 3:43 AM PST
- "He is willing to admit to the crime only if he is tried for the crime outside of where the crime was committed. " Er...I think you'll find he was in the UK when the crime was committed. The crime was committed in cyberspace. Should we try him there? Lets have a virtual trial, and he can go to virtual prison. Try to make some sense.
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