The biggest military hacker of all times did his work over 56k modemGary McKinnon, a British computer expert, claims he's just fascinated with UFOs. Using his home computer and a modem — how WarGames! — he infiltrated military networks and accessed thousands of computers trying to find evidence of alien contact. Now caught and having lost an appeal with the British courts, he's awaiting extradition to the United States to stand trial, accused of the "biggest military hack of all time." The full list of his computer-exploiting prowess: Using his own computer at home in London, McKinnon hacked into 97 computers belonging to and used by the U.S. government between February 2001 and March 2002. McKinnon is accused of causing the entire U.S. Army's Military District of Washington network of more than 2,000 computers to be shut down for 24 hours. Using a limited 56-kbps dialup modem and the hacking name "Solo" he found many U.S. security systems used an insecure Microsoft Windows program with no password protection. He then bought off-the-shelf software and scanned military networks, saying he found expert testimonies from senior figures reporting that technology obtained from extra-terrestrials did exist. At the time of his indictment, Paul McNulty, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said: "Mr. McKinnon is charged with the biggest military computer hack of all time." If found guilty, McKinnon could be jailed for 70 years and fined as much as $1.75 million.source site
Great post Reynbow i heard about this on the news he is in for it if he is found guilty but i suppose if a terrorist or something found out about this before the usa defence then good knows what could of happened.
That's alot of years... Alot. I am thinking that the US governement will give him the full sentence, but pull him out early to help the CIA and ****.
Good f-ing question. 70 years though...Why don't they just hire his ass, to prevent future hackers, like the CIA do... I found this story to be ****ing win. Though, there doesn't seem to be any proof behind the whole "extra-terrestrial" thing...rather disappointing...
Somehow the British government is retarded enough to have an agreement with the US which enables them to extradite our citizens whilst we don't get the same in return. 70 years for almost zero damage done? A longer sentence than a murderer or paedophile? Someone's ego is seriously wounded and they're blowing this **** out of all proportion saying it's the biggest hack of all time when really they need to get their act together. Ruining this guys life to cover their own inadequacies really is the democratic way to go and stands as an example to us all of how to be one giant *****.
The background is from a movie of the same type of subject, a kid hacking into the military. The head is of the actual guy. Couldn't have said it better myself
Shock Theta, If he really did hack the military computers, then this defiantly is not being blown out of proportion. Assuming this is true, Then this man just got a look at thousands of classified files, he will be lucky if he doesn't die in some kind of "Accident", and just as lucky if they don't convict him as a spy. No one likes spies. Why would the British government not protect this man? Thats obvious. The U.S. wouldn't be happy if they just got hacked by an allied country. They would probably be removed from the U.N. also.
If they are so shocked by his abilities, they should just hire him. I mean if he lives in Britain and was able to hack US government computer systems, we could use him working for the US government. Or even comcast.
I wouldn't say he took thousands of classified files. He looked through some files, all the guy did was just look at some, and maybe copy/paste some into notepad or something. It's the retarded military's fault that they got hacked, hell my computer's more protected than that ****. If a guy using ****ing DIAL UP and OFF THE SHELF materials can hack into a military computers it means one of 2: 1. That guy is a huge e-pimp. or 2. The military, despite relying on technology for mostly everything, doesn't know crap about it. It's not like it'd be hard to get into an unprotected comp, you could probably just google "how to hack a comp" and get tons of results. I get that what he did was wrong, but having a 70 YEAR sentence with a 1.7 MILLION dollar fine is a bit extreme isn't it? He didn't "steal" files, he's not giving Al-Kaida secrete weapon files, he's just looking for aliens.