McKinnon's last appeal has failed
news.bbc.co.uk
McKinnon's last appeal has failed
1–10 of 23 posts
Re: McKinnon's last appeal has failed
#2Very disappointing indeed. I shudder to think that this guy (who is quite obviously pretty harmless, even though he also clearly did something stupid) will have to face the full barbaric apparatus of the US anti-terrorist justice system. For all we know, maybe he'll end up in Guantanamo Bay.
Re: McKinnon's last appeal has failed
#3Very disappointing indeed. I shudder to think that this guy (who is quite obviously pretty harmless, even though he also clearly did something stupid) will have to face the full barbaric apparatus of the US anti-terrorist justice system. For all we know, maybe he'll end up in Guantanamo Bay.
Indeed. This is really sad.
By the way, I would like to know how could he have made $800.000 in damages. Is this the money spent to make the system more secure?
Re: McKinnon's last appeal has failed
#4This guy is going down not because of the damage he created but because of the embarrassment he created.
A military installation that can be hacked by somebody in a foreign country ought to be plugging holes instead of asking for extradition.
Re: McKinnon's last appeal has failed
#5This guy is going down not because of the damage he created but because of the embarrassment he created. A military installation that can be hacked by somebody in a foreign country ought to be plugging holes instead of asking for extradition.
Sixty years ago, ish, Feynman found he could pick safe locks in the Manhatten project offices, and alerted the military higher ups to the weakness and how to reset the locks when they close the safes so they would be secure. Their response was to send round a memo banning Feynman from entering their offices. - "Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman".
It's all just a little bit of history repeating. Heh.
Re: McKinnon's last appeal has failed
#6Very disappointing indeed. I shudder to think that this guy (who is quite obviously pretty harmless, even though he also clearly did something stupid) will have to face the full barbaric apparatus of the US anti-terrorist justice system. For all we know, maybe he'll end up in Guantanamo Bay.
Indeed. This is really sad. By the way, I would like to know how could he have made $800.000 in damages. Is this the money spent to make the system more secure?
It's pretty easy to envision this. Say something he did caused a pallet not to be included on a manifest and it had to go out on another flight when a human at the other end noticed it was missing.
Re: McKinnon's last appeal has failed
#7This guy is going down not because of the damage he created but because of the embarrassment he created. A military installation that can be hacked by somebody in a foreign country ought to be plugging holes instead of asking for extradition.
We only have his word that he was "looking for UFOs". Just sayin'.
Re: McKinnon's last appeal has failed
#8This guy is going down not because of the damage he created but because of the embarrassment he created. A military installation that can be hacked by somebody in a foreign country ought to be plugging holes instead of asking for extradition.
We only have his word that he was "looking for UFOs". Just sayin'.
True.
Even so he should have never been able to do what he did. All he should have found were very securely locked doors, alarmbells going off all over the place and a very stern talking to.
We're not talking about the website of the local football club here, it's the military.
If a foreign nation with a large budget and a concerted effort would be able to crack it that would be embarrassing but at least you could have some understanding. Now the assumption is that if this clown could do it then probably every two bit intelligence agency in the world has been doing it as well. In other words there is lots of egg to go around for various faces.
Instead of turning this guy into an asset they are trying to make him in to a scapegoat. What he did wasn't good but he could only do it because somebody else left cracks that shouldn't even have been there in the first place.
As it is they ought to be very much ashamed.
Of course there will be people that will say 'but he had no business doing that' or 'he should have known better'.
Maybe.
The 'rattling a locked door of my house' analogy has been made plenty of times, I think the military should be held to a much higher standard and that they basically ought to put out a bounty for every hole that somebody proves exists.
That way the script kiddies/blackhats get to make a decent living and we all end up more secure.
Re: McKinnon's last appeal has failed
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed. This is really sad. By the way, I would like to know how could he have made $800.000 in damages. Is this the money spent to make the system more secure?
It's pretty easy to envision this. Say something he did caused a pallet not to be included on a manifest and it had to go out on another flight when a human at the other end noticed it was missing.
Say something he did caused a war to be lost... if you stretch it far enough then you get to the horseshoe of the courier. It's up to the military to deal with adversity. All the time. They should have procedures and checks in place to make sure this stuff can never happen.
If one bozo in his moms basement can cause hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage or worse they have real problems, and suing the guy that did the damage is the least of their issues.
Re: McKinnon's last appeal has failed
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty easy to envision this. Say something he did caused a pallet not to be included on a manifest and it had to go out on another flight when a human at the other end noticed it was missing.
Say something he did caused a war to be lost... if you stretch it far enough then you get to the horseshoe of the courier. It's up to the military to deal with adversity. All the time. They should have procedures and checks in place to make sure this stuff can never happen. If one bozo in his moms basement can cause hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage or worse they have real problems, and suing the guy that di…
Oh yeah, obviously any military system that can affect the real world ought to be protected by the best firewall you can get - the AirGap(tm). I'm just describing a mechanism by which changing data can end up costing money in the real world. You could probably really screw up someone's business just by running their printer out of paper.