Hacker Gary McKinnon
OUT-LAW Radio, 24/08/2006
Gary McKinnon, a hacker who faces imminent extradition to the
US, shares his views on his treatment by the legal system and
reveals what he found on NASA's computers. Plus: news round-up.
A text transcription follows.
This transcript is for anyone with a hearing impairment or who
for any other reason cannot listen to the MP3 audio file.
The following is the text spoken by OUT-LAW journalist Matthew
Magee.
Hello, and welcome to the very first edition of OUT-LAW radio,
the weekly podcast that keeps you up-to-date on all the twists and
turns in the world of technology and law.
I am Matthew Magee, and coming up on this week's show we have an
exclusive interview with the man at the centre of a major
international hacking storm.
Gary McKinnon broke into the secret computer networks of the US
Military and NASA in 2001 and 2002, and was caught. When the US got
involved and sought his extradition, he has become something of a
cause celebre. He tells us about the night he was arrested, what it
is like to be threatened with detention at Guantanamo Bay, and what
he really saw when he broke into the World's most secret computer
system. But first, here's this week's news.
The European Commission will force airlines to give Governments
information on all European passengers. A Home Office radio advert
aimed at educating children about sexually explicit material is
banned for directing users to pornography sites. Two British people
are arrested in an investigation into an online holiday scam, and
e-Bay directors face jail if body parts are sold on the auction
site.
The Vice President of the European Commission wants to force
airlines to provide information on all passengers to European
Governments. Franco Fratini is responsible for justice and security
at the Commission and wants airlines to hand over 34 pieces of
information about every passenger to the destination countries
security services.
A spokesman for Fratini told Chris Pounder, who is a Consultant
at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW, says that
objections have been ignored. "My own view is that the information
commission has been side- lined. I mean the working party basically
said this is excessive, these dates were kept for too long and the
European Commission are saying look, we are having security
responsibilities and the privacy angle must take second place".
A Home Office radio advert aimed at educating children about
sexually explicit material has been banned by advertising
regulators following a complaint that it could direct users to
pornography websites. The advert promoted a website
thinkuknow.co.uk which was intended to help children protect
themselves from online sexual predators, but did not make clear
that the 'u' in the address was the letter 'u' and not the word
'you'. Listeners unwittingly using the address with 'you' ended up
viewing pornographic material. The Home Office has apologised for
the advert.
A British man and woman have been arrested in an alleged online
holiday scam that Police claim could have defrauded up to 3,000
people. A series of websites was used to collect money from
holiday-makers for trips that never existed. The Metropolitan
Police said that the man who was in his sixties and the woman in
her thirties are being questioned by the Fraud Squad.
Directors of online auction site eBay could face jail unless
they could prevent the sale of human tissue on the site. An
existing law on body parts will soon extend to holders of saliva
and hair samples if they are to be used in paternity tests. The
human tissue act of 2004 does not OUT-LAW the selling of hair
samples unless they are to be used for DNA testing without the hair
owner's consent. eBay monitors its auctions to prevent the sale of
body parts it said.
And that was this week's OUT-LAW news.
Now we turn to the extraordinary story of the British man facing
a lifetime behind bars in America, what he calls a political show
trial and even a spell without charge in American Terror Camp
Guantanamo Bay.
Gary McKinnon admits unlawfully accessing a number of US
Military and NASA computers in 2001 and 2002. He is prepared to be
tried and punished in the place where the crime took place, the UK.
He had been caught by the National High Tech Crime Unit, he
admitted unlawful access and was told that he faced a spell of
community service. Then the US got involved. They sought
extradition, calling his crime 'The Military Hack of the Century'
and threatening a sentence of 70 years in an American jail. Home
Secretary John Reid has just signed McKinnon's extradition
order.
McKinnon re-lives that night in 2002 when his arrest took
place.
GM: It was by the
National High Tech Crime Unit, you know sort of early morning,
knock on the door and because their warrant was for the entire
household, they took my PC, my girlfriend's PC, four PC's I was
fixing for other people, plus my girlfriend's auntie's PC from
upstairs, and then they took us both along, my girlfriend at the
time and I to Holloway Road Police Station. They told me that if I
didn't start communicating with them, they would not only keep my
girlfriend at the time there, but they would also go back to the
house that the warrant was for and actually arrest my girlfriend's
cousin, who was only sort of 15 or 16 at the time.
MM: McKinnon admitted
what he had done and told how he had stumbled into the secret
computers while searching for evidence of alien life, of which more
later. He maintains that stumble is exactly what he did, despite a
perception that NASA and the US Military would have the best
protected systems in the World. I asked McKinnon about his hacking
abilities.
MM:They say that this was the biggest military hack of all time,
how good are you?
GM: Em, absolutely rubbish. I use commercially available
off-the-shelf software, to scan military networks for blank
passwords. I didn't have to program anything. I wrote a tiny perl
script which was a very simple scripting tool to join together
other people's programs and just let it run. When you look at the
fact that my methods for gaining entry was scanning for blank
passwords, then technically you could say there was no security to
begin with.
MM: What was already an amazing story, took a sinister twist for
McKinnon when the US authorities stepped in. McKinnon was no longer
just involved in a case of unlawful access to computer systems, all
of a sudden there were allegations from across the Atlantic that
his access had caused serious damage. McKinnon thinks that this is
connected to the rules for extradition.
GM: To be extradited under their computer laws in America you
have to have caused $5,000 worth of damage, and low and behold they
say that every computer I was on, I caused exactly $5,000 worth of
damage, so there was patently a falsely structured claim.
MM: McKinnon fought the extradition order but the new 2003
extradition agreement that the UK made with the US was
retrospective and no actual evidence had to be presented to the
British Court to guarantee his extradition. A US prosecutor has
said he could be sentenced to up to 70 years in jail. McKinnon's
lawyers have warned that he could face a secret military trial and
possibly be sent to the notorious Guantanamo Bay where prisoners
can be held indefinitely without charge.
GM: At first I laughed, when this was first raised I thought no,
come on, don't be ridiculous. And then as someone pointed out most
of the people in Guantanamo have never been proven to even have
been terrorists and they have been languishing there for years,
whereas I have allegedly attacked American military networks, so
that kind of put it in perspective for me.
MM: And to end up there, there would have to be a military
trial, or would you not even get a military trial, would you just
be taken straight there?
GM Em, I think it would come under military order number 1, have
the secret trial with no right of public comment and no right of
appeal, so no press and then you can't appeal against whatever
charges you are convicted of, and then it would be to
Guantanamo.
MM: McKinnon says he was looking for evidence of alien life and
UFO's. I asked him what he found when he did break into the US's
most secret computers.
GM: I found there is a project called the Disclosure Project,
they have got 400 expert witness testimonials ranging from civilian
air traffic controllers, through military radar operators, all the
way up to men and women in strategic air command, so they were
responsible for whether or not to launch nuclear missiles, so they
were highly credible people, charged with great responsibilities,
and all these witnesses are saying that yes certain secretive
parts, what they call black projects or USAPs (Unacknowledged
Special Access Projects) did have reverse engineered
extra-terrestrial technology, and one of these witnesses was a NASA
photographic expert who had secret level clearance, she used to
prepare launch slides and mission slides and the like, and she said
that in Building 8 of Johnston Space Centre, they regularly
airbrushed out images of UFO's from their high range satellite
imagery. I then used the same blank password scanning method and
got into Johnston Space Centre and then used various other means to
strip out all the machines that were in Building 8 and discovered
that what she said was perfectly true. I only got a chance to look
at one picture, but it was something that looked very unearthly in
origin and I also found Excel spreadsheets entitled
"Non-Terrestrial Officers" with sorts of lists of ranks and names.
Non-Terrestrial Officers implied to me, it was circumstantial
evidence that there is the ongoing development of a space-based
force, a sort of militarization and [weaponisation] of space."
MM: And the object that you saw, the one image you did see, what
did it look like?
GM: Em, it was a classic cigar shaped type of thing, slightly
flattened at the ends, with sort of golf ball domes above the left
and the right. No seams, no rivets, very very smooth and alien
looking in its manufacturing process".
MM: One of technologies strangest tales is drawing towards a
conclusion. John Reid has signed McKinnon's extradition order.
McKinnon said he has lodged an Appeal which will be heard in the
coming weeks. What he has to live with now and possibly for many
years in the future is the personal price he has paid for being
caught up in a transatlantic scandal worthy of the most hyperbolic
Hollywood screen writer. That price, he says has already been too
high.
GM: It has been so psychologically damaging for me and it has
brought my life falling down round my ears sort of thing.
MM: Gary McKinnon there, speaking ahead of his appeal against
his extradition, which will be heard in the coming weeks.
That's it from OUT-LAW radio this week, thanks for
listening.
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For now, goodbye.
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