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It looks like the decade-long saga of Gary McKinnon, the British hacker who thoroughly pwned the Pentagon, is finally going to come to an end — with him dancing off scot free.
The Crown Prosecution Service have advised the cops that (paraphrasing here) preparing a case would be a massive ball-ache and probably wouldn’t result in a conviction, so they’re not going to bother. This is a big turn-around for McKinnon, who was facing extradition to the US and being charged with a whole pile of offences just a few months ago.
I imagine that the US won’t be best pleased. After all, they have publicly described McKinnon as performing “the biggest military computer hack of all time”; he screwed over 97 US military computers, took their site down and stuck a note on their website saying “your security is crap”. Not getting to extradite Mr McKinnon and have their wicked ways with him is one thing — McKinnon waltzing away scot free is quite another.
Still, all in all I think it’s the right end to the saga. It’s taken a long time, but at least it’s now over and done with. What do you reckon, has our Criminal Justice System made the right call this time? [BBC]
Sharks are born swimming
Would it be wrong for me to say this is absolutely hilarious, I mean he wrote “your security is crap” for God’s sake.
It’s meant to be hilarious I believe…
I don’t think thats a direct quote, he wrote 40 messages pointing out all the security flaws and how they could be fixed, he left the messages on there server so only they would be able to read them so other hackers could read it. They only caught him because of the messages he left.
Why are you using a random stock photo of someone making the ‘Loser’ sign rather than a picture of Gary McKinnon?
Yes I think they made the right call, also you didn’t mention that they said it was impractical because of demands the US were insisting on.
I always said, if he’s one of the best hackers ion the world, we should be giving him a job, not imprisoning him.
He’s already have one lined up, and the initial of his job title is Q.
I often wonder if all the campaigners for him would have felt the same if he had been a Muslim rather than an Asperger’s.
Does anyone know what happened to that kid was going to be extradited to the US for hosting a torrent website? Was he extradited in the end?
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/tech-industry/3413656/uk-man-settles-with-us-over-tvshacknet-copyright-charges/
Thanks, but that’s just utter bullshit. How can the UK Government even allow this kid to be extradited to the US for not breaking any UK law?! He should be let off scot free.