Thursday, July 21, 2005
Hacker Tells of Bungle That May Have Cost $1 Million
A Scottish hacker facing 70 years in a U.S. jail after he was accused of shutting down government networks has broken his silence. Gary McKinnon, 39, claimed yesterday he did no deliberate damage after sneaking into confidential armed forces and NASA files. He insisted it was an accident when he destroyed data by pressing the wrong button. The Glasgow-born computer geek said, "I thought, 'Oh bloody hell,' and that's when I stopped for a while."
McKinnon was banned from using the Internet under bail conditions imposed last month.
And he is terrified of being extradited to the U.S., where it's claimed he did US$1 million of damage by hacking into networks run by the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, NASA and the Defense Department. Prosecutors claim he left networks "inoperable" by deleting 1,300 user accounts.
McKinnon, who lives in London, believes he found evidence that the U.S. has a secret spaceship manned by "non-terrestrial officers" and that it has built a robot soldier. But he confessed he could not remember the details because "I was smoking a lot of dope at the time." The self-taught computer expert claims he encountered dozens of other hackers from all over the world while snooping on U.S. networks.
Jobless computer systems administrator McKinnon was inspired to start hacking by the movie "WarGames", in which a whiz kid hacks into a Pentagon network. He said, "You end up lusting after more and more complex security measures." "It was like a game. It was addictive. Hugely addictive." McKinnon was caught in November 2002 because, he said, he was "a bit sloppy" and left his own email address while downloading a program. He is due to appear in court later this month.
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McKinnon was banned from using the Internet under bail conditions imposed last month.
And he is terrified of being extradited to the U.S., where it's claimed he did US$1 million of damage by hacking into networks run by the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, NASA and the Defense Department. Prosecutors claim he left networks "inoperable" by deleting 1,300 user accounts.
McKinnon, who lives in London, believes he found evidence that the U.S. has a secret spaceship manned by "non-terrestrial officers" and that it has built a robot soldier. But he confessed he could not remember the details because "I was smoking a lot of dope at the time." The self-taught computer expert claims he encountered dozens of other hackers from all over the world while snooping on U.S. networks.
Jobless computer systems administrator McKinnon was inspired to start hacking by the movie "WarGames", in which a whiz kid hacks into a Pentagon network. He said, "You end up lusting after more and more complex security measures." "It was like a game. It was addictive. Hugely addictive." McKinnon was caught in November 2002 because, he said, he was "a bit sloppy" and left his own email address while downloading a program. He is due to appear in court later this month.
Brought to you by Guardian eCommerce.
