Gary McKinnon - UFO Hacker

[ozman]

Hi all

I guess we have all heard about British "UFO hacker", Gary McKinnon, who is facing extradition to the US for "damaging NASA computers".

In this interview he describes a object he saw in a image he found.

Download (10.3 MB mp3) here:

http://www.out-law.com/page-7212

 

[Rick Deckard]

Wikipedia have a good page of info and links including video interviews by the BBC:

Click here to go to Wikipedia Page

The way he got onto the admin accounts at NASA shows just how bad computer security can be in these 'oh-so-secret' facilities...

 

[Woody Sideman]

Wikipedia have a good page of info and links including video interviews by the BBC:

Click here to go to Wikipedia Page

The way he got onto the admin accounts at NASA shows just how bad computer security can be in these 'oh-so-secret' facilities...

Wise up Rick. Why would NASA be secret????? My mother got me up out of bed to watch Armstrong and Aldrin do their thing on the moon. That was hardly secret. It's been a very long time now that the American military gave them the U2 to play with (even that is 30 years out of date).

NASA have never been secret, never even been confidential (where you and I come from it wouldn't even be classified as 'restricted').

Woody

 

[Rick Deckard]

Right, so when they put up a spy satelite for the US military they take out a full-page advert in the New York Times?

Why would NASA be secret? Perhaps they do stuff they don't want you or I to know about.

How would you or I know that NASA is or isn't secret?

If the Apollo missions found 'something' on the moon, do you think NASA would tell us?

Also, if you believe some of the witnesses in the Disclosure Project, NASA airbrush stuff out of images taken from space - which could be spy satellites or something else.

Whatever the case, NASA has a 'public' side and 'military' side and you can bet your last dollar that they DO have secrets.

 

[Woody Sideman]

Whatever the case, NASA has a 'public' side and 'military' side and you can bet your last dollar that they DO have secrets.

Okay, I accept what you've said. My previous post was badly constructed, the result of too much alcohol on a Friday night and my woman not being here to keep me distracted.

I tend to think of NASA as wanting to be an open organisation. It's like when the MOD took control of the QE2 for the duration of the Falklands war. During that time, the captain would have been privy to Top Secret information. However, when the crises was over he simply returned to being the captain of a commercial vessel.

I strongly disapprove of what McKinnon did. I guess the Americans want him so they can find out where he has been and who he has shared his method with. I do hope he is sent to America and I also hope they give him some time for reflection in Guantanamo. What he has been up to can adversely affect the security of everybody in the free world.

The law is quite different over here in the UK. McKinnon would be prosecuted under the Misuse of Computers Act and the organisation he penetrated would also be prosecuted for letting him (Data Protection legislation).

Woody

 

[Rick Deckard]

I strongly disapprove of what McKinnon did. I guess the Americans want him so they can find out where he has been and who he has shared his method with. I do hope he is sent to America and I also hope they give him some time for reflection in Guantanamo. What he has been up to can adversely affect the security of everybody in the free world.

I think we need hackers - preferably 'white hat' rather than 'black hat'. If NASA has no secrets then what is all the fuss about over Gary McKinnon?

It's double standards anyway - the Americans will have teams of hackers prodding at foreign computers 24-by-7. They are also trying to make it an offence to encrypt your own personal files in such a way that they can't read them. If you don't hand over the 'key', it's assumed that you've got something (illegal) to hide and you're locked up indefinitely. The UK are gonna follow the American's lead and bring in a similar law over here. Whatever happened to the right to privacy?

I don't think the Americans have got any right to declare themselves the 'world police' and treat the rest of the world how they please. They won't be pushing China around in future and if we get a federal Europe they won't be pushing us around any longer either.

 

[Woody Sideman]

RD> I think we need hackers - preferably 'white hat' rather than 'black hat'.

Hmmm. Good honest criminals. No. Not my cup of tea at all. Anybody breaking into a computer system for the purpose of stealing sensitive data is up to no good, and no good will come of it.

RD> If NASA has no secrets then what is all the fuss about over Gary McKinnon?

I'm not sure that NASA is really the relevant matter here. It's just the same if he broke into the computer system for Tesco supermarkets. The data that is contained in computer systems is there for a purpose, be it commercial or military. The Met Office system is open to all and sundry, until time of war. It's not the computer system or who owns it, it's the data that's contained therein that changes in it's level of sensitivity. The level of classification of the data in a computer system is always determined by the worst case scenario.

RD> I don't think the Americans have got any right to declare themselves
RD> the 'world police' and treat the rest of the world how they please.
RD> They won't be pushing China around in future and if we get a federal
RD> Europe they won't be pushing us around any longer either.


Whoa, hold on there. Americans are the most xenophobic people on earth. The USA has the lowest rate of passports per head of any western nation. The American people have a right to be concerned about their own security. We, in the UK, do the same. It's not only our physical security that is of concern. We invaded Egypt during the Suez crisis because of our commercial interests, not because of any moral issue. What spreads around the world is American money. It is in the interests of the American government to protect those investments. It is money that determines most of the USA foreign policy. They don't give a damn about being the ?world police?. They did have a go at it in Somalia but common sense soon kicked in and they left. If they did act as the ?world police? then maybe we would not have had that dreadful disaster in Rwanda.

Woody

 

[Rick Deckard]

RD> I think we need hackers - preferably 'white hat' rather than 'black hat'.

Hmmm. Good honest criminals. No. Not my cup of tea at all. Anybody breaking into a computer system for the purpose of stealing sensitive data is up to no good, and no good will come of it.

Or just curious computer nerds, showing how easy it is to get at 'secure' data - and the UK government want to put MY fingerprints, iris scan, DNA profile and a ton of other sensitive data on a central database? No thanks - let the hackers show what a stupid idea that is....

Americans are the most xenophobic people on earth.

If the US people are xenophobic, and I'm pretty sure that I don't agree with you on that particular generalization, then it's because they're bombarded by the propaganda that passes as 'news' over there.

We SHOULD be concerned about our security here in the UK, 'cos siding with the Americans in the middle east has made us a very big target. Making an example of a relatively harmless hacker who happened to get caught won't change that.

 

[Woody Sideman]

If the US people are xenophobic, and I'm pretty sure that I don't agree with you on that particular generalization, then it's because they're bombarded by the propaganda that passes as 'news' over there.

Oh dear, you've really let the cat out of the bag there. They don't know that Tarrant slips in clips of Fox News in between Japanese farting competitions and Norwegian adverts on his clips from round the world show.

You also have to remember that a notable proportion of the population of the Mid-West thinks that the world is only six thousand years old.

We SHOULD be concerned about our security here in the UK, 'cos siding with the Americans in the middle east has made us a very big target. Making an example of a relatively harmless hacker who happened to get caught won't change that.

Well, there's a point. Y'know what though, Rick, it's your own neighbours that voted Blair in. As far as McKinnon is concerned, I suspect that his motives were not that malicious. He should just come clean, go to the US embassey and tell whoever it is there whatever they want to know. Say sorry, learn from the experience and don't do it again.

Woody

 

[Rick Deckard]

Oh dear, you've really let the cat out of the bag there. They don't know that Tarrant slips in clips of Fox News in between Japanese farting competitions and Norwegian adverts on his clips from round the world show.

I'm sorry Woody, but I honestly don't know what you mean by that paragraph.

You also have to remember that a notable proportion of the population of the Mid-West thinks that the world is only six thousand years old.

And who can blame them for believing that when mainstream science has it's head up it's own back-side! I really have lost faith (pun intended) in today's scientists - they seem less and less inclined to look at the problems with their current models and revise them.

For example, they've recently invented something called 'dark matter' to explain away the fact that about 90% of the expected mass in the known universe is 'missing'. They can't detect this 'dark matter' because they deemed it 'undetectable', but they know it's there because, if it wasn't, they'd have to revise some of Newton's equations on gravity and we can't have that, can we? There is a scientist who dared to suggest that Newton may have got some of the laws of gravity wrong - of course he's been pushed to fringes of acceptable science and labeled a 'heretic'.

Well, there's a point. Y'know what though, Rick, it's your own neighbours that voted Blair in.

Well, 65% of those who voted in the 2005 general election DID NOT vote for Labour and yet Labour still manage to pass their ridiculous laws - if only we lived in a true democracy where the population were represented proportionately...


Anyway, we've been way off topic now for some time - let's just accept that our perceived realities are so far apart at this moment in time that there's no real point continuing this discussion.

Cheers.

 

[meciar]

Back to the topic at hand... anyone heard any updates on this case? I'd be interested to see what becomes of it

 

[Rick Deckard]

Here's the link to the 'Free Gary McKinnon' website:

Link to website

These things take years to reach a conclusion - he was originally arrested in 2002...

 

[Woody Sideman]

Back to the topic at hand... anyone heard any updates on this case? I'd be interested to see what becomes of it

Hi meciar

Until there is a court hearing then it can only be speculation. The following is only what I suspect to be true. I have no personal knowledge of the facts. I suspect that the whole thing is a storm in a teacup.

In the late 1990s there was a transition on small computer networks from Novell based system servers to NT. Initially, the new NT systems were established simply for internal communication purposes (eg, a site might have had 15 Novell systems but the users of each of these systems could not communicate with the users of the other systems, even if they worked in the next room). In order to smooth the way Microsoft provided a tool that automated the process whereby the new NT server could pick up the attributes (user IDs, passwords, security levels, etc,) of the existing Novell system. Each of the users would then fire up their shiney new, Windows based, PC and log in to what appeared to be a new system. All of their application programs would still be there. So, they had a new system that allowed email throughout the site, and possibly even to the outside world. What the users didn't know was that their own data was still being sent to them by the previous Novell servers. In many instances the security of the previous Novell servers was simply to have them installed in a locked room, no electronic security at all.

Eventually, the NT system was allocated an IP address and connected to the internet. What happened was that the NT server still retained supervisor equivalent accounts that resulted from the initial transition from Novell. All that is needed is the IP address and an unauthorised person can log in as a supervisor equivalent without the requirement of a password. The question is, from whom did McKinnon get the IP addresses? It is not about how he did it.

In his interview with Kerry Cassidy at

Project Camelot | Interviews and Reports

he seems to give a typically English response (ie, don't give anybody away). He also seems to give the impression that if the USA is going to continue to pursue him then he will reveal something. He doesn't seem to realise that an officer working at Fort Meade is not going to be intimidated in any way by this. As far as the officer is concerned, his/her colleagues are dying in battle overseas and he/she doesn't give a damn about some the threats of some upstart from England. Also, the threat of McKinnon revealing ?something? would not bother this officer. The important thing is to find out who divulged the IP addresses. Therefore, there is an entrenched situation.

Effectively, all that McKinnon needs to do is realise how important the USA regards the issue. Then he has to do the right thing, namely, give up his teacher/Greek philosopher/mentor or whatever/whoever it was that gave him the IP addresses. There might be more at stake than breaking into a few directories of documents here and there.

Woody

 

[meciar]

Thanks for the info guys. very interesting. I can't believe this initially happened so long ago too!