UK "Superhacker" who 0wned US mil computers faces extradition

A UK citizen wanted by the US government for "the biggest military computer hack of all time" has been released on bail. It is believed that he was motivated by a desire to hunt for evidence of a big UFO coverup.

Gary McKinnon, 39, of north London faces extradition over claims he gained illegal access and made alterations to 53 U.S. military and NASA computers over a 12-month period from 2001 to 2002. (...) As conditions of his bail, he was ordered to provide £5,000 security, report to his local police station, not apply for any international travel documents and not use any computer equipment allowing him to access the Internet, the UK's Press Association reported.

Janet Boston, representing the U.S. government, told the court: "On one instance, the U.S. Army's military district of Washington network became inoperable." McKinnon was first arrested in 2002 but action against him was discontinued. Outside court, his solicitor Karen Todner said McKinnon was disappointed it had taken the authorities this long to bring him to court.

(...) Using software available for download on the Internet, McKinnon -- an unemployed computer systems administrator -- allegedly hacked into almost 100 networks operated by the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and the Pentagon. The U.S. government estimated the the cost of tracking and correcting the alleged problems to be about $1 million (£570,000).

Link to CNN story. Case background on findlaw here (PDF): Link

Reader comment: James says, "Did you notice that in the PDF supporting the McKinnon story the IP addresses of the .mil systems are just covered by the black boxes – you can still copy and paste the text out. (None of them seem to be connected but still slack)."