On one hand, Aspgergers has sort of recently become the mental incompetance defense du jour, and I generally find that to be annoying and offensive. Now, in the case of sociopaths using post-hoc diagnosis as an defense, it’s pretty straightfoward. This case… meh. I don’t disbelieve that he might have Aspergers, and I’m totally willing to grant that confessing to the police without a lawyer present is totally the sort of bone-headed thing an aspie would do- if that’s the case, he might have recognized that this hacking was *illegal*, but assumed that everyone involved would understand that it was non-malicious, and that would be that.

However, that’s absolutely something where the fact that Aspgergers does exist on a spectrum would come up- I can’t prejudge whether he ought to have known or not known that this was a reasonable consequence of his actions, even though he absolutely would have understood the moral components involved.

One thing I can say, though, is that citing anxiety associated with Aspergers as a reason why he shouldn’t be extradited is incredibly likely to be complete crap. He’s no more or less at-risk for suicide than any other person with anxiety or depression, and I genuinely doubt that anything short of an extreeeme case of either of those would be enough to head off an extradition request. I could see the Aspergers being relevant in determining where he’s detained, but trying to argue against extradition based on it? Not so much.

So why isn’t the UK prosecuting him instead? And don’t you recognize that effectively forbidding a convict from being visited by his family is abusive? Even murdering child rapists get to see their family (if they still want to). Here he would be imprisoned 5000km away from home.

And the fact is, nowhere else in the EU would a citizen be extradited to a country where one has never set foot; and many countries (most notably France and Germany) would never extradite a citizen to a foreign country, period.

in the first – my point was that the difference between viewing a preceding set of facts as either “an excuse” (a rationalization, unacceptable) or “a reason” (sound justification, acceptable) lays with how you frame the situation for yourself going in to it. The bloodlust is what drives you from one to the other.

in the second – …something better handled with a level head.

Better for whom? A “Big Stick” is quite a head leveler, and you keep it in mind when you frame facts for yourself. And I’ll bet most hackers are getting the word that this sort of thing is not handled logically or with a level head. Again, I am making a point, not supporting it.

Why? Because they can’t be certain what he has or hasn’t done. If he was smart enough to get in, he may be smart enough to cover his tracks. They can’t trust logs, even if they have them. All they know is somebody accessed a very important system without authorization. That’s a security nightmare.

No the security nightmare was the shitty security, not the person that exposed it.

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I think the most important thing in this case is simply the fact that he shouldn’t be prosecuted in the US for a crime he committed in the UK. He especially shouldn’t be extradited by laws that were created after the fact and aimed at terrorist crimes.

I think he should certainly be trailed, but it should be on UK soil under UK laws.

You think China would allow extradition of Chinese citizens to the US for hacking crimes? The US understands that would never happen and should create their security accordingly.

As per usual, America will misread the situation and apply a totally inappropriate amount of blunt force, and screw it up. I wonder if they’ll ever wise up?

In a lot of jurisdictions, leaving one’s keys in one’s unlocked car is illegal precisely because it wastes police time on unnecessary crime – sometimes if a victim is exceedingly stupid, they should be blamed (and this has nothing to do with rape examples, please keep your hyperbolic comparisons to yourself thank you very much).

The military – THE MILITARY – that hosts classified information – should have, and should have had, exceedingly high security on all of its servers, pre/post/mid/whatever 9-11. The fact they didn’t, and thus put our country at risk, indicates that whoever left those servers and systems insecure should face harsh punishment.

It’s one thing to leave the keys in one’s unlocked car; it’s much worse to leave the keys to the country out in the open.

McKinnon should face some punishment as a deterrent – but it should be mild, say a year or two in minimum security facilities. Instead, the U.S. will bury him precisely because the people that SHOULD face large punishment are embarrassed at their own mistake, and those *truly responsible* people will face no punishment of their own.

after I posted I suddenly had a duh I get it. thanx for being crystal clear though :) I do get the fact you aren’t endorsing it.

me? I just talk a big game due to frustration with the many approaches that seem to get no results. Made a leftie into a nihilist. (as a whole 2 leggers suck)

But there is such a loose interperetation for the diagnostic for aspergers, that having it and having a grasp on reality are not mutually exclusive. In all honesty, most hackers and gaming addicts hit on most of the symptoms

I’ve taught kids at the extremely functional end of the spectrum, and some not so much. If he is genuinely disabled and has a distorted interpretation of actions and consequences, then this is a tragic display of humanity, but on the other hand, to hear that some hacker virtuoso has aspergers and assume that he’s some ricky rector or even “rain man” savant who is a prisoner in his own mind isn’t fair to anyone. Perhaps it’s worse than if he’s completely functional and lucid and is hiding behind some 20 year old diagnostic for people who were soically maladjusted.

Yeah you’re right. When I’m at the bar I forget everything about my job as a sysadmin and I call computers “blinky” and I can never remember how many gigobites there are in a megavoxel.

You’re still ignoring my point.

What point? That they don’t want to encourage clumsy would-be hacker to try to hack them by making punishment elusive? But you see, my point, as a computer professional with a very much above average experience in comp. sec., is that such hackers are not a threat. Au contraire.

I’ve just spent the last 3 months working like crazy on PCI-DSS security compliance; and if someone breaks into my network and copies credit card #s, well I could very well be fucked very hard.

But the thing is, if a guy like McKinnon broke into my systems, didn’t steal anything and just left a mocking message, … I would send him a crate of Dom Perignon.

I mean it.

I would kiss his feet. Because then I would be able to close the hole before a gang of ukrainian black hats take advantage of it and rape me and my team.

I haven’t said a word about what penalty I think he should receive. I do believe, for the reasons I’ve stated above, that a penalty of some kind is fully appropriate.

From the rotten “deal” they offered him, it’s pretty clear they firmly intend to subject him to years of raping and beating, AKA the US prison system.

And in my system of values, for a first time, non violent offender who didn’t hurt anyone nor stole anything, that’s completely barbaric.

I’m pretty sure that the widespread public support for this guy would largely evaporate if the US said they’d make the extradition treaty reciprocal.

If they would rather not do that, they’ll have to deal with the upsetting sight of watching the UK populous instinctively sticking up for the underdog. And of course the more combative the tone, the more people will try and protect him.

The important thing is not that he comes to trial, but that the US military learns from their mistake, and secures their servers. Dread to think how many Chinese spies etc were happily browsing around before this guy left his warning messages. They oughta give him a medal, he probably saved lives.

He may actually be going to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for the rest of his life, if he’s convicted as charged:

Mr. McKinnon was charged in the United States with seven counts of computer fraud at ten years per count.

The main point here being that the UK should never have agreed to any treaty that would have allowed, let alone required, the authorities to extradite a guy like this. It’s poodlish and submissive behaviour on the UK goverment’s part, it’s embarassing and humuliating for UK citizens, and if Mr. McKinnon really will spend several years or decades being sexually abused in US prisons, it’s a tragedy and a crime. This guy should be prosecuted in Britain according to British law, or he should walk. The extradition stinks.

Who? The US, or those who would eff with us? Because that excessive inhuman force…. it’s not accidental.

not that I approve, just making the point.

Your analogy is false. Here’s a better one: A car was sitting on the street with the keys in the ignition. A person got in trying to see if it was full of magic leprechaun gold and then left a note saying: “you are dumb, I could have stolen this car.”

The car wasn’t stolen or damaged and nothing bad actually happened. But, in a fit of rage you alert the media and proceed on a manhunt because you can’t stand the arrogance of someone calling you dumb.

Seriously, why anyone is bothering to prosecute this is beyond me. Military computers are broken into daily by everyone from 12 year old kids to the Chinese government. This won’t serve as a deterrent in the least, it will simply publicize the military’s bad security so even more people start breaking in just like what happened with telco hackers in the early 90′s.

Mentioning that the emperor has no clothes.

So the US can spy and do spy on all of us but if someone proves that anyone can get in on their stuff they get life.

They should just give him a job. A bloody well paid one cos’ he does a better job than those who work on the US pentagon security systems now.

Who’s the smartest of those in this case?!- Gary!

that Gary McKinnon might commit suicide if extradited;

Why should the UK government extradite a person, who due to their medical condition, is likely to die as a result of it?

Imagine a person with a heart condition that gets worse with stress is extradited to a place where this person is experiences extreme stress. You would object to the extradition on humanitarian grounds.

I believe no-one objects to an independent judicial process that investigates the facts, takes into consideration Mr. McKinnon’s condition and reaches a verdict.

It would also satisfy the jurisdictions on both sides of the Atlantic were Mr McKinnon tried for committing IT offences on UK soil in a UK court. That would however assume a level headed approach to the subject.
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Even if he didn’t read any classified information, even if he didn’t leave stupid remarks about the lack of security on their websites, even if he had only unlocked the door just for the sake of unlocking it, he has cost the military thousands of dollars.

Why? Because they can’t be certain what he has or hasn’t done. If he was smart enough to get in, he may be smart enough to cover his tracks. They can’t trust logs, even if they have them. All they know is somebody accessed a very important system without authorization. That’s a security nightmare.

If you come to my house and start looking through the files in my filing cabinet, you are at least guilty of trespassing. Even if the lock on the door is cheap. Even if it’s not even locked. It’s private property that you were not given permission to access. How is a computer different?

I’m not saying he deserves to spend a decade in federal prison — frankly, the only people who deserve that much punishment shouldn’t become a burden on society by sitting in a prison — but this man still deserves to be punished for what he did. Whether he had Asperger’s, whether he realized the extent of his crimes, whether he was meaning to be malicious or thought it was for the better good, he was knowingly breaking a law. And it wasn’t just an arbitrary law — it’s a law based around a universally-accepted rule: don’t touch what doesn’t belong to you.

Until people can accept the fact that he committed a crime — one that deserves punishment — no amount of argument about extradition or bullshit 9/11 anti-terrorism laws is going to matter. There are honestly people who think this man isn’t guilty and should go free. Let’s start with that.

Screw this ‘one-size-fits-all’ style of prosecution – punishments need to be proportionate to the damage caused. For those telling us that he cost the military 1000′s of dollars – please explain how? Do you mean they had to spend money on Tech wages to get the systems up to an acceptable level of security? Maybe they should have done the job right in the first place… if the ‘door’ was so wide open, it was an expense which was going to have to happen eventually anyway.

#37 hit the nail on the head.

@#35: The US may try to make and example of people to stand as a deterrent to others – but in the long run does this make friends or enemies for the US?? The latter, I’d say…. Public opinion is almost always on the side of the underdog in cases of this nature.

Where was the crime comitted?

If the crime was comitted behind a computer somewhere in the U.K., then the perpetrador has comitted a crime in the U.K., and therefore, should be prosecuted under british law.

If the crime was comitted on U.S. soil at the server side the moment security was breached (if security is what you want to call it), then he should be prosecuted under the laws of the U.S.A.

So it’s a matter of perception. But not at all an unimportant one. This case will be a prescedent for those to come in the future.

Because what the U.S. is trying to establish at this point, is that you can commit a crime being physically located in one country, and liable for prosecution in said country, but that ultimately, the physical location of those objects or individuals the crime was being comitted upon, takes prescedence over the the physical location of the perpetrator.

This is notewearthy.

Especially for those in charge of flying unmanned drones.

I can only speak for myself but here it is: because I’m a computer professional and hobbyist — a hacker in the original meaning of the term — so I know what I’m talking about, nd y’r mrlstc, ptrnsng dchbg wh dsn’t knw WTF h’s tlkng bt nd mks sch dbs nlgs tht h dsrvs kck n th nts jst fr t.

No they don’t. I’m certainly no lawyer, but I know this much : precedents are set by court decisions, and the office of the DA is not a court.

« If they don’t prosecute, that will set a precedent that it’s OK to hack into government computers as long as you don’t hurt anything while you’re in there.»

Whatever.

As for the American attitude to Garry McKinnon I think the principle should be “they put one of ours in the hospital, we put one of theirs in the morgue”. If he is imprisoned in the USA I for one will seize every opportunity to make life miserable for an American.