Poll: Should Gary McKinnon be extradited to the US for hacking?

Should he?

  • Yes

    Votes: 232 19.5%

  • No

    Votes: 823 69.3%

  • I don't like poles

    Votes: 132 11.1%
  • Total voters
    1,187
Rroff said:
This guy is not a genious hacker... his input would be of little use to cybersecurity... he was extremely persistant in trying to find some information and by pure fluke finally exploited a badly protected system.
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That's just the story being peddled by whoever blindly supports his cause.

This needs to be determined with a trial IMO.
 
Rroff said:
I think its pretty clear cut as you said he got unauthorised access to systems that common sense would normally tell someone not to access. As far as damage levels go its impossible to exactly quantify it in monetary value for this kinda "crime". He needs to be taken to account for this however and appropriate steps taken to curtail any future activities that could potentially end badly... banging him up in jail for 1 year let alone 60 years isn't justice for anyone its just the US trying to get payback.
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I agree, 60 years would be prima facie entirely disproportionate, in fact any possible prison term that was more than single digits would seem to be an overreaction. However as I understand it he was offered a plea bargain which had a relatively low tariff attached and since there is no dispute that he did gain the unauthorised access it would seem that he was either somewhat foolhardy in rejecting it or badly advised - whichever way you look at it he does seem to have brought a significant amount of the problem onto himself.

steve-h said:
Yes. Exactly.

I use a fairly complex password for forums... but I use the same one for all forums... I care enough not to make it "abc123" however it's really not that important.

My email password... another 5 characters longer.

Whereas my bank & paypal login... that is a different story, i guard those with my life by keeping them in a .txt file on my desktop.

Given what we know... I wouldn't put it past america to have set the whole thing up as a trap, purely to make an example out of somebody. In order to stop more serious attacks. Like they did with 9/11 omg conspiracy :eek:

Either that or they're dumb basically.
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It's entirely possible that it was an oversight (or rather multiple oversights) not changing from the default passwords, it's also possible that the people responsible were not fully aware of how vulnerable the system was. None of that means it wasn't important, it does mean that they screwed up in a fairly major way unless you believe in conspiracy theories and it was the proverbial low hanging fruit to attract people.

steve-h said:
I'm glad you picked up on the innocent part.

By that I meant he has caused no physical/mental harm to anybody... hes not stabbed/shot/mugged/whatever else'd somebody... hes sat at home and looked for aliens. He shouldn't be sentenced because of america's self importance disorder.

If something is '60 years in jail' important... it should be guarded with more than a blank or default password.
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I absolutely agree, it should be guarded more securely but it wasn't and he either knew or should have known that he was breaking the law in doing what he did. Other peoples failings don't necessarily mean that your taking advantage is somehow no longer criminal.
 
steve-h said:
Given what we know... I wouldn't put it past america to have set the whole thing up as a trap, purely to make an example out of somebody. In order to stop more serious attacks. Like they did with 9/11 omg conspiracy :eek:

Ei
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Wouldn't all the recent Chinese attacks have been a better target?
 
NathanE said:
That's just the story being peddled by whoever blindly supports his cause.

This needs to be determined with a trial IMO.
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If he was a genius hacker he'd have almost deff. bounced it off a few anon proxies and prolly triggered the attacks via anon wireless/wardriving style and very unlikely to be caught without a sophisticated sting operation requiring the close interaction of both countries law enforcement.
 
Rroff said:
If he was a genius hacker he'd have almost deff. bounced it off a few anon proxies and prolly triggered the attacks via anon wireless/wardriving style and very unlikely to be caught without a sophisticated sting operation requiring the close interaction of both countries law enforcement.
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Speculation again. Something tells me that he must have ****** off the USA pretty severely for them to not back down on this.
 
NathanE said:
Speculation again. Something tells me that he must have ****** off the USA pretty severely for them to not back down on this.
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Clearly he has severely annoyed them, but that doesn't prove he did anything particularly awful because the Yanks aren't renowned for their calm and proportionate response to things are they?
 
semi-pro waster said:
I agree, 60 years would be prima facie entirely disproportionate, in fact any possible prison term that was more than single digits would seem to be an overreaction. However as I understand it he was offered a plea bargain which had a relatively low tariff attached ...
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As I understand it, the plea bargain consisted of American prosecutors saying that if he pleaded guilty, they MIGHT let him off with just three to four years - but no promises. I also believe that a US Judge said that he definitely would not be bound by and plea bargain asome US prosecutor said that McKinnon should "fry".

In the circumstances, you can see why he is somewhat reluctant to be extradited.
 
I believe we should have a stronger protection system for our citizens like the russians, who will refuse to extradite any Russian citizen.
 
Hxc said:
I believe we should have a stronger protection system for our citizens like the russians, who will refuse to extradite any Russian citizen.
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That won't work. The US is known to kidnap people from countries that don't have an agreement with the US. If they protect their systems properly, then this wouldn't have happened.

They need to use their money to improve the security of their systems, not to fund a war in Iraq which is actually unnecessary. If you keep the accuracy of the US Army in mind, they waste about 99% of their bullets, hoping the targets get hit one way or another. Waste of money there...
 
Instead of trying to get Gary extradited they should open their eyes to his prediciment and instead use his example to strengthen their systems. Afterall. If the most powerful national on the planet can't protect their Computer Systems from a lone Hacker with Asbergers. God help them.

But not in America. They will see a man with a condition such as Asbergers locked up for 60 years just to hide their shame and emarassment.
 
Sharpsilver said:
Instead of trying to get Gary extradited they should open their eyes to his prediciment and instead use his example to strengthen their systems. Afterall. If the most powerful national on the planet can't protect their Computer Systems from a lone Hacker with Asbergers. God help them.

But not in America. They will see a man with a condition such as Asbergers locked up for 60 years just to hide their shame and emarassment.
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weird that isnt it ;)

HUGELY expensive system... apparently very important

no security.

come to your own conclusion.
 
Voted No. Also:

The UK’s unfair extradition treaty with the United States has led to a massive and increasing imbalance between the numbers of citizens extradited from the two nations.

In the last 18 months, the US has extradited 24 people from the UK, while the UK has only extradited two.The imbalance is the worst since government records began in 1998, where the US extradited 7 individuals and the UK extradited 5.

Labour agreed an extradition treaty with the United States under which the US has to provide far less evidence for an extradition request from the UK than the UK has to provide to US
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(http://www.homeofficewatch.com/2006/10/28/extradition-imbalance-with-us-worsens/)
 
Well, that's what you get for being the USA's bitch.

I just hope they extradite McKinnon soon. He seems to have an endless amount of "Get out of Jail Free" cards, but surely he can't escape the law forever?
 
A young nerd with Asperger's Syndrome who is obsessed by tales of UFOs connects into a whole load of top secret super-computers which have complete control over the U.S. nuclear arsenal. He does this by cunningly using obscure passwords such as "password", "fred", "letmein", "sysadmin", "uracretin" & "Enter".

He challenges these ultra secure super-computers to a game between America and extra-terrestrials, and innocently and unwittingly launches an invasion of an oil-rich former ally.

Can he convince the paranoid, medieval, Christian fundamentalist loonies that he wasn't a threat to the future of their asylum and should not be hung, drawn and quartered?
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With apologies to the writer(s) of that great 1980s fiction movie "War Games" :confused:
 
genan said:
Voted No. Also:

(http://www.homeofficewatch.com/2006/10/28/extradition-imbalance-with-us-worsens/)
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The Extradition Treaty is certainly unbalanced and I've got issues with them not being part of the International Criminal Court either. However saying that there were 2 extraditions from the US but 24 from the UK doesn't mean much in isolation - it could be that the UK only requested the extradition of 3 people giving a 'success' rate of 66% but in the same period of time the US might have requested 240 people which would be a 'success' rate of 10%.

As a headline figure it may look bad but there isn't automatically a correlation between the number we extradite and the number that we request extradition of.
 
semi-pro waster said:
The Extradition Treaty is certainly unbalanced and I've got issues with them not being part of the International Criminal Court either. However saying that there were 2 extraditions from the US but 24 from the UK doesn't mean much in isolation - it could be that the UK only requested the extradition of 3 people giving a 'success' rate of 66% but in the same period of time the US might have requested 240 people which would be a 'success' rate of 10%.

As a headline figure it may look bad but there isn't automatically a correlation between the number we extradite and the number that we request extradition of.
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True. But I bet the % is higher for the US requests as well though ;)
 
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