Further to Exibar's previous email, now I've been through the links that worked (one seemed to have been 8.3 truncated)...
There does seem to be a substantial lets say "pro-american-hacker" bias in the text of the pages you provided links for. > McKinnon did cause damage: > "The charges" say he did, yes. And thanks to our dear old blind (some say to Justice as well as "visible" light) former Home Secretary, David Blunkett, that's now enough to gain an extradition, no evidence required, just an allegation, which can (and seems to be in this case) treated as fact(Australian newspaper, which should be reasonably neutral): http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/us-extradition-laws/2007/12/07/ > A message left by him on a system: > Changing the /etc/motd file or equivalent is hardly costly, and hardly massive damage, no? Hypothetically speaking, if I wanted to do as little damage as possible and make someone get the message I'd been in there, that's probably what I'd do. > Sure sounds like a criminal that knows what he's doing, and is doing it > willfully, doesn't it? > Agreed, the use of the hardly-unique-sounding handle 'Solo' stands up to analysis. Although it's been used by someone else before, who did worse things: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2002/11/56392 Obviously I'm not privy to all the evidence, but... In my opinion, installing remote admin software to poke around systems is inconsistent with "deleting critical system files" as it would be self-defeating, possibly causing that system to fall over, and for you to lose control of it. Indeed, the fact that it's off-the-shelf is inconsistent with trying to evade detection, which leads down the same self-defeating path. Additionally, downloading 'the same version' of software that was used in an attack is surely not sufficient to establish use of it in an attack, especially as someone else had used the same name in other attacks. > Oh yah, and he's really only facing a fine and up to 10 years of prison > time in the US... I guess things really are different translating to the > metric system in the UK... Heh. I've caught up with the joke now. However 7 counts at 10 years a piece surely does add up to 70 years?: http://cryptome.org/ips-bared.htm > McKinnon should face the charges of computer crime that he's facing. He > should, and will, be tried, either in the US or in the UK. But, keep in > mind that it is the UK that will extradite him, and it is the UK that has > ruled that he *should* be extradited for his crimes.... > Yes, he should be punished in some way for it, but I see no due process in the extradition, and the comments that have been aired leave considerable cause for doubt about the fairness of any due process in the USA. I have insufficient knowledge of the US judicial system to be sure that there are checks and balances against due process being derailed, and I'm open to being persuaded. If it were me, I would tell you to go f**k yourself if you wanted me to plead guilty to something I didn't do (so perhaps this is a uniquely British trait?), and I would certainly get quite upset and explore all avenues to avoid being 'fried', or imprisoned for a substantial length of time, if I thought that was what were to happen. I think this has gone on-list long enough, so I'll try and drop it now, unless anyone says anything really bloody aggravating. ;-) K. -- Kev Green, aka Kyrian. E: kyrian@ore.org WWW: http://kyrian.ore.org/ Linux/Security Contractor/LAMP Coder/ISP, via http://www.orenet.co.uk/ DJ via http://www.hellnoise.co.uk/ _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/