It's a tricky one, but there are a couple of disturbing issues that come together. As Bunny says, he should be punished (and accepts that), butthe claims made by the Amrericans are plain fantasy. McKinnon is not a master hacker - he used tools freely avaialble on the net. He used them on his mum's computer with that height of technology the 56k dial-up modem. That he got through the Pentagon's "security" is just plain embarrasing for them. Once in, many of the computers weren't even password-protected - a point McKinnin made by leaving messages on their screens suggesting it might be a good idea. The claimed costs of the "damage" he caused are quite laughable - of even remotely close, they would do better checking quite how much Dell are charging them for a laptop. The other issue is the revised extradition treaty. The US sought to make use of this (delaying the request until it was in place). The treaty allows the US to claim an extradition whilst presenting little or no evidence. The issue people have with this is that it was supposed to be reciprocal and the US has not (and will not) ratify their side of the deal. So it's a very one-sided arrangement, and raises serious questions about the UK Government's fundamental responsibility to protect its citizens, the area McKinnon's lawyers have sought to exploit. It's a fair assumption that things would have been rather different is the nationalities were reversed. As Bunny also says, this could have been a lot worse for the Pentagon (and word is that it has been with the Chinese and others freely browsing an insecure network). It could have been dealt with in a much cleaner way whilst still getting the message out warning off other hackers.

Entire Thread

Topic	Date Posted	Posted By
Gary McKinnon:  Should he be extradited?	27/11/09 10:58:00	Simon Knight
Re:Gary McKinnon:  Should he be extradited?	27/11/09 12:01:00	Adam Tripp
Re:Gary McKinnon:  Should he be extradited?	27/11/09 13:04:00	Richard Carter
Re:Re:Gary McKinnon:  Should he be extradited?	27/11/09 13:35:00	Bunny Payne
Re:Re:Re:Gary McKinnon:  Should he be extradited?	27/11/09 14:00:00	Richard Hodges
Re:Re:Re:Re:Gary McKinnon:  Should he be extradited?	27/11/09 14:03:00	Sean Hodges
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Gary McKinnon:  Should he be extradited?	27/11/09 14:34:00	Simon Knight
Re:Gary McKinnon:  Should he be extradited?	27/11/09 19:49:00	Jonathan Callaway
Re:Re:Gary McKinnon:  Should he be extradited?	28/11/09 15:37:00	Simon Knight
Re:Re:Re:Gary McKinnon:  Should he be extradited?	30/11/09 09:06:00	Bunny Payne
Re:Re:Re:Re:Gary McKinnon:  Should he be extradited?	04/12/09 13:29:00	Hannah Ashcroft

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