No Charges In UK For Gary McKinnon 148
clickclickdrone sends this news from the BBC:
"Computer hacker Gary McKinnon, who is wanted in the U.S., will not face charges in the U.K., the Crown Prosecution Service has said. Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC said the chances of a successful conviction were 'not high.' He announced the decision some three months after Home Secretary Theresa May stopped the extradition. Mr. McKinnon, 46, admits accessing U.S. government computers but says he was looking for evidence of UFOs. The U.S. authorities tried to extradite him to face charges of causing $800,000 (£487,000) to military computer systems and he would have faced up to 60 years in prison if convicted."
Is he free? (Score:4, Interesting)
So if he's not getting extradited, and there are no charges in the UK, is McKinnon a free man?
Re:this: (Score:5, Interesting)
McKinnon even sued the CPS over their decision not to prosecute him, and lost (judgment here [bailii.org]). The CPS really don't want to prosecute him.
Re:caused $800,000... (Score:4, Interesting)
Did he damage all that crap? possibly so, if it ever went to court. Did he do stupid things involving computers? possibly so, if it ever went to court. Was it " intentional and calculated to influence and affect the US Government by intimidation and coercion"?
That's beyond laughable and imaginary hypothetical rhetoric, to say the least. It actually puts the US prosecutors into question as far as sanity.
Re:caused $800,000... (Score:4, Interesting)
OK, my analogy was flawed, so I'll switch to a non analogy.
They connected insecure systems to the internet.
The result is that they needed to inspect and repair all of those systems regardless of whether McKinnon existed or not.
The only reasonable response to finding the computers were potentially hacked would have been to put the entire lot offline instantly, no questions. What if it had been a much more competent foreign agent?
How did they know that a Chinese government hacker hadn't subtly altered the readiness logs of the ships [*] at Weapons station Earle? How did they know other logs were not already filled with subtly but much more dangerously flawed data?
Look, I'm not claiming what McKinnon did was good or right or legal.
But claiming that he caused those costs is simply not true.
They caused the costs through the most monumental security fuckup. The fault is entirely on them. McKinnon highlighted that they needed to spend the money RIGHT NOW to fix it.
[*] for fuck's sake! They had logs about battle readiness on warships on the open internet and editable by almost anyone and they have the temerity to blame their fuckup one lone nutball? Words fail me.
Re:Loony (Score:1, Interesting)
No, he's laughing at the people who think assburgers is a defense for committing crimes.