Today UK hacker Gary McKinnon, also known as “Solo”, has lost his fight against extradition to the US after Home Secretary John Reid had granted the US request to extradite him for trial, and his lawyers argued against it. He allegedly perpetrated the largest military hack of all time, with the US accusing him of hacking into 97 United States military and NASA computers in 2001 and 2002. Snip from Guardian Unlimited:
Under the codename Solo, he is said during a period of 18 months to have hacked into hundreds of machines belonging to the Pentagon, the US army and air force and Nasa not properly secured by officials.
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US prosecutors say he caused $700,000 (£375,000) worth of damage. A lawyer for the US government said the hacking “was intentional and calculated to influence and affect the US government by intimidation and coercion”.
In an interview with the Guardian in 2006, Mr McKinnon claimed he had simply been searching for evidence of UFO activity.
The charges include one incident – shortly after the terrorist attacks on September 11 2001 – that brought down a network of 300 computers at the Earle naval weapons station in New Jersey. Another raid allegedly knocked out 2,000 computers in Washington.
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