Scottish Hacker to Appeal to Europe after Lords Rejection
Glasgow born Gary McKinnon has vowed to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights, after his appeal was rejected by the House of Lords yesterday. He is accused of hacking into secret American military computers, and therefore faces a long-term prison sentence.
In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live, he said he was “pretty broken up” by the ruling, but claims that he only acted in the public interest. “I am…sorry I did it, but I think the reaction is completely overstated - it felt like a moral crusade.”
McKinnon achieved a form of worldwide fame after gaining access to 97 US military and NASA computers. It is believed to be the biggest military hack in history. After gaining access, he hacked into and disrupted numerous US military computers in 2001 and 2002. This was all done from his North London bedroom. Since his arrest in 2002 he has never been formally charged in the UK.
McKinnon has consistently claimed that he is “a bumbling hacker” who was never a threat to security, and that he was only looking for UFO files that he believed the US government was keeping under wraps.
Derrick Cameron, MD of IT specialists Eximium comments “There is no doubt what McKinnon did was wrong, but the question should be - what were his intentions?” Cameron adds, “perhaps the US authorities should consider using his services in future to test the security of their computer defenses.”
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 12:35 pm and is filed under Business Advice, Data Security, IT Advice, News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
