A good article...
Yes, good post zorgon.
And for the record, if we/they start closing threads I'm also outta here.
Kerry
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McKinnon a 'scapegoat for Pentagon insecurity'
US military still wide open to attack, says reformed hacker
By John Leyden -- September 2008
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09...view_analysis/
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As accused Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon hopes
against hope to avoid being extradited to the US,
another reformed military systems meddler
considers his own case - and how different
the outcome was.
McKinnon is probably days away from extradition.
Only a last minute plea to the Home Secretary
"Wacky" Jacqui Smith - based on McKinnon's recent
diagnosis with Asperger Syndrome - now stands
between the Scot and a US trial for hacking into
US government and military systems. Friends and
family staged a demonstration outside the
Home Office on Tuesday in a bid to draw attention
to McKinnon's plight.
The handling of McKinnon's case is in marked
contrast to how US authorities handled a
similar one ten years ago. Like McKinnon,
reformed computer hacker Mathew Bevan was
charged with breaking into US military
computer systems. Bevan was also curious
about searching for evidence that the
US military had harvested technology from
crashed UFOs. Bevan's alleged crimes were
cited as examples of cyberterrorism at
Senate hearings in 1996.
But no attempt was ever made to extradite
Bevan to the US. Instead he was prosecuted
in the UK. The case eventually fell apart
after 18 months, when prosecutors decided
not to proceed.
Bevan put the legal fight behind him and
has since gone on to become an ethical
hacker and security consultant.
Speaking exclusively to El Reg, Bevan
said McKinnon is being used in a political
game that has more to do with securing
funds than deterring or preventing attacks.
"Clearly, lessons have not been learned
since I breached similar systems and as
I have always suggested - perhaps
stopping the intrusions is not the goal
of the administration," Bevan said.
"Tacitly allowing access to machines
by ensuring that default passwords or
in fact access methods without passwords
is suggestive of a system that really
does not care too much about many of
the machines connected to it."
Bevan questions why Windows PCs on US military
networks are connected to the internet via
direct IPs. Thousands of attackers regularly
use the same remote access port accessed
during McKinnon's hack, but little or no
action has been taken in their cases,
Bevan adds.
McKinnon has said that many other hackers
had gained access to the same systems he
was accessing, questioning why US authorities
singled him out for prosecution. The fact
that McKinnon did nothing to disguise his
tracks and lived in a country with a friendly
extradition regime probably has a fair bit
to do with this.
Bevan supports McKinnon's contention that
he was far from alone in rooting around
US military systems. "You ask any military
hacker about the machines they broke in to
and they will tell you they were not the
only people on those systems. Of course,
they weren't the only people, as there
were great numbers of people whiling
away their time hacking computers."
Pork barrel ploy
McKinnon, according to Bevan,
was far more than simply unlucky.
"Why is it that only a tiny number of
those people ever face prosecution?
It is clearly not because the others
cannot be found. You cannot believe that
out of so many people, Gary just happened
to be caught."
McKinnon is being used as a scapegoat in
a bid to secure extra funding to protect
US military networks, according to Bevan,
who reckons a commercial organisation
would never get away with such trickery.
"I think it's all about timing and whether
or not the hacker will make a good scapegoat
whilst allowing the administration to request
further money. The fear machine can keep
churning out propaganda as per normal,
but don't expect those machines to actually
get better security. They are not businesses,
have no shareholders and therefore do not
have to answer to the same stringent rules
and tests that the computer systems of
corporations would."
Bevan compared hacking attacks to an
infestation by pests. Both stem from
a failure to follow basic housekeeping
rules, he argued.
"My cynical side believes that those
'pesky hackers' are treated just like
any bug infestation, the odd one or
two or even a handful is not much of
an issue until the place becomes overrun.
It is then that you can call in the
exterminators and make a big fuss about
the problem, of course it never addresses
that the usual problem with an infestation
is someone has not been keeping their
place tidy. You leave scraps around for
rats to find and in a short time you
will have many, many more rats sniffing
around for the goodies."
With such lax security, the US authorities
are lucky that McKinnon only had peaceful
intentions in mind, Bevan noted.
"Gary is a self-confessed stoner and
perpetrated the 'biggest military hack
of all time' whilst completely wasted.
This is clearly a sign of how lax the
security of these systems was. If Gary
had been clear minded and deliberate
about what he wanted to achieve and was
a malicious person rather than the
pacifist he is - where exactly would
we be now?"
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09...view_analysis/