Word: mckinnon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...McKinney told the court that the chains, fur-lined manacles, rope, chloroform and wedding trousseau complete with "pink feathers and see-through nighties" were all props for the bondage sessions she planned for McKinnon. "We had such a fun time - just like old times," McKinney told the court in her native North Carolina drawl. "I love him so much that I would ski naked down Mount Everest with a carnation up my nose if he asked me to," she added. Such sexual frankness rather stuck out in a magistrates court in sedate, suburban Surrey, England, in those days...
...McKinnon's case pops up in a just-published book Hacking: Digital Media and Technological Determinism, by Tim Jordan, a lecturer at the U.K.'s Open University. "He's in there," says Jordan, "as as an example of how difficult it is for governments to tell the difference between organized terrorist or cyberwar attacks from other countries and the individual hacker." The remarkable depth and range of McKinnon's attacks and the fact that he appeared to be looking for something in particular is exactly the kind of pattern that security experts point to as evidence of cyberterror attacks. "This...
Crackpot or not, McKinnon appears to have had a political motive, and should he come to trial in the U.S., he faces up to 70 years in prison, though it's likely to be nearer the 8 to 10 years prosecutors have threatened. He'll fare worse if they can prove he deliberately caused damage. Though Jordan is skeptical of the $700,000 damage bill, "McKinnon's defense that he's a freedom fighter," says Jordan, "who was searching for hidden information that the government was holding back from the people is pretty severely undermined if at the same time...
Following the rejection of McKinnon's appeal against extradition, the hacker's lawyer claimed that the British government had decided not to prosecute him under U.K. law so that the U.S. could "make an example of him" - a charge that carries some uncomfortable echoes. "They do seem to be going to inordinate lengths to get this guy extradited," notes Jordan, "but they could as much be making a point about extradition laws as about computer crime." It's possible, he says, "that the Bush Administration's hard line is of a piece with the kind of things we've seen...
After the court hearing, McKinnon admitted his hacking activities had been "very misguided" and said he would have gladly settled for a U.K. trial, but the fact he didn't get one might have a simpler explanation than transatlantic collusion. In 2006, the U.K.'s National Hi-Tech Crime Unit - the one that arrested McKinnon in 2002 - was disbanded. Though there is pressure to rebuild a specialist e-crimes unit, mostly prompted by the soaring cost of cyber fraud, the U.K. government has so far failed to come up with funding. In short, says Jordan, "they don't take this...