OT. Mad Brit computer hacker.
Thought this might interest y'all. This is a guy who claims to be
mad.
Mr McKinnon is British and lives in London. Between February 2001 and
March
2002 he gained unauthorised access to 97 computers belonging to and
used by
the US Government. He was acting from his own computer in London.
Through
the internet, he identified US Government network computers with an
open
Microsoft Windows connection. From those computers, he extracted the
identities of certain administrative accounts and associated
passwords.
Having gained access to those administrative accounts, he installed
unauthorised remote access and administrative software called
"remotely
anywhere" that enabled him to access and alter data upon the American
computers at any time and without detection by virtue of the
programme
masquerading as a Windows operating system.
Once "remotely anywhere" was installed, Mr McKinnon proceeded to
install his
"suite of hacking tools" - software that he used to facilitate
further
compromises to the computers which also facilitated the concealment of
his
activities. Using this software, he was able to scan over 73,000 US
Government computers for other computers and networks susceptible to
compromise in a similar fashion. He was thus able to lever himself
from
network to network and into a number of significant Government
computers in
different parts of the USA. The relevant ones we
1. 53 Army computers, including computers based in Virginia and
Washington
that controlled the Army's Military District of Washington network and
are
used in furtherance of national defence and security [charges 1 to 2]
2. 26 Navy computers, including US Naval Weapons Station Earle, New
Jersey.
This was responsible for replenishing munitions and supplies for the
deployed Atlantic Fleet [charges 6 to 8]
3. 16 NASA computers [charges 12 to 15]
4. 1 Department of Defense computer [charges 17 to 18].
Once the computers were accessible by Mr McKinnon, he deleted data
including:
(1) Critical operating system files from nine computers, the deletion
of
which shut down the entire US Army's Military District of Washington
network
of over 2000 computers for 24 hours, significantly disrupting
Governmental
functions [charges 1 to 3]
(2) 2,455 user accounts on a US Army computer that controlled access
to an
Army computer network, causing those computers to reboot and become
inoperable [charges 1 to 3]
(3) Critical Operating system files and logs from computers at US
Naval
Weapons Station Earle, one of which was used for monitoring the
identity,
location, physical condition, staffing and battle readiness of Navy
ships.
Deletion of these files rendered the Base's entire network of over
300
computers inoperable at a critical time immediately following 11
September
2001 and thereafter left the network vulnerable to other intruders
[charges
8 to 10 and 11].
He also copied data and files onto his own computers, including
operating
system files containing account names and encrypted passwords from 22
computers. These comprised:
(1) 189 files from US Army computers [charges 4 and 5]
(2) 35 files from US Navy computers, including approximately 950
passwords
from server computers at Naval Weapons Station Earle [charges 9 to
10]
(3) 6 files from NASA computers [charges 15 to 16].
Mr McKinnon's conduct was intentional and calculated to influence and
affect
the US Government by intimidation and coercion. As a result of his
conduct,
damage was caused to computers by impairing their integrity,
availability
and operation of programmes, systems, information and data on the
computers,
rendering them unreliable. The cost of repair totalled over $700,000.
Mind you, it shows what numbskulls your CIA/NASa etc. are.
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