Free hacker McKinnon.

Do you think he should be trialled here or the UK?
Now I know we will never really know what he was doing in those system, either looking for secret government data about UFO's or as the US government seems to put it trying to damage there systems, or even if the damage to there system was something else and Mckinnon was a good scape goat for there failings. The only thing I see is that he's been threatened with the death penalty by some officals and is looking at 70 years in prison. All to me seeming extreme...

How do you feel about it.

A link to the current story...

how do i free about it? not sure what that means..

yeah death or 70 years in jail is a bit harsh, but he's got to be punished for what he did. he broke the law, he's no uber geek hero to be put on a pedastal and admired for what he did.

hang him.

to be honest i couldnt care less

Originally Posted by keithd

he broke the law, he's no uber geek hero to be put on a pedastal and admired for what he did.

+1.
There are far more critical/important systems to gain access to than he did. There are also far better ways to be destructive, if that is your aim.

I've had similar discussions with .Orgers in the past.

He wasn't cautious in his actions, in fact, he was down right lazy, and he got caught. IMO, he should be an example to every kid out there - watch your rear or you will get caught.

That doesn't mean I think he should get the death penalty or 70 years in prison (like I said, there's more critical systems that he could of attempted access into, and there's better ways to cause distruction/panic), but penalised/punished nontheless.

If extradition can gurantee a maximum sentence, fine, send him to the US & let them pay for the trial, otherwise, try him here where cyber-terrorism (which whilst being what he will be tried for, isn't what he was doing) isn't quite as heavily punished.

Thought this was a thread about me for a sec!

I have nothing constructive to add so I'll leave

wasnt aware of this story so read the link, title made me think of F1, mikka hackinnon (sp?)

70yrs or death...trial him here me thinks

Whatever ever happened to the doctrine of the trial taking place where the crime was commited? He has now been diagnosed with an autistic spectrum condition - that should form part of his defence. I accept that he did very wrong - but no one got hurt and he should be dealt with appropriately and his condition taken into full consideration, and, more appropriately - here on home soil.

Originally Posted by ArtyLady

Whatever ever happened to the doctrine of the trial taking place where the crime was commited? He has now been diagnosed with an autistic spectrum condition - that should form part of his defence. I accept that he did very wrong - but no one got hurt and he should be dealt with appropriately and his condition taken into full consideration, and, more appropriately - here on home soil.

The yanks will argue that is exactly why he should be extradited; the "breaking in" occurred where the servers are, in America, not in the PC in this chap's bedroom.

Initially when I heard about this story I felt sorry for the chap and thought that as usual, the yanks were being a bit heavy handed and a slap on the wrist and court-ordered ban on using a computer with internet access would suffice. Gradually though, I've come to decide I don't feel particularly strongly one way or the other; the yanks almost certainly will impose an over the top sentence for what he did, but some sort of sentence is probably in order. If someone's mental deficiancies prevent them from being responsible for what they do on a computer, they shouldn't be allowed on one unsupervised, IMO. What if instead of being on a computer, this chap had been in a car and some mental health problems he had caused him to ram you off your bike? Would you still there was any justification as this as a defence?

As to this chap's uber-geek status, like Baph says, the ones who get caught aren't the great hackers: If you get caught, you're either stupid, lazy or greedy (or a combination thereof).

Originally Posted by ArtyLady

Whatever ever happened to the doctrine of the trial taking place where the crime was commited?

In the computing world, things are different. I can sit in my office, and make any one of millions of computers think I'm sat infront of them typing. All by the power of remote control. Evidence could suggest I was in Australia, when I have an alibi clearly showing I was in work on Anglesey.

For this reason, cyber crimes are treated as being committed wherever the server is located. This is why copyright violations via peer to peer shut down the server, because of local copyright laws where the server is located, not the people using it.

Originally Posted by ArtyLady

He has now been diagnosed with an autistic spectrum condition - that should form part of his defence. I accept that he did very wrong - but no one got hurt and he should be dealt with appropriately and his condition taken into full consideration, and, more appropriately - here on home soil.

There's no reason his disability couldn't be taken into consideration if her were trialled in the US.

If trialled in the UK, he's still looking at a maximum of a life sentence anyway, thanks to anti-terrorist laws combined with cyber laws.

[Dave20046]

He should be trialled here. I don't think he's even worthy of a custodial sentence to be honest. If I was the US government I'd be employing him!!!!