Learning From an 'Innocent' UFO Hacker, Gary McKinnon

Abstract

Gary McKinnon, who lived in North London, is a Scottish system administrator and famous hacker who drew worldwide public and media attention in 2002. In 2011, the US government accused him of hacking NASA and the US military facilities with a code name ‘Solo’ (Hacker, 2011). The severity of the attack was so intense that it was attributed as one of the most significant military computer hacks of all time. Between February 2001 and March 2002 – at the age of 34 – McKinnon broke hundreds of PCs of NASA and US military systems quite comfortably for the search of any clue about the real presence of UFO. With the level of his known computer expertise, he never tried to hide his location and was eventually identified by the US authority and arrested by UK National High Tech Crime Unit on the morning of March 19th 2002, while he was sleeping. He was a subject of extradition procedures from the UK to the US to face his charges, but ultimately own a decade-long legal battle. The UK public sentiment was in his favor after he was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism. Finally, that time British Home Secretary Theresa May blocked Gary McKinnon's extradition to the US in 2012. In this article, we are going to research his obsession with information about UFOs and how he ended up penetrating NASA and the US military systems.

#garyMcKinnon , #hacking , #nasa , #ufo

Introduction

Human nature is heavily influenced by social and family life. This influence can make a person believe in certain concepts which can make him completely obsessed with it. This was the case of famous hacker Gary McKinnon. He was heavily influenced by his stepfather on science fiction and wanted to believe in UFO. He thought the US military system was hiding the fact from the rest of the world. So, he decided to search inside the US military and NASA systems and finally found a way to roam around them silently. He was so obsessed with UFO information and searching for some clue from secret information that he become addicted and forgot to hide his own identity. Finally, he was charged by the US Government and sentenced to 70 years of jail. We have learnings from his act and charges against him. In this paper, we will discuss more on his life, career, motivation, and charges against him and how finally he got rid of everything and is now leading to a normal life

Gary McKinnon’s Profile

Family Background

Gary McKinnon was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1966 (McKinnon, 2005). His father was Charlie McKinnon and his mother was Janis (McKinnon C. , 2010). Charlie was a scaffolding gang leader. At the age of six, he moved to London with his mother and stepfather after his mother got divorced from his father. Gary revealed in his interview with Jon Ronson that his stepfather was ‘a bit UFO buff’ and a science fiction reader. From his influence, Gary became a science fiction lover and start believing in UFOs or other extra-terrestrial lives and their presence in the Earth.

Physical Description

From the available picture on the Internet, it looks like Gary is a White tall man with an oblong face and a high nose. He normally keeps short to medium-length hair. He has brownish hair with no notable style. His eyes are also brown. His eyes are hooded, and his left eye is more covered than his right eye. While taking his Interview with Gary in 2005, Jon Ronson mentioned “He is good-looking, funny, slightly camp, nerdy, chain-smokes Benson & Hedges, and is terrified” (McKinnon, 2005). Though he looked like a healthy person, her mother claimed she took her to a neurologist on Gary’s 17th birthday due to the sudden deterioration of his mental health (Kirk, 2011). In August 2008 Gary was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome - a form of autism (BBC, 2012).

Education

There is very little information about Gary McKinnon’s education details. As we have said earlier, he moved to London with his mother when he was just six years of age. He studied at Muswell Hill Primary School and Highgate Wood from 1977 to 1982 (Moore, 2012). In his interview with Genevive Roberts in 2006, he informed the world more about his childhood. He got his first computer when he was just 14. He started playing games there and start learning machine codes and building his own games. Between 14 to 17 years of age, he used his time learning all computer stuff (McKinnon G. , Gary McKinnon: Inside the head of a super hacker, 2006). But in the early 1990s, friends convinced him to get a qualification in computers; thus he completed an IT certification course (BBC, 2012). However, Genivive Roberts claimed, “He failed his degree at the University of North London because he struggled with further math” (McKinnon G. , Gary McKinnon: Inside the head of a super hacker, 2006),

Career

??In 1983, when he was 17, he saw the movie WarGames at his local cinema in Crouch End, north London. In this movie, he saw hacking by a kid. This inspired him to be a hacker in the future (McKinnon, 2005). However, when he left school and became a hairdresser as his first career. Later he got contractual work in the computer field with his computer certification (BBC, 2012; Ronson, 2005). In 2000, he left his system administrator job and became jobless. It also caused him to break his relationship with his girlfriend Tamsin (McKinnon, 2005).

Current Status

???????????Since 2018, he’s running an SEO company named Small SEO Ltd [1].

Charges against Gary

Charge details

In the hearing of the case of July 2008, in House of the Lord, UK Gary was accused of unauthorized access to 97 US Government computers (McKinnon (Appellant) v Government of the United States of America (Respondents) and another, 2008). The summary of the charges from the case are:

1.????Using the Internet Gary found some machines of Microsoft Windows Operating System in the US Government network and gained unauthorized administrative access.

2.????He installed a remote access software named “remotely anywhere” in those machines to enable him to get access to the machines anytime without detection.

3.????Using this special software, he could scan more than 73,000 US Government computers to extend his footprint. Then he got access to 97 computers of NASA, US Army, US Navy and US Department of Defense.

4.????He deleted critical OS-related files from over 9 servers which caused the shutdown of more than 2000 systems in 24 hours. This causes a significant disruption of 2455 users and critical US Government work.

5.????Gary then copied critical files and passwords of 22 computers of the US Army, Navy, and NASA.

6.????His action caused a loss of over US$700,000 which was calculated by the damage repair or reproduction cost of the deleted files.

7.????The case also confirmed that Gary’s home computer confirmed the allegation and in an interview with law enforcement agencies Gary admitted the responsibility.

8.????He also admitted leaving a note in one of the US Government computers -

“US foreign policy is akin to government-sponsored terrorism these days . . . It was not a mistake that there was a huge security standdown on September 11 last year . . . I am SOLO. I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels . . .”

From this moment, everyone knew about his hacker code name “Solo”. Most of these allegations are categorized as criminal acts and reported in public media. He committed the above crime between February 2001 and March 2002. (Boyd, 2008; BBC, 2012; Smith-Spark, 2012; Reuters, 2008; Dailymail, n.d.). It was defined "biggest military hack of all time" by US prosecutors?(McKinnon G. , Gary McKinnon: Inside the head of a super hacker, 2006).

History of the Committed Crimes

The Exact chronology of his above crimes is not available from any source. Between 1995 to 2000 he was just gaining his capability by learning computer programming and developing games and graphics. In 2000, he started to scan machines of US Government systems with admin access having no password and he got access (McKinnon, 2005; McKinnon G. , Gary McKinnon: Inside the head of a super hacker, 2006). Since then, he became addicted to hacking one system after another and searching for information inside the US Military system. He got access to many US Army, Us Navy, NASA and Department of Defense systems. He was trying to get anything related to UFOs and extraterritorial life (McKinnon G. , 'UFO Hacker' Tells What He Found, 2006). It was assumed that US Government Officials could sense his presence in 2000 and were observing his movement. As he was not doing any real harm to others exploring, they didn’t take any immediate action against him other than collecting evidence and his motive (McKinnon G. , Gary McKinnon: Inside the head of a super hacker, 2006).

???NASA contacted the National Hi-tech Crime Unit of UK in November 2001 and Gary was informed in February 2002 regarding the US official’s claim. (McKinnon G. , Gary McKinnon: Inside the head of a super hacker, 2006). He continued exploring the US Government systems till his arrest in March 2002 and they charged him for his action from February 2001 to March 2002.

Technique used

McKinnon didn’t use very sophisticated technology to hack US government sites. His main tools were a cheap computer and dial-up modem (McKinnon G. , Gary McKinnon: Inside the head of a super hacker, 2006). He mostly used a port scanner to get access. As he explained in the interview with The Independent reporter Genevive Reberts, he followed three stages. In the first stage, he was simply scanning to identify Microsoft Windows systems. In the second stage, he was finding out if he could communicate with them. There he found few systems were open. In the third stage, he was looking for systems requiring no password. And then he placed his backdoor to regain the access anytime he wants (McKinnon G. , Gary McKinnon: Inside the head of a super hacker, 2006).

Though he didn’t claim the name of any tool, during the hearing of his case the US prosecutors claimed that he installed an application named “remotely anywhere”. We know that this is a remote access tool that can be used to control and maintain computers remotely over a local area network or from the Internet [2]. Now the application is managed by LogMeIn [3]. When he was inside the network, he could see files of any machine and he was free to move anywhere in the entire network.

The Consequences of the Crime

The Consequence of Gary’s act had multiple dimensions which created an impact on national, personal, and social lives. It became a national event both in the US and UK.

• The US Government claimed, in 24 hours, more than 2000 machines shut down as he deleted critical OS files and access was interrupted for more than 2400 users. Also, US Military officers are required to invest time and resources to retrieve the deleted files. For these, the US government claimed his crime caused over US$700,000 (Nash, 2005).
• ?As Gary was indicted by the US States of Virginia in 2005, it caused a decade-long legal battle for him regarding his extradition to the US from UK issues. We will discuss more in the next section.
• There was a huge impact from the public to the UK government on this extradition decision. Even though there are Free Gary McKinnon websites spy.org.uk/freegary; now the site is down (McKinnon G. , Jon Ronson meets hacker Gary McKinnon, 2005).?
• Forbes put in the list of top 20 hackers who helped to shape the cybersecurity landscape forever (Winder, 2020).

Legal battle

Gary McKinnon became famous to the world when the legal battle started to take place in the UK and the US. Below is a chronology of his legal battle:

• ?He was arrested by UK National High Tech Crime Unit on the morning of March 19th 2002. In the same year, he was inducted in the US states of Virginia and New Jersey on eight counts of computer-related crimes (BBC, 2002).
• In 2005, his extradition hearing was started where Mark Summers, represented the US government and charged against Gary for his hacking act in US Government systems (BBC, 2005).
• On 10th Mary 2006, Bow Street Magistrates Court in London ruled that Gary McKinnon can be extradited to the United States due to his hacking (The Irish Times, 2006).
• On 6th July 2006, UK Home Secretary John Reid granted The US request to extradite Gary. Gary decided to appeal against the decision (Wright, 2006).
• Gary appealed at High Court on 14th February 2007 against his extradition decision by Home Secretary John Reid. His lawyer said that he is the subject of “improper threats" and that the move will be against human rights (BBC, 2007).
• However, the High Court ruled out his appeal on 3rd April 2007 (Reuters, 2007). The court said having no grounds for appeal. McKinnon's lawyers decided to take his case to the House of Lords.
• In? June 2008, Gary appealed at the House of the Lord against his extradition. His lawyer said that “US authorities had warned his client he faced a life sentence rather than a couple of years in jail unless he agreed to plead guilty and to extradition” (BBC, 2008).
• Gary’s appeal was rejected at the House of the Lord on 30th July 2008 (Bingham, 2008). The government lawyer argued no threats were made to Gary, and the extradition should go ahead. Gary became very frustrated with the outcome and his lawyer decided they would take his fight to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), if necessary (Barker, 2009).
• On 28th August 2008, Gary’s legal team informed through a press release that his appeal was rejected at ECHR after two weeks of submitting the application. Gary’s representative Karen Todner informed the media that Gary’s legal option is now very narrow, and they have tried as far as they could (Espiner, 2008). We have already mentioned, in August 2008 Gary was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome.
• After having almost no other way, Gary’s lawyers appealed to UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to ensure he is not jailed in the US. However, Ms. Smith was in favor of extradition (BBC, 2008).
• In early 2009 McKinnon’s lawyer launches a review of the judicial proceedings highlighting his health condition. Before that, he confesses his guilt and appealed to stay in UK (BBC, 2009).
• Gary suffered another legal blow when Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) rejected his request on February 26th 2009 by refusing to bring charges against him in the UK. (Gibb, 2009).
• After the refusal from CPS, Gary’s lawyers were trying to appeal to UK Supreme Court in October 2009. However, the High Court didn’t see a general public interest to move the case to the High Court after CPS rejection. However, the Home Office put Gary’s extradition on hold which was a sort of win for him (Kirk, 2009). Meanwhile, a few MPs also joined against the extradition campaign (Athow, 2009)
• Desperate McKinnon again appealed with a new challenge on the High Court verdict on 10th December 2009 about seeking a judicial review of the home secretary's decision not to block his transfer and next month his review was granted. The Senior judges have considered the implication of McKinnon's diagnosis of Asperger's on extradition proceedings (Leyden, 2010).
• Gary’s father Charlie McKinnon also joined in the legal battle and tried to protect his kind from extradition to avoid the painful situation in the US (McKinnon C. , 2010).
• In May 2010, McKinnon's lawyers tried to lobby Conservative Theresa May to prevent a US trial. The question was raised if previous home secretary Alan Johnson was wrong to allow the extradition (BBC, 2010).
• The extradition issue was even discussed between two government heads during David Cameron’s first visit to the US as UK’s PM in July 2010. He discussed with US President Barack Obama and shared his expression with BBC Radio 5 as "some of the (sentence), if there is a prison sentence, being served in a British prison". There was a possibility of serving 60 years of prison for Gary if found guilty of all allegations (Adetunji & Weaver, 2010).
• Gary’s mother Janis Sharp, then was 63, engaged herself to protect her child from extradition. He started writing to the government people and gathering public sentiment in favor of Gary during the legal battle (Kirk, 2011).
• UK Member of Parliament asked the government to look back on the extradition treaty with the US and protect the interest of the UK citizens, not the US interest. They also said McKinnon should not be treated like some "gangland mobster or al-Qaeda mastermind" (BBC, 2011).
• In July 2012, Gary’s mental health was concern and fear came into the discussion about whether there was a risk of suicide should he be extradited. So, he was subject to re-evaluating his health condition. Gay’s mother Janis denied presenting her so for retesting asking a question about the experience of the doctors on the subject matter (BBC, 2012; Johnson, 2012).
• Finally, on 16th October 2012, that time Home Secretary Theresa May announced that Gary McKinnon will not be extradited to the US. Ending a legal battle of almost a decade (BBC, 2012; Travis & Bowcott, 2012; Zetter, 2012; Smith-Spark, UK blocks hacker McKinnon's extradition to the U.S., 2012; The Telegraph, 2012)
• After Theresa May’s discussion, in a statement, the US Department of State and the Justice Department expressed frustration not to extradite McKinnon. However, they hope the extradition relationship between the countries will remain intact (Vijayan, 2012)
• The legal battle was concluded with the declaration from UK Police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) that no further legal action will be taken in Britain against Gary McKinnon (Kennedy, 2012).

Media coverage

Gary McKinnon’s hacking and extradition case got huge attention from the media and the general public. From the very beginning, Gary admitted his unauthorized access to US Government systems and it was mentioned in the United States indictment. However, he joined in many interviews where he also shared his motive which attracted public interest. We will discuss more details about his motivations.

In our own study, The UK media were more active on the case and BBC looked on top of the case and covered every move related to Gary until the case was closed. BBC News Online has published Gary’s profile with a full legal battle chronology as a side note (BBC, 2012). Other popular regular or online media like The Telegraph, The Independent, The Reuters, The CNN, The Sunday Times, Daily Mirror, etc. all covered the case with priority. He was also interviewed by many of these media while the legal battle was ongoing..

BBC Radio 4 broadcasted a 45 minutes program “The McKinnon Extradition” about Gary’s case on 12 December 2007 (BBC Radio, 2007). ?BBC retransmitted the same program on 2nd September 2008. The program was conducted by John Fletcher [4].

Popular site Malicious Life also published a full story on his battle with the US government, which was broadcasted on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, etc. popular media (Levi & Rochberger, 2019)

Gary McKinnon’s obsession

Gary never tried to hide. He never denied what he has done and never felt any serious guilt within himself which we saw in his interviews. He enjoyed what he has done and would have been continued if was not arrested. US Government was trying to get any link with al-Qaeda which was accused of responsibility for one of the most significant terrorist attacks on US infrastructure on 11th September 2001 – also known as the 911 attack. So, let’s try to understand his motivation and intent.

Reason and Motivation of the Hacking

Gary believed that “there might be something more advanced than us, keeping a friendly eye on us” (McKinnon G. , Jon Ronson meets hacker Gary McKinnon, 2005). In one of the interviews McKinnon said, after seeing the movie WarGames, he thought he can also try something of his own like a hacker (McKinnon G. , Jon Ronson meets hacker Gary McKinnon, 2005)! But he was sure it’s not going to be so easy; however, he decided to try. In 1995, he found the book “The Hacker's Handbook” by Hugo Cornwall which was his instant inspiration to become a hacker (Wired, 2006; McKinnon, Gary McKinnon: Inside the head of a super hacker, 2006).

He was looking for UFOs and free energy. He was asked “What were you looking for at Nasa?” He replied “Suppressed evidence of reverse engineered UFO technology, free energy that would help to stop climate change and would help to stop old age pensioners from dying of cold... and also evidence of anti-gravity” (McKinnon G. , 'They can't return me to a place I wasn't in', 2010).

While the US and the UK government were proceeding with his legal battle, it was clear that he was not any member of any terror group and he had no motivation to earn money or help terror groups. He also said he’s not a genius nor a criminal or terrorist. It was purely motivated by his childish belief in UFOs from science fiction (McKinnon C. , 2010; McKinnon G. , Gary McKinnon: Inside the head of a super hacker, 2006). In all of his interviews, Gary claimed he found some clue of what he was looking for. He claimed he found “Non-Terrestrial Officers” (McKinnon G. , Jon Ronson meets hacker Gary McKinnon, 2005), a picture of a “silvery, cigar-shaped object with geodesic spheres on either side” which he believed was a device made by alien, not human and a picture was taken from a Satellite?(Wired, 2006), secret spaceship, “off-planet" (McKinnon G. , Jon Ronson meets hacker Gary McKinnon, 2005), etc. It was his motivation to continue his search for UFOs. However, as he used a very slow dial-up modem, he was struggling to download large files and roam around quickly enough.

We can also link his act with his Asperger’s syndrome which is some kind of autism. It could be a case that this illness inspired him to find some enjoyment in some act which we see in some autistic people (SickKids, 2009).

Learning and takeaway

??????????Gary’s hacking act was like whistleblowing for the information security community. People never could think that NASA and other US Government systems will have so little security hardening to stop unwanted intruders. It was not only Gary himself, he saw hackers roaming around from “Denmark, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Thailand …” in the US systems (McKinnon G. , Jon Ronson meets hacker Gary McKinnon, 2005). This is a very unpleasant story for security experts. From his act and case, we can draw the following learning for us:

• Information security awareness should be a top priority to educate employees about DOs and DONTs. It would not be easy for Gary if the firewall admin kept a Windows System open from the Internet.
• Extra precautions should be taken for privileged accounts. Their password should be stronger than general users. Gary was looking for administrative accounts with no password or a weak password and found a way to get inside.
• Proper security monitoring and detection capability should be in place. If US Government systems had enough monitoring on the system, network and communication then they could detect and prevent Gary’s access within a few hours or days.
• We should not motivate children to believe in superficial things. Gary’s stepfather encouraged him to read science fiction but also inspired him to believe in them. He became obsessed with UFOs and that was his main motivation to search for the truth; finding nothing on the open Internet, he tried to get into the US Military systems.
• Information sharing can be more open, and education should be under quality teachers and care. If Gary found convincing information on the open Internet or if he found a better caring education during his childhood, probably he would not try anything silly.
• We need to be more careful with our child’s mental growth and see doctors about any abnormal behavior. Probably, Gary showed signs of abnormality during childhood which his parents ignored.
• Gary’s had to fight for around a decade. This proves that we have improvement opportunities in the legal system. His case was politically motivated between two friendly countries. The legal system should be free from any motivation and human rights should be considered with priority.

Conclusion

????Whether Gary McKinnon was a criminal or an innocent athirst explorer, his act will remain a subject of information security protection. It is already a memorable legal battle of extradition in UK history. It will shape our future cybersecurity culture and the importance of protecting our crown jewels from unknown threat actors. It also proves that, a simple inspiration from movies or family members, how a kid can grow unmanaged and become the actor of the “biggest military computer hack of all time”.

Footnotes

[1] https://smallseo.co.uk/about-me-gary-mckinnon/

[2] https://help.logmein.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/What-is-RemotelyAnywhere

[3] https://www.logmein.com/remotelyanywhere

[4] https://theagency.co.uk/the-clients/john-fletcher/

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