Brief Summary
In 2002 Gary McKinnon, a Scottish citizen, was accused of hacking into the United States military and NASA computers. He hacked into these systems using a script called “Perl” that searches for blank passwords on the military and NASA computers. He used the alias “Solo” to protect on his identity on the computer of his girlfriend’s aunt in London. The United States government claimed that Gary hacked into total of 97 computers belonging to the military and NASA. The government indicates that he deleted several critical files from their operating system. The deletion of these files lead to them shut down the military network for 2000 computers. According to the report from United States government, Gary posted “Your security is…show more content… The hacked rendered 300 computers inoperable which crippled the supply of munitions deliveries for US Navy Atlantic Fleet. It also deleted all weapon logs at Earle Naval Weapons Station. He was also accused of copying data, account files and user login credentials onto his personal computer. United States government claims that this hack by Gary McKinnon cost them $700,000 to track and correct. When Gary McKinnon was asked why he hacked into the United States Military and NASA computer he claimed that “The Disclosure Project” motivate him to hack into the systems. This project was about finding the evidence of UFOs, antigravity technology, and the suppression of free energy. His main reason was to find classified documents about unidentified flying objects and publish them. He believes this to be a humanitarian effort. Gary McKinnon was never prosecuted by the United States government because the United Kingdom claims that Gary was battling Asperger’s syndrome and depression. On the grounds of human rights, because of his condition, they cannot extradite him to the…show more content… In many cases the motive of cyber criminals is to make money using any means necessary. Cyber criminals range from a few lone actors who are just out for themselves, to big cybercrime organizations. The big cybercrime organization are financed and headed by traditional criminal organizations. Cyber criminals participate in a rich underground economy, where they buy, sell and trade attack toolkits, zero day exploit code, botnet services, and much more. They also buy and sell private information and intellectual property stolen from victims. Over the years hackers have grown sophisticated in their way of committing these crimes. They use sophisticated method to commit crime making it hard for law enforcement to prosecute. Hacking is a complex crime because it is very hard to detect and prosecute. In order for law enforcement to prosecute these criminals they have to develop tools that will match up with the hackers. According McQuade (2006) in “Technology Enabled Crime” he reveals that understanding and maintaining relatively complex crime is initially quite difficult, and there is continual competition between the criminals and law enforcement for technological advantage. As criminals do something new and innovative, law enforcement must catch up in order to avert, control, deter, and prevent new forms of