London man arrested for 2001 NASA hacking

Gary McKinnon was indicted for the crime in the U.S. in 2002

By Peter Sayer

June 8, 2005 12:00 PM ET

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IDG News Service - Police in London arrested an unemployed computer systems administrator yesterday, more than two years after U.S. authorities said they would request his extradition to answer charges of hacking U.S. government computer systems.
Gary McKinnon, 39, was arrested at his home in northeast London at 6.30 p.m. local time and taken to a central London police station. He will appear in court later today at an extradition hearing, according to a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police Service, London's police force.
Although McKinnon was indicted in the U.S. in November 2002 (see story), London police received the extradition warrant only recently, the spokeswoman said.
The extradition warrant alleges that McKinnon gained illegal access and made unauthorized modifications to 53 computers belonging to NASA, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force between Feb. 1, 2001, and March 19, 2002, she said.
McKinnon was indicted by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on seven counts of fraud and related activity in connection with computers. The indictment alleges that he obtained administrator privileges on a number of government computers and then used this power to delete user accounts and install software enabling him to remotely control the computers.

Reprinted with permission from

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Story copyright 2009 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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