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Gary McKinnon, also known as Solo, (born in Glasgow in 1966), the UK systems administrator who hacked into Nasa and Pentagon computers in 2001 and 2002, is today making a last-ditch bid to avoid extradition to the US.

He has appealed to House of Lords which will decide in three weeks whether he should be handed over to USA or not. In case of rejection of appeal the hacker faces a possible life sentence.

McKinnon has been accused by the United States of perpetrating the “biggest military computer hack of all time” from his bedroom as he hacked into NASA and other US military computers.

Gary McKinnon

According to the details he gained unauthorised remote access to 70 US-based computers, including those of Nasa, the US Department of Defense and the US Air Force, Army and Navy.

The US estimates claim the costs of tracking and correcting the problems he allegedly caused were around $700,000.

Following legal hearings in the UK it was decided in July 2006 that he should be extradited to the United States. In February 2007 his lawyers argued against the ruling in an appeal to the High Court in London, which was turned down on April 3.

McKinnon is fighting extradition on the grounds that, although he admits accessing some the computers, he was not a threat to security and was looking only for information about UFOs, antigravity and free energy technology.

Lawyers acting for McKinnon insist that he has become a convenient scapegoat for appalling lapses in US military security as he broke into the Pentagon’s computers using a simple Perl script that searched for blank passwords; in other words his report suggests that there were computers on these networks with the default passwords active.

At the Infosecurity Europe 2006 conference in London on April 27, 2006, McKinnon appeared on the Hackers’ Panel. When asked how his exploits were first discovered, McKinnon answered that he had miscalculated the timezone — he was using remote-control software to operate a Windows computer while its user was sitting in front of it.

McKinnon was originally tracked down and arrested under the Computer Misuse Act by the UK National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) in 2002 who informed him that he would face community service. The Crown Prosecution Service refused to charge him. It was not until 2005, when the UK and US signed a new extradition treaty, that the US began proceedings against him.

He has never been charged in the UK.