So -- Gary McKinnon

[xiphias]

The BBC rebroadcast a piece of an interview they did with him last year.

The background of his story: he hacked into NASA and Pentagon computers in order to find out if they were hiding information about UFOs, aliens, and antigravity drives. This was remarkably easy for him to do, because many of the computers were Windows machines with blank Administrator passwords.

Frankly, I've got to ask -- if you're running Windows, and you don't actually set an Administrator password, and someone accesses your files, can you REALLY claim that they're hacking? I mean, c'mon -- if you walk through an unlocked door, you may be trespassing, but you're not breaking and entering.

Anyway. . .

So, McKinnon claims that
1. A NASA scientist said in an internal thingy that he found that they airbrush out the alien vehicles from pictures from Building 8 so that people don't see them.

2. He found the non-retouched pictures from Building 8, and there was an alien spacecraft in it.

3. He found Excel spreadsheets that were about personell transfers from one ship to another -- and several of the ship names show up nowhere else, and one of the personell spreadsheets was titled "Non-Terrestrial Officers."

So, I've been thinking about possible explanations for this.
Explanation #1: He's lying. I mean, that's always one that you've got to suspect. He broke into the computers, 'cause, well, if he didn't, why would the Pentagon be upset, but is just making up what he found.

Explanation #2: The things he saw in the photos weren't alien spacecraft, but rather, weird-looking scaffolding or something like that -- and the Excel spreadsheets were for a roleplaying game one of the NASA scientists was running, doing personal hobby stuff on a work machine.

Explanation #3: NASA and the Pentagon are covering up the existence of, not only alien spacecraft, but an entire spaceborne branch of the military.

Personally, I like #2 the best. Any other thoughts?

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Actually, walking through an unlocked door without authorization *is* B&E, at least in Massachusetts. Pushing open the door constitues the "breaking" element of the crime. If your intent is to commit a further crime, such as the taking of property that doesn't belong to you, it then becomes burglary.

http://dictionary.law.com/default2.asp?selected=98&bold=

"Failure to secure does not imply permission to access."

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

There are many complications to this, especially in the twisted mass of the MGL; for example, areas where service personnel (mailmen) could reasonably expect to be allowed are considered part of the curtilage, and do not comprise areas for trespass or B&E unless you explicitly mark the edge of your property. This is different than, say, TX, where I imagine you're allowed to shoot people on your property, whether or not they know it...or NY, where you can be in a "public" place up to but not past the time when you are asked to leave (plus a reasonable amount of time to leave the property) -- except if you're living there, in which case you're squatting and can't be evicted by simple declaration, ...it gets complex.

That being said, "unauthorized access of a remote system" has been codified as a crime, whether or not that system has absolutely no security on it. Wish I could find the reference on this right now.

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

You're close on TX, but not quite exact. Someone I know in TX was being hassled by someone else. The first someone's lawyer advised that if the hassler showed up on the hasslees doorstep, the hasslee should shoot him, then drag his body across the threshold and call the cops. I guess even in TX you're supposed to let the intruder actually get into the house before blasting away.