Pentagon über-hacker rap sheet spills attack details

My kingdom for a felt-tip pen

By John Leyden • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 11th July 2005 10:44 GMT

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THe US indictment against alleged Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon reveals the IP addresses of attacked computers.

The rap sheet against the suspected über-hacker contains the IP addresses of the Pentagon, US Air Force, and other Department of Defense servers he's accused of breaking into as part of an alleged quest to unraveling the truth about UFOs. These addresses are masked in a publically available PDF version of the indictment out of concerns their publication might invite further assaults.

Except that, as Reg readers discovered, if you copy the PDF text into Acrobat Reader and then paste it into a text editor, the IP Addresses are unmasked and very-much readable. We only hope the hacked systems have now been hardened, preferably by nobody involved in the botched obfuscation job.

McKinnon (AKA Solo), 39, of Wood Green, north London, allegedly hacked into 53 military and NASA computers over a 12 month period from February 2001 until March 2002. The unemployed sysadmin faces an extradition hearing at London's Bow Street Magistrates Court on 27 July, following his arrest early last month. ®