United States have been Hacked

[coolshano]

Accused British hacker offers guilty plea in U.K.

Updated Mon. Jan. 12 2009 12:31 PM ET

The Associated Press

LONDON -- A British man accused of hacking into U.S. military computers is offering to plead guilty to a criminal charge in Britain to avoid extradition to the United States, his lawyer said Monday.

Attorney Karen Todner said Gary McKinnon has signed a statement admitting an offense under Britain's Computer Misuse Act. She said she was hopeful Britain's director of public prosecutions would accept the plea, allowing McKinnon to face proceedings in Britain rather than the U.S.

The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed it had received the letter from McKinnon's legal team and said it was considering its contents.

U.S. prosecutors say McKinnon, 42, broke into 97 computers belonging to NASA, the Department of Defense and several branches of the military from a bedroom in a north London home, causing nearly $1 billion in damage.

McKinnon says he was looking for evidence of UFOs and only succeeded in his hack because of lax security. His lawyers say any alleged offense that took place in Britain should be tried in Britain.

But British and European courts have rejected repeated legal attempts to prevent his extradition.

Next week McKinnon's lawyers will ask the High Court to allow them one more challenge to the government's decision to approve extradition. They say officials failed to consider that McKinnon has recently been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism.

If the court refuses, McKinnon will have exhausted his legal options.

McKinnon's alleged hacks -- which took place soon after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States -- shut down the U.S. Army district responsible for protecting Washington, D.C., and cleared logs from computers at Naval Weapons Station Earle in northern New Jersey, which tracks the location and battle-readiness of U.S. Navy ships.

McKinnon was caught in 2002 when investigators traced software used in the attacks to his girlfriend's e-mail account. If he is extradited to the United States, he will face trial on eight charges of computer fraud. Each count could bring a sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but U.S. prosecutors have said he would likely receive a much lighter sentence.

 

[coolshano]

Computer hackers in China have called a halt to their online war with internet users from the United States.

The so-called Honker Union of China - an informal union of Chinese hackers - says it has successfully attacked more than a thousand United States websites.

Now, the hackers say they have reached their goal and are calling a truce.


Any attacks from this point on have no connection to the Honker Union

Honker Union of China
The cyberwar began after a mid-air collision between a US spyplane and a Chinese fighter aircraft on 1 April.

The Chinese plane crashed into the sea killing its pilot while the US plane and its crew of 24 was held by China. The crew was released 11 days later.

As the US crew were still being held, US hackers broke into hundreds of Chinese sites, leaving messages such as "We will hate China forever and we will hack its sites".

Hackers, such as this man from Taiwan, took either the US or the Chinese side
A hacker accesses a Chinese government website
In response, the Honker Union announced it would launch its own electronic graffiti blitz. Tit-for-tat web defacements followed, causing damage to sites run in both countries.

At the time, the Honker Union called on Chinese software engineers to increase internet security on Chinese websites, which had been attacked by American hackers.

Correspondents say companies from both countries scrambled to patch up security systems and to temporarily shut down web sites deemed a security risk.


Because of this incident, network security in China will see great improvement. At least more people will become serious about building up network security

Gao Yongan, an executive at the Beijing-based network security firm NSFocus

A statement by the Honker Union, carried by Chinese portal Chinabyte, says: "Any attacks from this point on have no connection to the Honker Union."

The Honker Union of China statement called for improving network security in China, and said that the sites that were violated were mostly small.

"Because of this incident, network security in China will see great improvement. At least more people will become serious about building up network security," the statement said.

Gao Yongan, an executive at the Beijing-based network security firm NSFocus, said many web sites would be vulnerable to hacker attacks until network administrators tightened up the security of their servers.

Most hacker attacks, including web site defacements, are made through a chain of passive servers that act as springboards.

Mr Yongan, who claims to be a reformed hacker, said: "The only way to solve this problem is to improve the global network safety level, and to make sure that no computers are available for attackers to use."