Pink Floyd lead singer backs British hacker in song

Gary McKinnon, a British hacker whose has been fighting extradition to the U.S. since 2002, is getting massive support from some well-known musicians, including David Gilmour frontman and lead guitarist for the English rock band, Pink Floyd. Gilmour has recorded a song for an upcoming CD that's now being put together to support McKinnon.
4/20/2009 6:00:00 AM By: Sharon Gaudin

A British hacker who has been fighting extradition to the U.S. for the past seven years is getting support from some well-known musical backers.

David Gilmour, singer and guitarist for the iconic English rock bank Pink Floyd, has already recorded a song for an upcoming CD that's now being put together to support Gary McKinnon, 43, according to Janis Sharp, McKinnon's mother. McKinnon is an admitted hacker who in 2001 broke into computer systems in the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA and the U.S. Army.

McKinnon, who was an unemployed system administrator in the U.K. at the time of the 2001 hack, has been using a series of legal maneuvers and appeals over the past seven years to fight extradition to the United States.

McKinnon was indicted in November 2002 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on eight counts of computer fraud related to hacking incidents that allegedly damaged 105 U.S. government, military and corporate networks.

McKinnon, known by his hacker handle "Solo," is charged with seven counts of computer fraud and related activity in Virginia and one count in New Jersey stemming from a year-long hacking spree.

"Hacking spree"

The indictment alleges that between March 2001 and March 2002 he broke into and damaged 92 computers belonging to the Pentagon, Army, Navy, Air Force and NASA, as well as six systems owned and operated by private U.S. companies.

Once inside a network, McKinnon is alleged to have installed remote administration and hacker tools, copied password files and other sensitive but unclassified files and deleted user accounts and other critical system files. In at least one instance, McKinnon's hacking activity allegedly caused a major military network in Washington to shut down for three days in February 2002.

Losses stemming from his hacking are estimated to be $900,000, according to the indictment.

"The significance of this case is that [with] his access to these records, he was able to impair the integrity of the data on these systems," according to Paul J. McNulty, who was U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia at the time of McKinnon's indictment. (Later appointed as Deputy Attorney General of the U.S. McNulty is now a partner at the law firm of Baker & McKenzie LLP in their Washington, D.C. office).

McKinnon allegedly "scanned tens of thousands of systems" before taking advantage of known vulnerabilities in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system installed on the targeted computers.

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