Alleged hacker arrested in Shetland

[scoots]

Paulb,

 

It's ultimately going to be up to the legal authorities to decide where the crime was complete. That's important and, as I said before, there's obviously been agreement between the CPS and the Scottish version before they'd travel up and nick him. Think on another Shetlnad resident who was accused by the US of committing cybercrimes. The crime was committed THERE even though he was HERE. The same holds true for this one, it seems, only in this case as the English authorities were involved, they found it easier to travel up for him than the US did in the earlier case.

 

In this case, you're wrong, I'm afraid. He wasn't kidnapped or abducted, he was lawfully arrested. In these cases, English law should apply to the arrest up here, same as Scottish law should if the circumstance was reversed. I think English arrest is different from Scottish as well. Maybe someone who's experienced that, or with more knowledge of that, could confirm or deny...?

 

In the case of cybercrime, as any White Hat hacker can tell you, it's where the "crime" is completed that's most important, not where the hacker is sitting at the time. So he's broken English AND international laws if he's done ad they say, but NOT Scottish.

[shetlandpeat]

but he committed it up here.

 

It may also depend where the server was. If it was in the UK, as he is a resident of the UK then he can be taken to the station the crime was reported at, or the station that has the expertise and/or the facilities to investigate.

If in the USA, then there is a arraignment in place to extradite him there as he is a UK citizen.

My only general concern with extradition to the USA is that they still carry out executions.

[scoots]

For hacking a computer??

 

I mean, a Scots ex-pat (allegedly) got away with murder and skipped Death Row... are you seriously implying this lad may face Old Sparky or the needle for this?

[shetlandpeat]

I was not meaning that this lad could face the death penalty but I was always under the impression that we, the UK did not send folk to countries that use the Death Penalty.

Upon checking, this seams to be selective.

 

The Americans are very vocal about their national security.

 

If they could prove that the hacking was a direct link to a breach of security that could have lead to any American deaths, upon looking at the executions that have taken place their system of judgement and punishment could appear to be odd..

 

Doyle Skillern

TX

White

1/16/1985

 

Accomplice in the murder of an undercover narcotics agent. He was waiting in a car nearby when the murder happened. The shooter is serving a life sentence, but eligible for parole. ("Killers' Fates Diverged; Accomplice Is Executed; Triggerman Faces Parole," Washington Post, January 16, 1985).

 

You would have thought the punishments would have been the other way around.

[EM]

ive just looked what your talking about up. oh heck now i know less than when i started. at least its a crime i will never get nicked for.

I presume you are referring to SQL Injection. It may appear daunting, but I am sure you will be perfectly able to understand the general principle, as well as why it is not particularly difficult to protect against.

 

Consider any typical webpage with a form for requesting some information. Take for example the login to Shetlink. When you type in your username and password these text strings are retrieved from the form and sent to a script on the server for processing. In many cases the script will use these strings to build a query to a database. These are typically SQL database queries, hence the generic term SQL Injection.

 

If, instead of providing a normal string, a cracker includes some funny stuff (escape characters) the resulting SQL query can be made to do things which the website owner will not welcome. Deleting database tables is quite simple. Accessing unauthorised material is also sometimes possible, though a bit trickier. I think that most people will agree that it isn't very difficult to notice that:

 

$username = "paulb"

... is fine. Whereas (using a nice example from Wikipedia):

 

$username = "a';DROP TABLE `users`; SELECT * FROM `userinfo` WHERE 't' = 't"

... looks a tad suspicious. It is extremely simple for the server script to check the variables passed in, and filter out such attack strings. For NATO not to have done so is incredible.

 

I should perhaps add that I am in no way being scornful of the simplicity of many of LulzSec's hacking techniques. Indeed the very "David and Goliath" (sling rather than big club) nature of their attacks greatly increases the lightness of their grey hats and enhances their position when they argue they are exposing the laxness of institutions who have a societal duty to protect personal information (though, of course, that is not their only declared objective).

[paulb]

that i can understand. have you thought of being a teacher.

[dtothet]

it is ridiculous that most of their 'hacks' were based on sql injection. I've made a couple of websites for advertising the most minor things (in comparison to the cia/soca) and the first thing I do on a contact page is check that escape characters are removed from any data

 

i guess lulzsec are right to say so many sites have terrible terrible security, which i think their original point was to point this out in as humorous a way possible. then they got a lot of attention and tried to be more mature and pretend they were hacking for a cause, when they really have no specific cause. how can they claim that topiary was politically motivated when his motivations against hacking each site are all over the place?

 

also i still dont get the fascination with nyan cat

[unlinkedstudent]

but he committed it up here.

 

Noooo he ALLEGEDLY committed it in cyberspace but regardless, Scottish Courts have arrangements in place with the English/Welsh judicial system and vice versa.

[JAStewart]

A terrorist in Norway kills 80 people and can be sentenced to a maximum of 21 years

Jake Davis is a hacker and faces a maximum of 10 years.

 

Damn legal system, you scary!

[scoots]

Different countries, different legal systems. If Breivik had done that in the US, he would likely face a life sentence for each death, to run consecutively, regardless of his natural lifespan. Hate to think what they'd give Mr Davis, if he was found guilty. He'd probably end up in a Federal penitentiary, getting to know the Aryan Brotherhood...!!

[nebheperure]

It would be interesting to know how many people would have died if someone like Breivik would commited his/her killing in Shetlands. Any ideas?>

[scoots]

That's not the sort of thing I'd like to spend time considering. Sorry.

[nebheperure]

...dark windy winter is comming in the near future

demons wake up scootyyyy... think about it.

[scoots]

"demons"??

 

"scooty"????

[icepick239]

It would be interesting to know how many people would have died if someone like Breivik would commited his/her killing in Shetlands. Any ideas?>

...dark windy winter is comming in the near future

demons wake up scootyyyy... think about it.

[***Mod edit - comment removed***] - no it's ok, you don't have to answer that..