Voices
soil. Last fall, British Home Secretary Theresa May declined to extradite Gary McKinnon, a British citizen, to face charges of breaking into
computer networks of NASA and
the Pentagon in 2002. At the time,
authorities called the break-in “the
biggest military hack of all time.”
McKinnon admitted to accessing
U.S. government computers but
maintains he was only looking for
evidence of UFOs. May sided with
McKinnon’s supporters, who argued that he suffers from Asperger’s syndrome and depression.
“After careful consideration of
all of the relevant material, I have
concluded that Mr McKinnon’s extradition would give rise to such a
high risk of him ending his life that
a decision to extradite would be
incompatible with Mr McKinnon’s
human rights,” May said last fall.
Some accused cybercriminals
have not only avoided extradition
to the United States, they have
even become public figures in
their home countries.
In Ukraine in 2005, police arrested Dmitry Golubov, who went
by the nickname “Script,” and
charged him with running a website
called CarderPlanet.com. The site
was a popular forum for hackers to
exchange data about stolen credit
GERRY
SMITH
HUFFINGTON
08.18.13
cards, a scheme that has cost U.S.
banks millions of dollars in losses.
Golubov had been a fugitive for
years “due to indifference from
Ukrainian authorities,” according to a story in Wired.com. But a
Facebook last year took the
unusual step of publicly
releasing the names, aliases
and photographs of five
Russian cybercriminals
accused of operating a virus
known as “Koobface.”
few months after his arrest, two
Ukrainian politicians persuaded
a local judge to drop the charges
and release Golubov from prison.
Hilbert, who worked on the
case while at the FBI, said the politicians convinced the judge that
“it was a detriment to the Ukrainian economy to keep him in jail.”
“It was hurting those guys
pocketbooks when the guy was
no longer able to pay their
bribes,” Hilbert said.
After his release, Golubov
became the leader of the
Internet Party of Ukraine.
Gerry Smith is a technology
reporter at The Huffington Post.