Huffington Magazine Issue 62 | Page 31

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.