David Gilmour To Appear on New CD To Benefit British UFO Hacker
— April 17, 2009 1 136Maybe he’s just curious about UFOs himself, or perhaps just doesn’t think that breaking into government computers is a serious crime, but whatever the case, Pink Floyd veteran David Gilmour is lending his talent in support of a forthcoming CD that is intended to benefit self-proclaimed British hacker Gary McKinnon.
Back in 2001, the 43-year-old unemployed systems administrator is alleged to have had his way with a number of government computer systems in the U.S. Among them were systems belonging to NASA and the Defense Department.
Needless to say, the year 2001 wasn’t the best time to pass one’s time by hacking into U.S. government computers due to increased awareness surrounding these kinds of things after the 9/11 attacks. McKinnon admits he penetrated U.S. government systems, but claims he was only seeking evidence that would reveal the real truth about UFOs.
I think there are a lot of people who could sympathize with his desire to get to the bottom of the whole UFO thing, but hacking government computers probably wasn’t the best way to go about it. He did get caught, after all.
For seven years McKinnon has been fighting extradition to the United States where he would probably face charges that could land him in prison for up to sixty years, or possibly even more.
McKinnon has been gaining more support in recent months after London’s mayor penned a newspaper editorial that appealed to U.S. President Barack Obama to halt the efforts to extradite the curious hacker, and even suggested that the whole affair was a “comment on American bullying.”
The U.S. Government says that McKinnon’s shenanigans resulted in almost a million dollars in damage to various computer systems, and was also responsible for the shutdown of several critical military computer networks shortly after the 9/11 attacks.
The new CD is set for release next month and McKinnon’s supporters hope it will help get President Obama’s attention.
So far, Gilmour is the only artist on the CD that has been identified, although there are others who have participated whose names have not yet been revealed.
One can’t help but think that there are better ways to investigate UFOs other than breaking into computer systems. As a former systems administrator himself, McKinnon had to be well aware of the risks involved in that kind of activity. He will surely have plenty of time on his hands to read all the UFO literature in existence and watch every television program ever produced on the subject of UFOs if he finds himself confined to a prison cell for sixty years or so.
Head on over to Computer World for more on this story.
1 Comment
The British government should be ashamed for even considering to extradite McKinnon to the US. The Us just want to punish him because he made the US government look stupid. But no security on the Pentagon computers is pretty stupid.