Pink Floyd star David Gilmour joins fight to halt extradition to US of hacker Gary McKinnon

guardian.co.uk ^ | May 25, 2009 | Duncan Campbell

[pfflier]

Sounds like a cause without a clue.

[bornred]

So his excuse is that he is a social retard? Is that the best he could come up with?

Sounds like he needs to hire more lawyers and fewer musicians.

[Marie2]

We can’t just let people hack into our sensitive state secrets and data. What are we supposed to do? Say if you have Asperger’s, or someone says you have Asperger’s, snoop away?

That said, I believe he will get a fair trial, and the jury can consider his ability to know between right and wrong.

[max americana]

These aging, has-beens just have too much time on their hands.

[Big_Monkey]

I love how all these millionaire musician-types are all for prosecuting people who download their copyrighted material, but think that America should turn the other cheek when some of our most sensitive defense information is illegally accessed.

Mr. Hypocrisy, table for one.

[wku man]

Well crapola! Dave Gilmore is one of my long-time favorite guitarists. Why do these dumbf***s have to ruin things by opening their big mouths?

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[piytar]

Aging has-beens looking for some press by latching onto the defense of someone who blatantly violated US laws and national security i.e. a libdolt cause? Gee, I’m shocked. NOT.

[editor-surveyor]

Acid rot of the brain no doubt.

[Tzimisce]

Come on, all he did was break US law.

If he was an American citizen, he’d be working for the Obama administration right now - just like Tim Geitner. :)

[BillyKess]

What a shame. I am an avid Pink Floyd fan, too. Love their music. But just like when I went to see Roger Waters at Jones Beach in 2006, and out comes this giant floating pig with the words “Don’t get slaughtered; vote democrat” and “Bush is a war monger” on them, it made me angry.

Shut up and sing. I want to tell these guys.

Now Gilmour, too. Another awesome musician who hasn’t a clue I am sorry to say.

[Rastus]

With Dave, I just pretend he didn’t really say it. Waters is an absolute idiot and it can’t be ignored, but Dave never said anything objectionable in his life. In fact, I think he sits around playing guitar and pining for the Reagan years.

That’s what I tell myself. Now, I’m going to spin up some Mihalis.

[stainlessbanner]

Hey Sting forget the rainforests...save a hacker

[PLMerite]

I bet if he’d stolen their credit card numbers or (horrors!) shared their songs on a peer-to-peer network they’d want his head on a pike.

[ViLaLuz]

I thought the same exact thing.

[pepperdog]

Most excellent observation! Millionaire hypocrites defending an idiot. Kind of sounds like some of our congressmen doesn’t it?

[Mr. Peabody]

He was searching for information on UFO technology.

[smokingfrog]

I guess we should be thanking him for showing us how incredibly lax our computer security is.

[smokingfrog]

He was searching for information on UFO technology.

Did he find anything? That's what I want to know. Supposedly he did some damage to their computer systems.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

We can’t just let people hack into our sensitive state secrets and data. What are we supposed to do? Say if you have Asperger’s, or someone says you have Asperger’s, snoop away?

McKinnon claims he was able to find multiple accounts with blank passwords in his hunt for evidence of UFOs and aliens. If so, then what he's done barely qualifies as a hack and he's done the US military an enormous service by exposing the stupidity of military system administrators who can't be bothered to set a password. Chinese and Russian military hackers are doubtless laughing their heads off.