Hacker accused of 'biggest military computer hack of all time' reveals what he saw in NASA's systems
The internet has given us access to some incredible stories from hackers who share their journeys and techniques.
From demonstrating how easily smart devices can be compromised to expose personal information, to one famous hacker who triggered the biggest cybersecurity leak in modern US history, we've seen a lot.
Now, a Scottish computer hacker has opened up about his shocking discoveries while infiltrating NASA's networks.
In 2002, Gary McKinnon was accused of what prosecutors called the 'biggest military computer hack of all time' after breaching 97 government websites. He claimed the motivation behind his hacking was to search for evidence for 'energy and its propulsion.'
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However, what the system administrator allegedly found during his digital intrusion was far more extraordinary than he expected.
Speaking on the American Alchemy podcast with Jesse Michels, McKinnon reportedly found a high-resolution image of a cigar-shaped craft hovering above Earth.
"Then there's like slowly a hemisphere started appearing, and I'm thinking that's a planet. [..] And then suddenly there's a big, straight kind of silvery line, cigar-shaped object," McKinnon described. "This thing looked very smooth on the outside. There were no lines[…] no screws and bolts and stuff."
According to McKinnon, some highly sensitive systems had no password protection at all and eventually gained access to networks belonging to the NSA, the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Department of Defense, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and NASA.
"No hacking background… I was good with computers, he said. "I was in my dressing gown up till like four in the morning, smoking weed, drinking beer, just like ride of my life really."
Recalling that he used commercially available software tools to gain his access to the administrator level, he ran keyword searches across thousands of computers.
"The largest I did was 5,000 at one time," McKinnon added. "To have something that was free, it was just too juicy not to have a go at finding."
But what he found inside Building 8 at NASA's Johnson Space Center stunned him.
According to a testimony he read from former NASA contractor Donna Hare, she was shown an image of a large white disc casting a shadow on Earth. But such anomalies were reportedly routinely 'airbrushed' from the images before being released to the public.
But McKinnon didn't stop there and searched files linked to Building 8 NASA's Johnson Space Center which were labelled 'raw' and 'processed.'
One of the files required specific software to view, so the hacker used a 56k dial-up connection and lowered the colour resolution to speed up the transfer.
He described the objects as 'white, silvery,' but couldn't see any antennas or seams so he couldn't confirm whether the object was extraterrestrial. His session then came to an abrupt end when someone disconnected him manually.
"I see the mouse move… someone else is at the computer themselves," he said. "It wasn't your normal space stuff, so I knew that."
When he was found out, McKinnon's hack led to a decade-long extradition battle with the US, where he was threatened with up to 70 years in prison. Although the British government refused to extradite him, an active arrest warrant in the US prevents him from entering the country.