An unemployed British computer administrator will fight U.S. efforts to extradite him to face criminal charges in what U.S. authorities are calling the largest ever successful hacking effort against American military networks, his lawyer said Wednesday. . .
An unemployed British computer administrator will fight U.S. efforts to extradite him to face criminal charges in what U.S. authorities are calling the largest ever successful hacking effort against American military networks, his lawyer said Wednesday.

Gary McKinnon, 36, of London was indicted in federal courts in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday on eight counts of computer-related crimes. They included break-ins over 12 months at 92 separate U.S. military and National Aeronautics and Space Administration networks across 14 states, including two at the Pentagon. McKinnon also was accused of hacking the networks of six private companies and organizations.

McKinnon, known on the Internet as "SOLO," remains free although he was briefly held by British authorities, U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty said. He said the Justice Department will seek to extradite McKinnon, a rare move in international hacking cases.

His lawyer Karen Todner accused U.S. prosecutors of a "political" motivation in seeking extradition, saying in a statement in London that it was "proposed to make an example of Mr. McKinnon." Todner said British authorities have the opportunity to charge McKinnon and try him in England.

Her statement stopped short of professing McKinnon's innocence, although she added: "We also wish to emphasize on behalf of Mr. McKinnon that he has no terrorist links whatsoever."

McKinnon was charged in "the biggest hack of military computers ever, at least ever detected," McNulty said. He estimated the damage, including the cost to reinstall software on the affected computers, at $900,000.

Officials said they intend to prosecute McKinnon separately in Virginia and New Jersey. McKinnon faces up to 10 years in prison plus fines of $250,000 on each of eight counts, McNulty said.

Using automated software available on the Internet, McKinnon used his home computer to scan tens of thousands of computers on U.S. military networks, looking for ones that might suffer from flaws in Microsoft Corp. Windows NT operating system software, McNulty said. Many of the computers he broke into were protected by easy-to-guess passwords, investigators said.

McKinnon downloaded sensitive, but not classified, information about subjects that included Navy shipbuilding and munitions, investigators said. But there was no evidence that he offered the information to foreign governments or terrorist organizations, McNulty said.

"I suppose he was hoping to gain access to classified information," McNulty said, acknowledging that authorities weren't certain of a motive for the break-ins.

U.S. officials sought to reassure the public that only about 100 of the military's networks were apparently vulnerable to break-ins out of tens of thousands that McKinnon allegedly probed.

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