Flight sim site turns over hacker evidence to UK cops A US-based flight simulator site targeted by a debilitating hacking attack back in May has reportedly tracked its attackers back to the UK. Avsim has forwarded a dossier that provides what it reckons is “incontrovertible evidence" about the hacker's identity to Scotland Yard, the BBC reports. The May attack against Avsim …
If it's costing them £50k to restore the site then they might claim a £50k material loss against the people who wiped their stuff (let's set punitive damages aside). If they'd been doing their job properly and had tape backups then the whole restore would have cost them a matter of a few hundred pounds.
Which would a court be likely to award?
Icon because Paris is clearly looking quizzical on the same issue.
I see PACE has already been mentioned.
If it's a problem with not meeting a standard satisfactory to UK courts, which may be a matter for the CPS to decide rather than the Police, then lets have it clearly explained rather than left to rumour.
But if the UK legal system can't handle this sort of case, we're going to see more extraditions.
(Note to The Vociferous Time Waster: you're correct about civil liability, but there's also the Computer Misuse Act 1990, and this would seem to be a criminal offence under Section 3.)
The scumbag caused a lot of issues for users of the site. It was a great resource for flight-sim add-ins.
Comments such as "doing their job properly" shouldn't be in the discussion. He was contacted before the matter was referred to the men in blue and had his chance which he chose to ignore - the prick is a criminal, and he deserves to get his come-uppance.
I'm interested to see how this one turns out- does the Gary McKinnon case not establish that cross border computer crime is under the jurisdiction of the victim's country and not where the perpetrator was, at least in the minds of the British authorities? If they do prosecute this guy over here, I reckon Gary would be fairly justified in feeling hard done by.
Huh. I've always half-suspected that the real reason Gary McKinnon has been pimp-slapped by the Yanks the way he has is actually because the "prison cell" that awaits him is in actuality a reasonably well-appointed apartment in a nice, deniable NSA compound somewhere in Virginia, patrolled by friendly guards called Chip and Buck who can quite cheerfully kill you with a fingernail. Then maybe I watch too many movies.
"Please Mr Policeman arrest this person because we found these numbers in a file."
Is this data from their ISP, or data from a machine run by a bunch of guys who have already seen two of their machines rooted, and didn't have backups of crucial data.
I want to see the perps screwed, but the brutal fact is that there are some scenarios in which forensic evidence is going to be hard to come by.
"We fully expect that the criminal complaint...will result in the perpetrator spending some time behind bars - under UK law."
They clearly have a vastly optimistic view of the UK police and Crown Proscecution Service. Don't they know that they only people prosecuted in the UK are (1) those that commit minor infractions such as not closing their bin lids; (2) teenagers who download pirate copies of music and movies; and (3) those that fight back against burglars or muggers.
"If there lag of protection is reason enough not to prosecute the offender..."
No because most people do not expect to be stabbed at any point in their life so protection is moot.
However ANY sysadmin with an IQ above room temperature knows that discs WILL fail occasionally so he or she should always have a reasonably current backup of some description.
Paris, she knows the value of proper protection.
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