--- title: "The guy who committed the biggest hack of the US military is still free" date: "2018-04-02" modified: "2020-10-21" authors: - name: "Blake Stilwell" job_title: "Editor-In-Chief, Air Force Veteran" link: "https://www.wearethemighty.com/authors/blake/" url: "https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/guy-committed-biggest-hack-us-military-still-free/" categories: - "Military News" - "Technology" --- # The guy who committed the biggest hack of the US military is still free ![]() In 2001, Gary McKinnon wreaked havoc on the computer systems at the Department of Defense. DoD estimates McKinnon's hacks of Army, Navy, Air Force, NASA, and other DoD computer systems caused more than $800,000 in damages between February 2001 and March 2002. --- He was looking for evidence of UFOs. He says it's all there. "It was above the Earth's hemisphere. It kind of looked like a [satellite](). It was cigar-shaped and had geodesic domes above, below, to the left, the right and both ends of it, and although it was a low-resolution picture it was very close up. This thing was hanging in space, the earth's hemisphere visible below it, and no rivets, no seams, none of the stuff associated with normal man-made manufacturing." He claimed he [found]() evidence of NASA altering photos to remove strange shapes from the sky, a list of non-terrestrial officers, logs of ships named *USSS LeMay* and *USSS Hillenkoetter*, all with a dial-up 56k connection. ![]() "I can't remember," McKinnon told the [Guardian]() in 2005. "I was smoking a lot of dope at the time. Not good for the intellect." He also claimed he found evidence of free energy production, called "Zero-Point" Energy, being suppressed by the U.S. government. "I knew that governments suppressed antigravity, UFO-related [technologies](), free energy or what they call zero-point energy. This should not be kept hidden from the public when pensioners can't pay their fuel bills." In October of 2012, British Home Secretary Theresa May withdrew the extradition order to have McKinnon sent to the United States to face trial. Her concern is McKinnon's Asperger's Syndrome would lead him to commit suicide if he were sent to the U.S., where he faced 70 years in prison and $2 million in fines. The UK opted not to prosecute him due to the complications which would arise from trying him in the UK for a crime where the evidence is across the Atlantic Ocean. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=18v=ipaFr6ukZ1A "Once you're on the network, you can do a command called NetStat – Network Status – and it lists all the connections to that machine," he said. "There were hackers from Denmark, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Thailand… every night for the entire five to seven years I was doing this." McKinnon's hacking is widely known as the "biggest of all time." These days, McKinnon is still a free man who started [Small SEO](), a site which charges £40 an hour to help businesses get prominently mentioned in search engine results. To this day, he cannot travel outside of the United Kingdom but has no restrictions on his ability to use computers. ### NOW: The 5 most dangerous hackers of all time ### OR: 7 criminals who messed with the wrong veterans ## Author Blake Stilwell is We Are The Mighty's Editor-in-Chief, covering military news, entertainment, and history, along with veteran education, employment and entrepreneurship. He is a former U.S. Air Force combat cameraman with degrees in Graphic Design, Television and Film, International Relations, Public Relations, Business Management and Middle Eastern Affairs. After leaving the military, he began working in film and television production in New York and Los Angeles, work that included ABC News, NBC Olympics, and HBO Sports. He then spent two years in Washington with White House Communications, before joining the Near East Foundation. At NEF he served as an International Development Fellow, then Communications Officer, and finally, Media Officer for the Middle East and Africa. Based in the Palestinian Territory, he coordinated strategic communications between eight country offices, international media, and government and NGO partners. He began a career focused on writing and editing in 2015 with We Are The Mighty. He left in 2019 for Military.com, but returned as Editor-in-Chief in 2025. Blake’s work has been seen on CBS News, Fox News, CBC, The Chicago Tribune, Task & Purpose, Military Times, Recoil, Skillset, American History, and was shockingly even used in a Supreme Court argument. He is an avid traveler and small business owner in Ohio, where he spends most of his energy fixing up a very old house. ### Author social links [Facebook]() [Twitter]() [Instagram]() [LinkedIn]()