Arrested in November 2002 by officers from the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit, Gary McKinnon, 39, of north London faces extradition over claims that he gained illegal access and made alterations to US military and NASA computers over a 12-month period from 2001 to 2002.
Using software available on the internet, McKinnon – an unemployed systems administrator – allegedly carried out what has been called the biggest military computer hack of all time. The US Government estimated the cost of identifying and fixing its problems at around $1 million.
McKinnon was indicted in 2002 by a US grand jury on eight counts of computer-related crimes in 14 different states and was arrested yesterday by the Metropolitan Police's Extradition Unit.
The US indictment said he hacked into an Army computer at Fort Myer, Virginia, obtained administrator privileges and transmitted codes, information and commands before deleting about 1,300 user accounts.
It alleged he also deleted critical system files on the computer, copied a file containing usernames and encrypted passwords for the computer and installed tools to gain unauthorised access to other machines.