Posted on behalf of Katrina Charles, BA Media Fellow

Gary McKinnon, the “biggest military computer hack of all time” (BBC), has lost his battle to avoid extradition to the United States on charges of hacking into 97 US military and NASA computers in 2001 and 2002.

US officials have reportedly said McKinnon should “fry” for his hacking, which was done with a 56k dial-up modem.

This bumbling computer nerd says he was looking for information on Unidentified Flying Objects. But did he find anything? Wired’s blog notes that “most of the intrusions were into Army computers, when everyone knows the Air Force is hiding the UFOs”. Oh, and he was stoned most of the time too, they report.

“It wasn’t just an interest in little green men and flying saucers,” McKinnon says. “I believe that there are spacecraft, or there have been craft, flying around that the public doesn’t know about.”

The BBC claims the search became an obsession, an addiction, resulting in him losing his job and his girlfriend.

In one attack he is reported to have shutdown between 300 and 2,000 computers, and caused damages of between $700,000 and $900,000.

Apparently, it was all too easy for the former hairdresser. “They had no passwords or firewalls,” says his mum, Janis Sharp (Scotsman). “They are embarrassed, and that is why they are going after him,” she said.

McKinnon has reportedly rejected a plea bargain (although he claims they wouldn’t put anything in writing – watch him on YouTube), which would see him serve six to 12 months in the US before returning to the UK to serve about a further year. But now he faces sentences ranging from three years to 70 years at Guantanamo Bay, which is still an improvement on the electric chair (Sky News).

The appeals court said it would “imperil the integrity” (New York Times) of the extradition treaty of 2003 (Mr McKinnon was arrested in 2002) if McKinnon were allowed to stay in Britain.

Next stop in the appeals process: European Court of Human Rights.