Somewhere in the Skies - From Kuji to Solo: Hacking the UFO Mystery

Episode Date: October 1, 2018

On episode 76 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan weaves the digital web of events that centered around two computer hackers, a decade apart from one another, who were accused of the largest NASA, U.S. mi...litary, and U.S. intelligence agency hacks of all time. Having caused millions of dollars in breaches and security damage, both men faced possible extradition to the United States and imprisonment for their cyber crimes. But what exactly was it that they were searching for that seemingly could have caused a world war or even possible nuclear annihilation? Top secret classified information on UFOs. This is the story of Kuji and Solo, the cyber ghosts who chiseled their way through secrecy with ease and discovered that when it comes to wanting the truth about UFOs, there are consequences of epic proportions. Episode written and produced by Ryan Sprague Audio of Gary McKinnon provided by www.RichPlanet.net Audio of Mathew Bevan provided by MrKuji ALIENCON lands in Baltimore on Nov. 9th-11th. For discount tickets, use promo code: SKIES at check out. Visit: www.TheAlienCon.com/register Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com Official Store: CLICK HERE Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Opening and Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with eOne Entertainment SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is sponsored by HelloFresh. To receive 50% off your first order, use promo code: SOMEWHERE50 at checkout by visiting www.HelloFresh.ca   Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Greetings Skywatchers, this is Ryan Sprague, the host of the Summer in the Skies podcast, and I want you to join me at AlienCon. AlienCon lands in Baltimore, Maryland on November 9th, 10th, and 11th. Explore the unexplained with your favorite ancient aliens contributors, UFO researchers, and stars from hit sci-fi and sci-fact television shows and films. I'll personally be giving my solo presentation, and I'll also be joining my good friend and colleague, Jason McClellan of Roke Planet to moderate and take part in panel discussions throughout the weekend. It's going to be a fun and informative weekend for families, serious researchers, and all curious minds alike. And right now, you can get an exclusive somewhere in the sky's discount on all tickets by visiting the aliencon.com
Starting point is 00:00:53 and using the code skies at checkout. We hope to see you at the Baltimore Convention. Center in November, and now on to the show. Two hackers, a decade apart. They've been touted as to the biggest computer hacks of all time into military and government computers, collectively causing millions of dollars in security breaches and damage, one of which could have seemingly caused a world war.
Starting point is 00:01:23 And what were both hackers trying to find? Top secret information on UFOs. is somewhere in the skies with Ryan Sprague. In 2001, Gary McKinnon, a systems administrator in the UK, made international headlines when it was discovered that he had breached the security defenses of NASA, the Defense Department, and several military computer networks. After months and months of hacking,
Starting point is 00:02:27 he'd found his way into some of the most secretive databases in the United States. His goal? to find evidence of suppressed technologies and information about UFOs. With alarmingly weak security, McKinnon sifted through digital data, looking for anything that stood out. Amongst ambiguous images of possible space anomalies and convoluted programs, something caught his attention. It was a spreadsheet that while not directly involving UFOs proved that some
Starting point is 00:03:03 sort of secret space program was being carried out in the most elusive of ways. I found an Excel spreadsheet that was actually called, or at least in the heading of the column, it said non-terrestrial officers. That's like, my bloody God, that's just with ranks and names. And there are separate sheet with tabs for material transfer between ships. But these ships were called USS, whatever, and USS, that implies Navy. And I think the Navy, the Navy do a lot of space stuff. Upon viewing the spreadsheet, McKinnon was able to capture an image of it.
Starting point is 00:03:38 He continued to dig, but this would perhaps be the most compelling data he'd come across. He logged out and decided to end the night playing a computer game, thinking his actions had gone unnoticed like so many times before. But just as he'd fallen asleep, a knock on the door changed the rest of his life. I've only been asleep for a few hours. And next thing I know there's someone They're going to go to McKinnon Go ahead of Kinan
Starting point is 00:04:05 And following me And I woke up to find a detective Whatever he was From the National High Tech Crime Unit Saying you're under arrest for What I assume he said Hacking into Nazak First thing they did was a massive search
Starting point is 00:04:16 They searched my girlfriend They searched me They searched the house They took away the computers Not just the hard drives They took away all the computers I was fixing computers For people as well
Starting point is 00:04:25 They took away all of those After a long time I got back My friend's machines and client's machines that I was fixing. I got them back within a few months. They never gave me back my hard drives because they had evidence on them. But I got a copy of the non-ternational officer spreadsheet, which was encrypted, but I stupidly told them the password. I just fessed up to everything. Because they said, oh, you only get six months, so probably not even that, you'll get
Starting point is 00:04:47 community service, you'll be fine. But everything wasn't fine. After his arrest in the UK, the United States military and government soon got involved, having been the actual victims of the hacking. They claimed that Gary McKinnon had breached NASA, the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Department of Defense, causing damages of around $700,000. In one instance, he's alleged to have deleted files at a United States Naval Weapons Station, shortly after the 9-11 attacks, rendering the base's entire network of more than 300 machines inoperable. These claims, which McKinnon and many other,
Starting point is 00:05:31 Others have argued are patently false and ridiculous, and they would cause such a stir that the U.S. didn't only want McKinnan to pay for the damages. They wanted him extradited and to face the U.S. criminal courts. This extradition became the focus of many news outlets, prompting both Prime Minister at the time, David Cameron and former U.S. President Barack Obama to weigh in on the extradition and the issue of cybersecurity. I mean, clearly there's a discussion going on between the British and the Americans about this, and I don't want to prejudice those discussions. We completely understand that Gary McKinnon stands accused of a very important and significant crime
Starting point is 00:06:17 in terms of hacking into vital databases, and nobody denies that that is an important crime that has to be considered. But I have had conversations with the U.S. ambassador, as well as raising it today, with the president about this issue and I hope a way through can be found. One of the things that David and I discussed was the increasing challenge that we're going to face as a consequence of the internet
Starting point is 00:06:44 and the need for us to cooperate extensively on issues of cybersecurity. We had a brief discussion about the fact that although there may still be efforts to send in spies and try to obtain state secrets through traditional Cold War methods. The truth of the matter is these days
Starting point is 00:07:03 where we're going to see enormous amounts of vulnerability when it comes to information is going to be through these kind of breaches in our information systems. So we take this very serious. As a dark cloud loomed over McKinnon's head for over 10 years, it became clear that he wasn't well.
Starting point is 00:07:25 In fact, it came to light that McKinnon suffered depression and also from Asperger's syndrome, extradition and a long judicial process in the United States would multiply his suffering tenfold for what many considered minor crimes. Many human rights organizations protested the extradition, and McKinnon remained in limbo. Soon, a new prime minister, Theresa May, would take office and would finally take a hard stance on the Gary McKinnon extradition process. In 2012, she made a final decision and presented it to the House of Lords.
Starting point is 00:08:05 Since I came into office, the sole issue on which I have been required to make a decision is whether Mr. McKinnon's extradition to the United States would breach his human rights. Mr. McKinnon is accused of serious crimes. But there is also no doubt that he is seriously ill. He has a spurge's syndrome and suffers from depressive illness. The legal question before me is now whether the extent of that, illness is sufficient to preclude extradition. As the House would expect, I have very carefully considered the representations made on Mr. McKinnon's behalf, including from a number of clinicians,
Starting point is 00:08:39 and I have taken extensive legal advice. After careful consideration of all of the relevant material, I have concluded that Mr. McKinnon's extradition would give rise to such a high risk of him ending his life, that a decision to extradite would be incompatible with Mr. McKinnon's human rights. I have therefore withdrawn the extradition order against Mr. McKinnon. After this decision, which the U.S. was clearly not in favor of, all charges against McKinnon were dropped. An outstanding extradition warrant remains for him in the U.S., but it doesn't seem to bother McKinnan much. He remains safe and secure in the U.K., having founded his own computer company and putting the decade-long nightmare behind him, refusing interviews to speak
Starting point is 00:09:31 about the event, and attempting to move on with his life. Although this UFO hack was widely publicized, it's lesser known that it actually wasn't the first major breach of sensitive material by a civilian looking for information on UFOs. For that, we need to look a little over a decade prior to a hacker who, like McKinnon, suffered the slings in arrows of surveillance, threats, and possible persecution for his curious actions. At a young age, British-born Matthew Bevin was perceived as your typical adolescent. Bullied at times by his peers, he searched to find a community in which to fit within. And like so many loners, he found the world of computers to be his refuge.
Starting point is 00:10:23 spend his nights on a Commodore Amiga 12, tapping into different online forums. This was back in the days of dial-up, so naturally, Bevan's phone bill would have been astronomical. But his first dive into the world of illegal activity came from a friend who offered Bevin a black market program that would use donation to fool the phone companies into believing that no one was using the line. Surfing the net for free, he soon took. tripped upon several bulletin boards, dealing with UFOs. As he began making online friends and digging deeper into the UFO topic, he heard rumors of classified UFO files floating around the different systems.
Starting point is 00:11:10 Some of them belonging to NASA and the military. And soon, Bevan went from being an outcast in the real world to being a hacking prodigy in cyberspace. But his hacks would not go unnoticed, and it soon landed him in the public eye. Good evening. A computer hacker who caused a huge security scare in the United States has spoken for the first time about how he did it. Matthew Bevan from Cardiff was acquitted on Friday of tampering with top secret American Air Force computers, but he's accused the American military of terrifying incompetence. Known by his handle, Coogee, Bevin's first major hack in 1994,
Starting point is 00:11:52 was that of a program called Flex, Force Level Execution. This was at Rome Laboratories, located on Griffith Air Force Base in upstate New York. As he chiseled his way deeper into the system, he realized that with just a few more days, he had the potential to single-handedly launch missiles from the base. Wisely, he decided to veer his focus away from warfare and concentrated solely on trying to find any information, information related to highly advanced aircraft. Searching for space-related activity, he first looked at Goddard Space Center. At the time, it was just another machine, and I'm looking through it,
Starting point is 00:12:35 and I'm finding all these interesting things about space stations and about artificial intelligence battle simulators and battle planners, and you're reading things about statistics from accuracy of missiles during the Gulf War. Now, this is at a time where none of them, that was public. You know, you've got people saying, 80% accuracy, we sent the missiles down and then flew down the streets and took their tongue out. And I'm reading things, say, now, 12, 14% accuracy. Which I thought of it more at the time. That would have been very, very useful information to the press.
Starting point is 00:13:10 But for me, I'm just a kid. You know, I'm just playing on these systems. I'm going, oh, that's not very interesting to me. And, you know, yeah, there's some cone on here that suggests you can detonate nuclear. weapons in it, but I'm not interested in that either. I'm just looking for stuff about UFOs and any sort of conspiracies. He began to download and copy dozens of files that he had found about space-related technology, but this didn't seem to be enough to satisfy Bevan's appetite, and he then shifted his focus to a base that held a hefty reputation for supposedly storing the wreckage of a downed UFO. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base located near
Starting point is 00:13:52 day in Ohio, contained much lore within the confines of its secretive walls. But this didn't stop Bevin from finding his way in through the digital backdoor. After learning the Project Blue Book was created and housed in Wright Patterson, Bevan began searching endless files for anything that may have to do with the famous Roswell incident of 1947. As he continued digging, he was surprised to discover that one of the systems accounts, wasn't even password protected. This was almost becoming comical to Bevan as to how simple it was to get in, almost like a game he was now playing to not get caught.
Starting point is 00:14:34 What I eventually was charged with was Rome Laboratories in New York and White Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. Now, the Rome Labs were their main incidents. They were the ones that the Air Force Information Warfare Center, Office of Special investigations you know they were the ones who were looking at these machines at the time i'm breaking into them they're already they've got these guys in this building they're actually sitting around this desk trying to work out who's breaking into these machines and they see me coming and going and then they don't see me coming and going and then they see somebody else coming and going and there i'm actually
Starting point is 00:15:11 looking through the programs they've put in place to try and see if they can catch me and And somebody's put some tracking things in it, trying to catch me. How amusing, you know. I'm really not thinking of what I know now, the real world events. You know, these guys are supposedly up for 23 hours at a time, and they're feeding themselves on burgers and high caffeine coke, and, you know, one of them pulls a gun out on the other one because they're all so stressed and worried about catching these spies that they're assuring.
Starting point is 00:15:40 The reality is I'm just, like, tapping away, go to bed, get up, carry on. you know, completely oblivious. It's just a game. It is literally just war games. It's all text on a screen. It's not real. You don't see anything. You know, that's where the hacking part of the problem comes into it.
Starting point is 00:15:59 It's just text. It's not real. But it was soon to become all too real. As Bevin continued searching the Wright Patterson files, he found emails that different employees were sending back and forth about a certain aircraft that they had been developing. diagrams showed a prototype that seemed to use anti-gravity propulsion. The technology theorized to propel many of the often silent UFOs throughout witness history.
Starting point is 00:16:26 With this speculative information, Bevan hastily found his way out of the Wright-Patterson systems and thought he was in the clear, having swooped in and out like a ghost. But what he didn't know was that his actions were being meticulously monitored, much closer than he'd anticipated. This is when his life took a nasty turn, with a little help from both local and governmental authorities. It was now 1996, and Bevin was comfortably employed at an insurance agency doing computer work in his hometown of Cardiff Wales.
Starting point is 00:17:05 Everything seemed to be going swimmingly for him, until the day he was called into the office of one of his superiors. But his superiors were nowhere to be found when he arrived. I go open the door, there's like eight, nine guys standing in all black suits. And I'm just looking around like, okay, no big deal, you know. There's an insurance company, after all. You go into the MD's office of a big company. What do you expect?
Starting point is 00:17:31 And one of them just introduced Matthew Beverly. I think he'd shake my hand this time. We're placing under arrest for the suspected hacking of NATO, NASA, various Air Force bases across the world. I'm like, oh gosh, okay. So then they take me back out to my office and they start asking me all these questions about my computer system.
Starting point is 00:17:54 These guys, they just introduced themselves to me, tell them, telling me that they're arresting me. They're from SO6, Special Operation 6, computer crime unit, linked to MI6. and they're basically Scotland Yard guys but they're, you know, they're quite heavy on the computer crime side of things you know, and this was their big break
Starting point is 00:18:19 they finally got a big one, you know, they didn't have a lot of these little cases they seem to have this knack of losing them and they finally got this big case that they could really get their teeth into, get their budgets up to prove you know, the UK's great you can catch these hackers
Starting point is 00:18:33 because there was talk about extradition to the states and there was a lot of political wrangling that was done in the background to ensure what was done where, luckily for me, they made the right decision. To truly understand the complexity of Bevan's arrest, one must look back to 1994 when he first began his hacking activity and how he was identified. The D-I-S-A, or Defense Information Systems Agency, was the first to discover Bevan's hacks. Next came the A-F-I-D-E-E-F-I-D-E-E-E-E. or Air Force Information Warfare Center.
Starting point is 00:19:13 The hacks were traced to New York City-based internet provider, Mind Fox. When Bevan had infiltrated the systems at Goddard Space Center and Griffiths Air Force Base, the monitoring had begun. It wasn't until the Wright- Patterson hack that the D-I-S-A- and A-F-I-W-C thought that this person could potentially be an informant, or hired hacker for a rival nation. specifically Russia or Iraq. Bevin, however, remained elusive. Both agencies failed to positively identify him on their own. Instead, they turned to other hackers. The people whom Bevin had learned from had subsequently become his digital Judas, spilling the beans on Bevan's identity
Starting point is 00:20:00 and assuring these agencies that they had finally found Kooji. Now detained, Bevin was thrown into a tornado of interrogations. The authorities questioned his past, his methods, and ultimately his motives. He was bombarded with inquisitions primarily connected to his hacks within Wright- Patterson. Curiously, a secret service agent had been present at the interrogation. And while many of the other men were asking about war games and danger to weapons, Bevan may have gained access to. This man was asking him questions about what he'd found
Starting point is 00:20:39 pertaining to a little known place called Hanger 18. Certain names associated with that computer system and other UFO folklore seemed to combine in my police interview. I was asked about these things that when I said, yes, I know about that. I definitely hacked that one and I saw this anti-gravity engine. They said, well, you didn't see anything. I said, yeah, yeah, the anti-gravity engine.
Starting point is 00:21:03 okay and carry on and it's never mentioned again until we get a secret service agent the same person who's come over on another occasion who's talking about yes we know Matthew has never had him malicious intent he was just after UFOs at hangar 18 and hangar 18 was strange strange thing everyone says area 51 when they talk about UFOs but you know if you take it back hangar 18 UFOs you UFO folklore, Hangar 18, known as Building 18, at a place called Whitefield, which is where the big Roswell crash is supposed to have been taken to. You start going, hang on a minute, what's going on here? Why are the police asking me about Hangar 18? Why is the secret service agent mentioning about Hangar 18?
Starting point is 00:21:54 Why are, you know, where's all this weird UFO style anti-gravity engine nonsense that's coming from this machine? from the place that's actually named in the main Roswell crash as where the place pieces were taken to, you start thinking, that's quite interesting. And it'd be interesting to see where it all ties up. It may be just military testing. It may not. It could be information that's put there deliberately from me or somebody like me to find a good old disinformation. exercise, or it could be that last little crack of evidence that somebody went, oh, we didn't
Starting point is 00:22:38 leave it on that machine, did we? You know, you never know. You never know. As the pressure rained down on Bevin, he gave his honest answers, and he was asked point blank if he had any political motivations in which he replied he had none. Clearly, this was boiling down to a case of espionage and possible military implication. Bevin remained truthful, explaining that he was simply searching for information pertaining to UFOs. With this, the authorities began to ease down, their tone becoming a bit more light as they began to peg this hacker as nothing more than an X-Files idiot. Even if Bevin's motives were far more innocent than the authorities had first inferred, he had still committed illegal activity, and there had to be a decision on how to prosecute him for his crimes.
Starting point is 00:23:36 The United States wanted him extradited and put into prison, but in order to do so, the U.K. authorities needed specific information from the Americans about what Bevan had discovered. Stubborn to give up any evidence, the U.S. government gave a cold shoulder to the prosecution. And because of this, the entire case against Bevin's, Bevan was dropped in 1997. After almost two years of monitoring, tracking down sources, and eventually nabbing their man, the U.S. government hypocritically let him go, with nothing more than a stern slap on the wrist. If Bevan ever stepped foot on American soil, he'd be arrested on site.
Starting point is 00:24:22 With the case against him swept quietly under the rug for decades, Bevin went on with his life. never forgetting about the detailed chain of events that could have landed him in prison, perhaps for the rest of his life. But in the wake of Bevin's case now being in the public eye, cybersecurity had a poster boy who seemingly could have caused immeasurable damage and danger to the world's military defenses and could have even caused nuclear annihilation, all of which Bevin claims was propaganda, exaggerated beyond comprehension, simply to fuel the financial security of cybercrime units in the United States.
Starting point is 00:25:05 So, in the end, this wasn't even about UFOs or anti-gravity propulsion. The threat of prison eventually came down to 15 years. Five years per each sentence maximum. None of these ever been sentenced like that. But, you know, this was government. stuff and there's a good chance that if I could have been the scapegoat or the example then I would
Starting point is 00:25:32 have I think every opportunity was taken to try and make me that you know reality is I get less for killing somebody when it comes down to it you know if I can get 15 years from breaking into a military system and get 12 years for killing somebody if that get out in eight or something then it makes me suggest well that just shows how the system works People's lives mean nothing. Business is money. Information is money and money is power. People don't mean anything, and that's the way the law works.
Starting point is 00:26:09 Bevin's memories of the events would eventually come back to haunt him in the form of Gary McKinnon. Being charged with almost identical hacking activities under the handle, solo, McKinnon's extradition loomed in the air for a painfully... long time. Had McKinnon learned anything from Bevin, perhaps he wouldn't have even attempted to play with digital fire. And perhaps the race to uncover UFO information, both hackers were ultimately chasing after, would have eventually caught up to them. But in the end, Bevin was the first to see through the legal system how unbelievably flawed it was when dealing with hackers. And perhaps even more importantly, how easy it was to gain access not only to UFO information, but with a few
Starting point is 00:27:02 simple keystrokes, the entire annual budget of government-funded cybersecurity. So, in the eyes of Bevan, what exactly was the moral to this crazy string of events? Whatever you do, don't do it now. If you do it now, you will be screwed. You know, new laws are in place. to deal with terrorists. You know, our civil liberties have been stripped from under our noses and the guise of security
Starting point is 00:27:33 are looking after us. But I think people don't realize that hacking now is classed as a terrorist defense. You know, a suspected terrorist. Yeah, I've broken into somebody's computer system I could be held indefinitely without trial, you know, and, well, send me to Guantanamo Bay, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:27:51 You know, I was very lucky that computer laws were in place, but they were so airy-fairy. And what I was doing was not malicious. It's been agreed by all sides. I never did anything for financial gain. I never did anything malicious. I never destroyed data.
Starting point is 00:28:08 So the model is, be lucky. Don't get into things now. You know, it's just not worth it. It's not worth it. And I think any crime, if you're aware that it's a crime, is not worth it. When you're a kid, you know how to have a lesson. You jump over ravines.
Starting point is 00:28:28 You climb trees that are 20 foot, 30 foot high, and you jump out of them because you're a kid and you can't, you won't get hurt. When you're hacking, you won't get caught. You know, you're invulnerable. When you're a bit older, you don't climb trees. You don't, you know, run up and down the street and do whatever that you did when you're a kid. Because you know there's consequences. And I think the moral is when you know, maybe you should be very careful. Either way.
Starting point is 00:28:54 These men, although arrogant in their own ways, paved a path for civilians who will stop at nothing to uncover a truth that they feel is being so deeply hidden from the public. But I personally wanted to know how listeners felt about hacking into systems to gain information on UFOs. As you can imagine, the responses were mixed. When asked if listeners thought it was okay to do these hacks to get information, Chris said yes. We, as taxpayers, paid for it, and I want to know. Jay says, hell yeah, it shouldn't be a secret, it's our money. Teresa says, yes, because we the people have a given right to know. Let the chips fall where they may.
Starting point is 00:29:56 Scott says, turnabout is fair play, I say. They spy on us. we spy right back. It's what we do in the military. Always been that way. But now that the entire population on Earth is able to attempt breach, there's no stopping it. Felony or not.
Starting point is 00:30:13 It's just the way things are. Jamie says, it should be okay to do it. Double standards from all governments all over the world. I'm still a fan of NASA because I like anything to do with space. But they have, without a doubt, been holding back the truth for a long, long time. why should they be allowed to do that? I would suspect they have no choice but to do it.
Starting point is 00:30:35 But that's not our problem. So, let's all rise up and take them on. But other listeners felt very differently. Michael states, You mean to break the law? Not a good idea. It is also morally wrong, just as it would be if someone hacked a researcher's computer.
Starting point is 00:30:54 Curran says, no. It would be nice to have a medium and share some stuff legally. At the same point, there's a lot of sensitive information that I can understand why the military keeps it secret. But I guess I really don't care. Nothing good has come of prior hacking that was a positive use for the public. Stella says, it's tempting, but no. Truthfully, what are we going to do if we find it to be a cover-up? We can't do much.
Starting point is 00:31:22 Chris says, I for one do not advocate for committing felonies. Kevin says, no. Aside from being illegal, any information would be easily denied and not credible, in my opinion. I would rather wait for an official announcement backed by evidence. Ted says, if they want it secret, I am not second-guessing them. These things manifest everywhere. We don't need military validation. It is what it is.
Starting point is 00:31:48 Bruce adds, I'm fine with whistleblowers exposing governmental malfeasance, like Snowden or Manning. Even if it means leaking classified documents that can. embarrass the government. However, breaking into a system, damaging that system, and exposing projects you have no understanding of, is very dangerous. Jason says, nope, firm believer in the rule of law. For a society to function, we can't individually pick and choose which laws we follow based on our personal interests. Rocky says, I do not support the committing of a crime in order to fulfill someone's unproven allegations. We're talking about hacking into a group that likely has zero evidence on actual ET in the sense that we wish they did.
Starting point is 00:32:34 I have a very hard time believing NASA, an organization continuously short of cash, would hide the reality of the one thing that would guarantee their funding would increase to lunatic levels. Paul says the law is not final moral authority. There are plenty of counter-examples, so sometimes the right thing to do is to break the law. But you must understand there are will be consequences. This should be considered very carefully. I do not support hacking into government systems simply to see what might be there. This is foolish and highly unlikely to yield anything except a prison sentence. I can't see a moral justification for it. It is possible to conceive of circumstances, however, when it would be the right thing to do and might even support the
Starting point is 00:33:22 rule of law rather than diminish it. Ryan says no. I advocate press. ushering the government through legal means to get them to reveal what they know about the UFO presence. Lira also says no, never. As investigators, there has to be limits and honor. The answers must be obtained through hard work and a community, and this work is worth it. So, while this is very murky territory, I find myself caught in a moral dilemma. Just like so many, I would love to see information about UFOs. brought to the public by NASA or intelligence agencies.
Starting point is 00:34:03 I really would. But when it comes to actually breaking the law to do so, I have a problem with that. We have law for a reason, but as some may argue, laws aren't always moral or for the benefit of everyone. Does the public deserve to know all that the government knows about UFOs?
Starting point is 00:34:24 Yes. And maybe no. There are so many secrets that have come gone when it comes to national security, that we would never be able to fully disseminate its purpose, its reason for secrecy, or the outcome if that information ever were to be leaked to the public. History would be completely different had enemies known we were coming. History would be completely different if the Roswell Daily Records headline of a crashed disc in the deserts in 1947 had remained unredacted to promote the weather balloon theory. So much.
Starting point is 00:34:59 would change if secrets were spilled. The issue of hacking is more prevalent in today's world than ever before. With an official investigation being undertaken right now in the United States concerning presidential campaign hacking, it's clear that hacking is an important issue with real-world consequences. And while McKinnon and Bevin may both believe that their crimes were inflated beyond comprehension. Many believe they should have been punished. They claim they were merely searching for information pertaining to UFOs. But in doing so, they easily could have uncovered information
Starting point is 00:35:39 that have leaked could change the entire future of humankind, both for good and for bad. No matter your thoughts on hacking, Solo and Kooji are still whispered on the digital lips of those who continue to breach cybersecurity, whether for fun, whether for benefit, or for motives we can't even imagine. We live in an age where anything can change with a swipe, a keystroke, or even a voice command. It's exciting and it's terrifying. But in the end, it is the world we live in. Be careful out there. Read the fine print of your social networks.
Starting point is 00:36:23 Protect your information as best you can Because somewhere deep in cyberspace There are many coogies and solos waiting with curious eyes Somewhere in the Skies is produced by third-kind productions In association with the Entertainment One Podcast Network To learn more, visit Entertainment Onepodcast.com

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