Security Bullet In

The high court judges that are deciding the outcome of two concurrent judicial reviews of the case of Gary McKinnon will give their decisions next week, on Friday 31 July.

The date was revealed in a press statement on Friday by Karen Todner, McKinnon's solicitor.

McKinnon stands accused by US prosecutors of "the biggest military hack of all time". The self-confessed hacker, who claims he accessed the US systems to search for evidence of UFOs, denies accusations of damage. McKinnon was diagnosed with having Asperger's Syndrome, a condition on the autism spectrum, last August.

One of the judicial reviews is to decide whether former home secretary Jacqui Smith was right in law to turn down McKinnon's second appeal for clemency. Smith was aware at the time of McKinnon's Asperger's diagnosis.

The second review is to decide whether the Crown Prosecution Service was right to decline to prosecute McKinnon in the UK. Had the CPS prosecuted McKinnon here, he would have avoided extradition.

The current US/UK extradition treaty was rushed through parliament in haste in the wake of 9/11. The treaty was pushed through by then-home secretary David Blunkett (the man who also brought us ID cards).

The treaty was supposed to be an anti-terrorist measure, and lowered the burden of proof that US prosecutors had to show to extradite UK citizens. No terrorist suspects have yet been extradited. Instead, the law has been used by the US to extradite those accused of other crimes, such as the Natwest 3.

Adobe has announced that it has open sourced two of its Flash player platforms. Adobe's core technologies will remain proprietary.

On Tuesday Adobe launched the Open Source Media Framework (OSMF), a rich media player platform. OSMF was previously part of a project codenamed Strobe.

Adobe also open sourced the Text Layout Framework (TLF), a typography platform for web apps.

"Adobe is committed to providing core Flash platform technologies to the community as open source," said Dave McAllister, director of standards and open source at Adobe, in a statement. "By releasing OSMF and TLF as open source, we are helping facilitate the creation and sharing of best practices for media players and rich text-based web application development."

Adobe announced that it was collaborating with content and application delivery company Akamai on the Open Video Player initiative, which was founded by Akamai. The two companies will also collaborate on OSMF.

Adobe Flash is in direct competition with Microsoft's Silverlight rich-media technology. Microsoft launched Silverlight 3 earlier this month.

Silverlight is based on .NET -- the open source implementation of .NET is Mono. Microsoft has assisted Mono development. The open source version of Silverlight is called Moonlight, which is based on Mono, and sponsored by Novell. Moonlight enables Silverlight content to run on Linux.

Third party contractors will not have to answer Freedom of Information requests, the government said on Thursday.

The results of a Ministry of Justice consultation, published last week, show that private-sector government contractors were worried about the cost of answering such requests.

"The next most common response, shared by 1 in 5 of respondents, was that an extension of the Act to their particular area of business was unnecessary because:
•their functions are not ‘functions of a public nature’;
•they already make information available on a voluntary basis or meet regulatory requirements; and/or
•information may already be obtained from another source, such as a public authority, which is resourced to provide it and with whom the duty should remain," said the results of the consultation.

The CBI was particularly vehement when it came to arguing against extending the FoI Act to private-sector government contractors, saying that the costs of FoI requests would have to be passed onto the taxpayer:

"Companies would find it extremely difficult to factor in FoI requests as a fixed cost when contracting with government and could set a price per request instead," said the CBI. "This would mean contracts may engender significant additional costs where companies receive a substantial number of FoI requests."

The government left itself the option of extending FoI to private sector contractors.

In addition, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) volunteered itself to come under the aegis of the Act.

Ian Kerr, who operated a blacklist of construction workers, has been fined £5,000 at the behest of the Information Commissioner's Office.

Before being caught by the ICO in May, Kerr had operated the list since the 1970's, said an ICO statement on Thursday. Construction companies paid £3,000 per year to subscribe to the database, could add information to the system, and pay £2.20 for details held on individuals.

Kerr's company, The Consulting Association, raked in £478,937 between April 2006 and February 2009. Should Kerr be unable to pay the £5,000 fine, handed down at Knutsford Crown Court on Thursday, he will get a three month jail sentence. Kerr has also been ordered to pay £1,187.20 in costs.

Over 40 companies used the database in the time it was operational. These included Amec, Balfour Beatty, Costain, G Wimpey, John Mowlem, Laing O’Rourk, Lovell Construction, Sir Robert McAlpine, and Skanska. A list of companies involved is on the ICO website.

Details used by these companies to vet workers without their knowledge included personal relationships, trades union activity, and employment history. The 3,213 workers involved were not aware their details were on the database, and so could not correct information.

The Information Commissioner will serve enforcement notices on 17 of the firms, the ICO said in the statement.

In March the ICO set up a helpline for people who think they may have been on the database.

Nasa hacker Gary McKinnon is still under pressure, but is becoming more hopeful that he may avoid extradition due to growing support from celebrities, politicians, and the press.

McKinnon told ZDNet UK at the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday that he was "very stressed" about his ongoing situation.

"I'm very stressed," said McKinnon. "I'm extra stressed because I feel more hopeful due to all the support."

Popular UK newspaper the Daily Mail began to champion McKinnon at the beginning of July, and is busy playing catch-up on old stories.

Bob Geldof is the latest celebrity to pledge support for McKinnon, and has contributed to a record in his support, the self-confessed hacker said.

Sting's wife Trudie Styler was at the Royal Courts of Justice this afternoon, where judges were hearing an application for a review of a CPS decision not to prosecute McKinnon in the UK.

Styler told ZDNet UK that she hoped the UK government would review the extradition treaty that the UK has with the US.

"We can only hope the government will show some clemency to this fragile and vulnerable man," said Styler.

The Conservatives have tabled a motion that the extradition treaty be debated in parliament. The debate will be held on Wednesday. McKinnon said he was grateful for the interest.