London (England) ā€“ A British hacker has lost his appeal against extradition to the United States.Ā  42-year-old Gary McKinnon is accused of wreaking havoc on US military computer systems back in 2001 and 2002 by hacking into systems with a simple dial-up modem and off-the-shelf software.Ā  US prosecutors want to try him in the states and McKinnon, along with his solicitors, have been fighting extradition for several years.Ā  Now it appears time is running out for the unemployed IT administrator as Britainā€™s highest court, the House of Lords, has rejected his appeal.

According to court documents, McKinnon is accused of scanning over 73000 government computers belonging to the Department of Defense, Army, Air Force, Navy and even NASAand actually gained access to 97 computers with his dial-up modem.Ā  During his exploits, he managed to take 2000+ computers offline for 24 hours at the US Army Military District of Washington and a similar hack attempt disabled 300 computers at a New Jersey naval weapons station.Ā  The government estimates that McKinnon caused approximately $900,000 in damage.

McKinnon isnā€™t fighting extradition because he believes the charges are false, rather he wants a reduced sentence and the option to spend some of that time in the British correctional system.Ā  McKinnon doesnā€™t deny that he hacked into those systems and in fact, heā€™s given a couple of interviews since the attacks, admitting that he was on a crusade to find evidence of UFOs on government computers.Ā  McKinnon says he did see documents and even pictures of alien craft, but that he canā€™t produce any of those files today.

US prosecutors had offered McKinnon a plea deal which would have resulted in 18 to 24 months in prison, but warned that he could face up to 10 years in prison ā€“ with the possibility of some of that in a high-security facility ā€“ if he contested.Ā  Prosecutors are against McKinnon serving any of that time in Britain.

McKinnon still has one last chance to fight extradition to the United States.Ā  He will be filing a final appeal with the European Court of Human Rights and will be allowed to stay in Britain for another two weeks while the proceedings are underway.