Comments on: Q&A: Kevin Mitnick, from ham operator to fugitive to consultant

The world's most famous hacker talks about how his teenage quest to hack his cell phone led him to break into corporate networks, spend three years as a fugitive, and ultimately landed him in jail.

[Motyoj]

Takedown was a great book and I advise anyone interested in this type of thing to read it. It's kind of dated of course but still a good read. The author talks about getting a 10 gig hard drive, when that sort of storage was massive and unheard of. Now our cell phones have much more and little flash drives as well.

[Bob Kakis]

i wonder if this guy is Mac or PC???

[oldmanangry]

Well yes, it was a good book if you're interested in Mitnick, but the book was way over written. Did we need to know what Shimomura ate for dinner and lunch every day? Shimomura was played way up by John Markoff and in a rather clumsy, bad Hollywood kind of way. Markoff, himself, walked pretty close to walking over the line (some say way over) when he wrote the original Mitnick stories that involved Shimomura and did not disclose his rather close relationship with Shimomura.

I think you should read this book, but also read The Fugitive Game by Jonathan Littman who wrote it largely from long phone interviews he had with Mitnick while on the run.

There's also the Cyberthief and the Samurai by Jeff Goodell, but with that title, you can guess that it's not as good as the Littman book.

[geekbully]

@ Bob Kakis - I'm guessing he's a Unix guy with a nice flavor of Linux....

[n3td3v]

Yet another Mitnick interview, same replies.

[Renegade Knight]

First one I read. All good.

[mbenedict]

The cell phone he was interested was the Motorola MicroTAC Ultra Lite, btw, (not Microtek, which is a different company altogether!)

http://images.google.com/images?q=Motorola+MicroTac+Ultra+Lite
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_MicroTAC

[elinormills]

We have corrected the spelling of the product name. Thanks!

[mikiefoley]

Let's not forget all the hassle Kevin caused at DEC. (Digital Equipment Corp) He had us VMS system managers in a tizzy. I actually witnessed his breaking in! I'm glad he changed his ways, but man, he made my life very difficult for a long period of time back in the 80's.

Oh, and the RSA token is called "SecurID".

mike

[elinormills]

We have fixed the spelling of SecurID. Thanks!

[willdryden]

I have the sorce code fo DEC VMS 2.3 somewhere. I was an operator for 10 years and loved that OS. There was not a thing I could not do with that OS.

[codynews]

*** is "pen testing"?

[Random_Walk]

short for "penetration testing".

[NervClaX]

Four and a half years without a trial... that's reason enough right there not to hack. Still, fear of punnishment isn't enough to deter most criminals. It only leads to a sense of false security.

[tipoo_]

Solitary confinement for a YEAR?! Holy F@#$, that sucks. Hopefully he was compensated, as the prosecutor obviously lied.

[Erictheruler1]

A Criminal should be compensated for breaking the law? Really? Sure they compensated him they gave him a year off from the worry of as$ Rape. What a society we live in. Kevin Mitnick broke the law he got caught and he did time he got all he is going to get in notoriety in the halls of geekdom.

[shootfirst]

Not a bad read. I liked the part where they were dumb enough to give out codes over the phone, bunch of idiots. However I have spent time on phone systems at jobs and it is really funny as most of them have never had their default passwords changed and if you know what your doing you can very easily hack into their systems and do exactly what Mitnick did. The even funnier thing is when I informed these companies about the issues they looked at me like I was crazy that people would even do such things. Like the article conveyed you don't usually protect systems against people who are getting in to do damage, but from kids who are curious and seeing how far they can go. However I think it is wrong for kids to be punished severely for just being curious and using loopholes in our current systems, it makes education not fun and it just goes to show you everything is about money and being a good monkey.

[JohnMosesBrowning]

Arrogant ass!

[Akiba]

"I served five years, and I ended up in solitary confinement for a year because a federal prosecutor told the judge that if I got to a phone I could connect to NORAD (North American Aerospace Command) and somehow launch an ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile)."

Sounds like this prosecutor is far more dangerous around a phone or any other form of communication.

[Mergatroid Mania]

Personally I wouldn't hire the guy. He's already proved he's willing to lie and break the law to get what he wants.
He seems to think that it's less serious since was doing it for the thrill instead of monetary gain. I think the fact that he was willing to lie and break the law just so he can get a thrill is even worse.
I think when he was released from prison it should have been with the stipulation that he could never work in the computer industry in any capacity.

I guess crime does pay. Maybe we should all commit computer crimes so we can get better work in a few years.

[smiller987]

Agreed

[Shaun822]

While I agree with the fact that he has shown a bad propensity to what ever he wants if he is legitimately the best at protecting my company and has truly changed his tune then I would hire him in a second. A lot of former criminals get all kinds of work because they are smarter than the pros they defeat on a daily basis. Should we allow cat burglars and corporate espionage people to get lucrative work because its theoretically harder to get into a physical structure than it is for this guy to get into a virtual structure?

[rodLX]

Don't you think that, with his knowledge, he could have done much more harm and had much more personal benefit than he actually did? It remindes me of a Brazilian hacker that broke into my office computer about 10 years ago, and left a text file in my desktop with security tips... no real harm done. So, i agree that "The punishment should fit the crime"

[screamapillar]

So, Mergatroid Mania, by your reckoning, anyone that has ever committed a crime is no longer fit for employment? Isn't the idea of imprisonment meant to be the recompense? He paid for his crimes, he pleaded guilty.

In this day and age, if you really want to test your security, you need someone that has demonstrated that they can actually put it to the test. So someone with a degree isn't necessarily going to test your security as well as someone that knows unofficial channels.

[Rikatah]

Apology accepted from this IT Manager. Hackers and crackers cause me to lose my temper and say things I wish never spoken. Also, I appreciate the new career move to help tighten security for us IT managers who can't defend our networks because of people like he used to be.

Chalk one more up for the good guys. *Tips the white hat in recognition*

[pentest]

Or you could learn more about security so you can stop a few of these attacks instead of having to wait to learn the hard way.

[tgrenier]

IT Managers are not specialist. They have to deal with users, board members, audits, budgets, hiring/firing, performance evals, etc. Security is a full time job if you're going to be any good at it.

[pentest]

Yeah, but if a IT manager can't defend his network, he should not be holding that position.

[Michichael]

Huh.. thought i commented on this already but...

I love the fact that he states that justice is economic - if you can't afford to mount a proper defense, you're guilty. There's no justice in our system right now - it's all about the money.

[setjeff15081947]

"Live Free and Die Hard", written, unintentionally, by Kevin Mitnick over 30 years ago. I'm conflicted about his activities, then and now, but of one thing I'm absolutely sure ---the actor who played Matthew Farrell was much better looking. By the way, "Prime Risk" was a much better, and less F/X laden, movie than "Live Free and Die Hard". And, I believe, only one guy got killed in the former.

[alegr]

What happened to the right to the speedy trial? Is this Soviet Union or what?

[screamapillar]

Welll, you can get a much faster trial even in India now (with the worlds most backlogged courts) than the US considering they don't even need to give basic due process now (eg. charging you at all)

[Mteicher]

I would never hire Kevin Mitnick.

[screamapillar]

Why not? Because he committed a crime when the legislation about it at the time was vague at best? So you've never committed any form of infringement on legislation?

I note he also paid quite heavily for his crimes, which were not well defined in law and he did not profit from.

If it was not for black hat hackers turned white, we would not have any capacity to test/defend our networks against 'real' threats who do attempt to profit from thier crimes.

[SixString16]

Like it or not, guys like this are such a necessity in today world. There's a lot more damage Kevin could've done to the companies that he hacked but sort of took the high road where it was more about learning how things worked rather than ripping people off. Granted, it wasn't such a smart move because you're always going to get caught, but on the other side - sometimes you need stuff like this to happen to wake people up.

Oh and the people at Motorola...just great. Reading off secure ID codes... that's great. Are you kidding me?

[geekbully]

This story is very inspiring to any REAL technology enthusiast. I now have another technology hero! Not because of what he did (which is amazing all by itself) but because he truly had a love for technology and how it worked. Those saying he should never be hired for his knowledge are missing the mark completely. He paid his price and he regrets what he did. It just so happens that what he did has a legitimate purposes today. I hope those that are quick to judge are without mistakes in their own lives...

[judexy2222]

The Guy who hacks for curiosity and the trophy is not a dishonest Guy. He is much like the Guy at the Research and Development. To learn they have to penetrate into an existing system. You cannot stop progress !

[CrossCut49]

Of course the guy should be hired, and compensated! You guys know something? Bill Gates, yes, the man who basically set the world with computers - Started off as a hacker, back in middle school. Eventually, the company he hacked hired him, leading him to Harvard, leading him to creating Windows, and Microsoft.

This guy is not much different, I'm sure he would've been going down the same road if Bill hadn't already completed it.