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I see that you have a nice list of your friends web pages on your site which is great, including the link to Kevin Mitnick's site which is nice because he was in jail and everything but now it redirects to Kevin's new business which I don't have any problem with either, except that Mitnick has actualy spent time in jail for doing bad things to people and their systems and now seems to make money advising people how to steer clear of people like himself.

I'm not making any suggestions or anything, just pointing that out.

About #1). I tell ya...that sure did work with this guy...

$1,000 as the initial charge for such infections, with further costs/damages being added afterwards seems quite nice. The idea of having Marc Morganstern, Mitch Bainwol and Dan Glickman all fined $1,000 per compromised machine, plus inflated damages and incarcerated whilst waiting for an ever-delayed trial à la Mitnick seems quite amusing.

> Free Kevin!!!! someone had to say it

Well, obviously these days the term is Kevin Free, but still, it's kind of fun to go back and remember how effective that slogan was for getting the word out.

You mean like the minimum security prison that Kevin Mitnick was supposed to go to?

Hackers aren't treated like accountants, my friend. They are treated like witches/warlocks. We're lucky they don't allow burning people at the stake anymore. Wake up.

Your website has had a countdown on how long it will be until you are "truly free".
What is truly free? Do you consider the ability to browse the internet "freedom", or would true freedom mean you are given a free hand to investigate vulnerabilities in other people's websites? Does being able to use a computer mean you are truly free or does true freedom rely on other things as well?
Given you were behind bars for so long, what do you consider true freedom to consist of?

All this I understand except -- how did it all add up for 4 1/2 years? [...]Was Mitnick partly responsible?

All this I understand except -- how did it all add up for 4 1/2 years? [...]Was Mitnick partly responsible?

All this I understand except -- how did it all add up for 4 1/2 years? [...]Was Mitnick partly responsible?

Who's full of shit? http://www.freekevin.com/indictment.html

Story here. in it, Darci says:

"In totality, defending himself in the FCC case, cost Mitnick approximately $19,000, making his license the most expensive one in America. He is currently selling items on eBay to recover the costs incurred in this action. He is also still accepting donations to his FCC defense fund."

I'm surprised that some editor at the Times let that pass for a column.

Surprised? How soon we forget John Markoff and his role in Kevin Mitnick's prosecution both in and outside of the court system.

I suggest you refresh your memory.

Better yet, Use the movie "Take Down" with Kevin Mitnick, and the screen, with the ping replys- " I can see him, He is bouncing all around" ( this is the shot where yammo, and the guy from the cell phone company and the ISP are tring to track him down, when they are in seatle.

don't flame me as a "lamo" (teehee), I have ONLY seen the movie once.

The kids face up to five years, of course since they aren't in the US, they might actually be punished.

Computer crimes are MORE than sufficiently punished in the US, thank you very much. I don't know where you get off implying that the US goes easy on computer "crime". I had a little incident during my freshman year of college. The FBI was very determined to get me jail time for a ridiculously minor offense. It was only through sheer wit and creativity of my laywers that we got the offense down to a misdemeanor and a lousy 600$US fine. That was the most hellish time of my entire life and could have ruined my career forever. All over a tiny little deal (no damage was done).

Imagine what these kids would get in the US for writing such a worm. It'd be a helluva lot worse than 5 years in prison. So put your pro-punishment attitudes away and get real. Remember what our government does to computer criminals.

We already have plenty of laws to land computer criminals in jail, and many have already been convicted and are currently serving time.

Some would say the laws we already have in place to do this are too harsh.
Exhibits:
Number one
Number two
Number three
Number four

~z

And if you scroll to the bottom of the TellMe Extensions site, you'll see their slogan: "Hack the Phone". I'm waiting until someone creates an interface to a Kevin Mitnick site. *g* There's something wonderfully self-referential about that....

Nobody seems to have commented on the fact that John Markoff is guilty of ridiculously libelous reporting with regard to the case of Kevin Mitnick. Whether one supports Kevin Mitnick's case or not he should never support fraudulent reporting. I do not believe /. should in any way, shape, or form give him any journalistic credit. If he is too proud to admit the hand he played in distorting the public's perception of Kevin Mitnick, he will earn no respect from me. For more information on his libelous actions see the following URL: http://www.freekevin.com/news-release.ht ml
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Well, if you look at the author of the article, it's none other than John Markoff! If the name doesn't ring a bell, he's the same guy who wrote sensational articles about Kevin Mitnick many years ago which ultimately resulted in Kevin getting treated so badly by "the system". You can read more at http://www.freekevin.com/.

Markoff wouldn't know good journalism if it bit him on the ass. Why the New York Times continues to employ someone as irresponsible as him is beyond me.

There was a Kevin Mitnick interview on this station last night for at least a half hour. Quite well done, really - the show's host didn't take everything Mitnick said at face value and did get Mitnick to mention from time to time that he'd done something wrong. They exposed both sides of the story (and this is a really complex story). I look forward to the Linus set.

Of course, WABI-Host is now talking in hushed tones about George W. Bush's potassium chloride addiction. *groan*

The next question is, did Mitnick aquit himself well or did he appear as the monster big corporations and the government need him to be to justify the upcoming "War on Hackers?" (The sequel to "War on Drugs"). I'm hoping he came off well, like he did in the 60 Minutes special and that Suzie whatever came off as a shrill disgrace.

I'd love it if it turns out that this "DoS" was a bad router. Of course, if it was we probably won't find out for years from now as Yahoo! denies it so they won't look bad to their investors and the government/media/corporate complex collude with them to hide the truth because it will help turn the public against hackers even more than they already are.

I wonder how many people who are spitting out anti-Kevin rhetoric on this site have visited the Free Kevin site I mean, it would be close minded not to get both sides of the story, don't you think?

Mirror the source. Nobody's knocked on my door yet, and I've made a dozen offers for people to mirror from my site. The RIAA does not read slashdot. =)
Join the EFF and pay attention to the action alerts.
Alert the press! Get our side out there! They think we're pirates - this isn't about piracy, it's about interoperability.
Start a legal defense fund for *all* DeCSS victims.

That being said, here's why they're doing it: Scare tactic. They want to "get tough" on the "pirates" and scare people into submission. Ain't gonna happen - don't let them. Fight back - we're talking about something central to the open source community: the right to reverse-engineer to promote interoperability and open standards. This just reeks of proprietary do-it-our-way-or-the-highway. Fight back! I know alot of us aren't political enough - but consider donating a few bucks and also mirroring the source. Post to slashdot. Sign up to become a DOE for the case. But do something - get involved.. or we may wind up with another kevin mitnick - en masse.

This is a full-fledged war now against the open source movement: they're trying to stop reverse-engineering and black-box everything. They can justify and rationalize all they want - but it's really about them trying to gain/maintain their monopoly on distribution. It's high-time we kicked our ass into gear and get people like Ralph Nader on board. This is about consumer rights - something any average joe on the street should understand. WRITE TO THE PRESS NOW. Give a counter-point, make it so your mom can understand the key points.

One of the few Y2K issues I have seen. According to freekevin.com he is not due to be released for another 11 months.

I wonder if Red Hat will use this as part of their advertising campaign (a la Analyzer)? I wonder if the competition will use this ("Kevin Mitnick uses Red Hat, and he's in jail! Choose Debian!"). Thank god the Linux community isn't this competitive.

A look at Kevin's life
Free Kevin

Maybe that's why they worked so hard to catch him.

Free Kevin

"playing hardball" implies this is some sort of game, wherein the government has unlimited -- literally unlimited -- resources, and the defendant's resources are limited by the court, and then they say "play ball." it's only a game if you're a prosecutor, since your actions are beyond criminal sanction. you can perjure yourself, you can suborn perjury from others, you can file false charges, manufacture evidence, and convict innocent people, but never face criminal charges for those actions. as a prosecutor you are literally above the law.

...Kevin Mitnick is largely in the dark side of force, not because he cracks for money, but because he cracks obsessively for the sake of cracking, in a way which confines to total stupidity and is socially unacceptable...

in your opnion it's "socially unacceptable"; most recently, the USG issued a call to "crack" systems in a country with which the USG disagreed.

or how 'bout this: you commit a low-level crime and get arrested. you spend 8 months in solitary confinement in a cell the size of a small bathroom, with a single hour per day outside that cell. you take a shower alone, while watched by prison guards. upon your release, you observe all requirements of your supervised release.

unknown to you, your parole officer files a warrant for your arrest, and fails to notify you of the warrant.

upon completion of the terms of supervised release, you leave the city you've been living in to start a new life. a few months after you move, you learn of the "secret" warrant for your arrest. ever hear of the term, "set up"?

he knew when he was doing something wrong and he knew what would happen if he got caught. The choice was his.

quite true. but no one could have predicted markoff's lies published on the front page of the nytimes. and no one could have predicted the resulting government campaign, and the lawbreaking by the FBI, the prosecutors, and by markoff himself, in his work as a de factogovernment agent in violation of federal law.

So why do so many people stll see him as a victim?

more than likely, because "so many people" have taken the time to read the website, and to read of the extraordinary violations of someone's constitutional rights, as noted in this extraordinary summation of the case: No Experts. No Evidence. No Justice.

why don't you try doing the same?

you conveniently left out many previous facts...

as you have, mr. markoff. or is it mr. shimomura? you've neglected to mention that the police and the secret service, as well as the FBI, if memory serves, all indicated they had no interest in arresting mr. mitnick in seattle when he'd been discovered there by a p.i. about a year later, john markoff writes a collection of lies on the front page of the new york times, and issues this challenge to the feds:

"Combining technical wizardry with the ages-old guile of a grifter, Kevin Mitnick is a computer programmer run amok. And law-enforcement officials cannot seem to catch up with him."

the next day the U.S. Marshals announced a nationwide "hunt" for (as you put it in your articles), "cyberspace's most wanted."

funny, isn't it, how someone can go from a complete unknown to the subject of a nationwide manhunt on the basis of a single front page nytimes article?

"playing hardball" implies this is some sort of game, wherein the government has unlimited -- literally unlimited -- resources, and the defendant's resources are limited by the court, and then they say "play ball." it's only a game if you're a prosecutor, since your actions are beyond criminal sanction. you can perjure yourself, you can suborn perjury from others, you can file false charges, manufacture evidence, and convict innocent people, but never face criminal charges for those actions. as a prosecutor you are literally above the law.

...Kevin Mitnick is largely in the dark side of force, not because he cracks for money, but because he cracks obsessively for the sake of cracking, in a way which confines to total stupidity and is socially unacceptable...

in your opnion it's "socially unacceptable"; most recently, the USG issued a call to "crack" systems in a country with which the USG disagreed.

or how 'bout this: you commit a low-level crime and get arrested. you spend 8 months in solitary confinement in a cell the size of a small bathroom, with a single hour per day outside that cell. you take a shower alone, while watched by prison guards. upon your release, you observe all requirements of your supervised release.

unknown to you, your parole officer files a warrant for your arrest, and fails to notify you of the warrant.

upon completion of the terms of supervised release, you leave the city you've been living in to start a new life. a few months after you move, you learn of the "secret" warrant for your arrest. ever hear of the term, "set up"?

he knew when he was doing something wrong and he knew what would happen if he got caught. The choice was his.

quite true. but no one could have predicted markoff's lies published on the front page of the nytimes. and no one could have predicted the resulting government campaign, and the lawbreaking by the FBI, the prosecutors, and by markoff himself, in his work as a de factogovernment agent in violation of federal law.

So why do so many people stll see him as a victim?

more than likely, because "so many people" have taken the time to read the website, and to read of the extraordinary violations of someone's constitutional rights, as noted in this extraordinary summation of the case: No Experts. No Evidence. No Justice.

why don't you try doing the same?

you conveniently left out many previous facts...

as you have, mr. markoff. or is it mr. shimomura? you've neglected to mention that the police and the secret service, as well as the FBI, if memory serves, all indicated they had no interest in arresting mr. mitnick in seattle when he'd been discovered there by a p.i. about a year later, john markoff writes a collection of lies on the front page of the new york times, and issues this challenge to the feds:

"Combining technical wizardry with the ages-old guile of a grifter, Kevin Mitnick is a computer programmer run amok. And law-enforcement officials cannot seem to catch up with him."

the next day the U.S. Marshals announced a nationwide "hunt" for (as you put it in your articles), "cyberspace's most wanted."

funny, isn't it, how someone can go from a complete unknown to the subject of a nationwide manhunt on the basis of a single front page nytimes article?

quite true. and yet, upon application to the court for a bail hearing -- not for bail, but just for a bail hearing, as required by the U.S. Bail Reform Act of 1984 -- the application was turned down by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and by the U.S. Supreme Court (without comment by the USSC, btw).

If you check the history of Mitnik maybe you will get an understanding of why the judicial system has been playing hardball with him

i've checked the record, and there's nothing in his record that legitimates the government filing false charges, manipulating the testimony of witnesses, and refusing to obey orders of the court. nothing.

"playing hardball" implies this is some sort of game, wherein the government has unlimited -- literally unlimited -- resources, and the defendant's resources are limited by the court, and then they say "play ball." it's only a game if you're a prosecutor, since your actions are beyond criminal sanction. you can perjure yourself, you can suborn perjury from others, you can file false charges, manufacture evidence, and convict innocent people, but never face criminal charges for those actions. as a prosecutor you are literally above the law.

...yet he continued to partake in activities that he knew the feds frowned upon.

how 'bout this: you commit a low-level crime and get arrested. you spend 8 months in solitary confinement in a cell the size of a small bathroom, with a single hour per day outside that cell. you take a shower alone, while watched by prison guards. upon your release, you observe all requirements of your supervised release.

unknown to you, your parole officer files a warrant for your arrest, and fails to notify you of the warrant.

upon completion of the terms of supervised release, you leave the city you've been living in to start a new life. a few months after you move, you learn of the "secret" warrant for your arrest. ever hear of the term, "set up"?

he knew when he was doing something wrong and he knew what would happen if he got caught. The choice was his.

quite true. but no one could have predicted markoff's lies published on the front page of the nytimes. and no one could have predicted the resulting government campaign, and the lawbreaking by the FBI, the prosecutors, and by markoff himself, in his work as a de factogovernment agent in violation of federal law.

So why do so many people stll see him as a victim?

more than likely, because "so many people" have taken the time to read the website, and to read of the extraordinary violations of someone's constitutional rights, as noted in this extraordinary summation of the case: No Experts. No Evidence. No Justice.

why don't you try doing the same?

This is something that has bothered me for some time. Why do slashdotters take it upon themselves to tell the media what terms they should use to define hackers? You guys have absolutly no business saying how to define someone else. Kevin Mitnick is a hacker, you people, have no right to insist he be called anything else.

You're right that Slashdot has a hell of a lot of influence. Largely due to the sheer volume of traffic and emails Slashdot people generate. What's so troubling is that reading these posts, almost every single one is horribly inaccurate. GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGT GUYS!! At least read the damn article.. But if your not going to read about the rest of the case, don't assume you know what it's about... because most people here, have simply regurgitated the hype, myths, rumors and flat out lies about Kevin. I don't have the time to go into correcting them, but you could even read posts from previous Mitnick subjects on Slashdot, for better info (also http://www.freekevin.com). Know the facts before you demonize someone you don't know as a "Cracker".

Also, mind you Kevin hasn't been convicted.. so, how is it that someone is a hacker, and then when they get arrested, all of a sudden he's a cracker? Never mind the choice of word, just going by what it's said to mean. It's ridiculous. There are hackers, and there are criminals. Some hackers are also criminals.. That does not negate that they are still hackers. One should look at what the alleged crime IS before attacking someone.

Doug Thomas has written many articles on the Mitnick case for Wired.. In each article he calls Kevin a hacker, and in each one the editor changes it to read "Celebrity Cracker" - Doug Thomas bitterly opposed them changing his wording, Wired persisted, Doug Thomas even stopped writing for Wired in protest, still Wired has insisted on using that phrase. In fact they thought it was kind of funny, in this article (http://www.wired.com/news/ news/politics/story/20053.html) they sneaked that phrase in as quoting me saying "just don't call him a 'celebrity cracker'" (and for the record, I didn't growl). I spoke to various Wired reporters and editors, and you know what they told me? They were forced to do that because they get bombarded with emails from "angry slashdot users" whenever they call him a hacker. YOU PEOPLE HAVE NO RIGHT TO PASS JUDGEMENT LIKE THIS. I know many of you consider yourselves hackers, if you feel you share the hacker spirit, more power to you.. Just learn to be more tolerant and respectful towards your "underground" counterparts. It is incredibly arrogant and pretentious to do otherwise. For those of you who insist on rejecting other groups of people in the hacker community, stop worrying about how they're labeled, if you're not one of them, it's none of your goddamn business! The worst part of using the word "cracker" is that it's totally subjective who and what a cracker is... so if ANYONE is going to decide to use it, it sure as hell shouldn't be slashdot.

Language evolves as is needed, and as the public accepts it. This use of the word 'cracker' has been rejected by most people and media outlets. It serves no legitimate purpose for anyone other than ignorant, narrow-minded, egotistical, jerks - who are such snobs that they can't stand to be associated with anyone who dares to act and think differently, but are too damn conceited to call themselves something else, so they insist on calling other people names.

As far as I'm concerned it is libelous.

(Watch me get accused of being a troll...)

Troll! :)

For someone so concerned about research and fact checking, you sure seem to make a lot of grand statements about the nature of politics and epistemology without any evidence to back you up. Who made you the sole arbiter of knowledge?

freekevin is a good starting point, though granted it is biased. You can also sift through the archives of HNN, which has reliably documented the Mitnick case. They also have external links to various news organizations' stories on the issue. I speak based on having read those stories, read the website, and also read numerous newspaper articles over the years.

Well, there's an objective statement of fact. Nothing gets people going like an irrational fear that "they're next". I suppose you believe in slippery-slopes, too.

Yes. And my style of writing is persuasive, not informative. Keep that in mind while you critique.

OTOH, I've got to wonder where you've been. This sort of thing has been happening for decades (centuries, even).

I suppose that you're right, I mean, afterall.. if it's been going on for that long, it must be more OK than something that's only been going on for a few weeks... And as to where I've been - I've been in college, online, I've been through public schools, I've had an interesting life. And I also believe that other people are entitled to those same freedoms. That's where I've been.

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You're both wrong. See freekevin.com

HNN debunked the story about how he "cost" the company millions with an internal memo requesting that companies up the amount as high as possible.

And the "love it or leave it attitude" for America is no longer in vogue. All progress depends on unreasonable men. And change is the only way to improve matters - go back to despotism if you want to "love it or leave it".

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For the full scoop, check out freekevin

Kevin Mitnick was in the wrong place at the wrong time. This story has been going on for longer than slashdot has been in existance. This story was going on before Linux was more than a twinkle in somebody's eye, and before the Web was anything more than the province of colleges.

So you'll forgive me if I am alittle irate at the idea of people comparing him to a "script kiddie", because not only don't they know the story, but they are doing a grave dis-service to the community by saying something like that.

Kevin Mitnick, in short, is a political prisoner. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and has paid for it with over four years in jail without a trial. That's what makes this story significant to the community - that our government was, and still is, so ignorant of how computers and networks work, that they will imprison people for years and years without a trial because they don't understand. Kevin is in jail because of political posturing - the SS and FBI needed to make an example, and that came in the form of one Kevin Mitnick, a petty thief with just enough knowledge of computers to fool the public into thinking he was some super-terrorist.

And that, fellow slashdotters, is why this story is important. Somebody's right to due process was stripped away; Because of ignorance, apathy, and political posturing, a man has been sitting in jail for four years, unable to contribute anything to society. Rapists spend less time in jail than this person has.

Keep that in mind before you try to dismiss this as just another script kiddie who got caught...

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