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Kevin Free
An anonymous reader writes: "Surely many of you will remember that before there was ever a cry to 'Free Dimitry Sklyarov', Free Kevin Mitnick was the call of many. He was convicted on 'hacking' charges, though many on the Internet found the charges and trial to be unfair. He was freed in January 2000, but not allowed to touch a computer or log onto the Internet until January 20, 2003. See the story at CNN or read some background info at freekevin.com. "
how long will it take to shake the rust off?
I am less than sympathetic towards Kevin Mitnick. He committed a crime, and he got punished for it. Poor baby.
However, I think not ever allowing him to use a computer again is a foolish punishment. Computers are too essential to life in America today for that to be a reasonable punishment.
Personally, I would like to see some sort of bargain between the court and Mitnick, whereby he gets to use computers again, but will face an ever tougher punishment if he is discovered hacking again.
He has pulled the biggest con of them all, now they HIRE HIM to do the security.....
Bravo, this guy is a work of art.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
If there is one thing at all notable about the whole thing, it's the ridiculous overreaction of the court during the sentencing.
..then let's free EVERYONE who commits acts of unauthorized breaking and entering, stealing personal information, etc.
It's amazing how much sympathy has poured out for a guy who stole people's credit card numbers...
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
My wife worked in the courts for a few years and while people lost the "privledge" of driving for multiple DUI and DWI's that "never" stopped any of them from driving and "rarely" caused any of them to server more than 30 days (which also was a rare occurrence).
I'm sorry, but someone who gets tanked and drives into a school bus killing a dozen kids on a revoked liscense due to his 11 DWI's typically will serve 1 year + 1 day in jail.
Kevin hacked into computers hypothetically causing monetary damages.
Kevin goes to prison for 5 years plus 2 years of strict probation where you'd better believe he's being watched like a hawk. The poor drunk spends 1 year + 1 day in jail (9 months with good behaviour) and gets to go out and celebrate by getting tanked and driving a car that night.
does that sound fair?
Surely many of you will remember that before there was ever a cry to 'Free Dimitry Sklyarov', Free Kevin Mitnick was the call of many. He was convicted on 'hacking' charges, though many on the Internet found the charges and trial to be unfair. He was freed in January 2000, but not allowed to touch a computer or log onto the Internet until January 20, 2003. See the
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Kevin Mitnick was a theif and a fool. He wouldn't have given a shit about any of his "supporters" if positions were reversed and it really amazes me to see that there are still some morons who haven't copped onto this fact.
He's a fucking piss ant that deserves to be in jail. While we're all trying to accomplish something using computers as the tools that they are, he and those like him do nothing but add to the overall cost (in terms of time) of using a computer.
Yah, I know the argument -- guys like him show us the holes, blah blah blah---how about showing us by fixing them or starting your own consulting company.
Crackers are nothing more than talented people with out enough imagination to create something useful.
nohup rm -rf ~/. >& zen &
Kevin was on Off the Hook recently, talking about how he's owned a laptop for a year now, and he's just not allowed on the internet. When asked by a caller what OS he used, he said he used to use SunOS and VMS back in the day, but now he uses Windows XP and thinks it's quite nice. Really sad, actually.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'd have bought bumperstickers and picketed for Skylarov (if I felt it would accomplish anything), but not for Mitnick. The fact that Mitnick was abused by the legal system after being caught does not change the fact that, to my mind, he was a real criminal, and Skylarov was not. That's based on my own moral and ethical sense, of course, and I am no lawyer, but it's something I feel strongly about.
Get off my launchpad!
I always thought that the idea of freeing Kevin was retarded. I'm not even interested in what he was charged with originally. The guy skipped bail and ran from the law for two years.
He didn't skip bail. He left on the last day of his probation, which he was allowed to do. Turns out that LE wanted to see him for some reason on that day. Once he heard about that, he went into hiding. He was prosecuted for crimes committed while on the run. He was never even charged with skipping out on anything.
Why? I'm sorry, but I don't buy anyone's excuses about how there was no way he could get a fair trial under our corrupt, draconian legal system.
Hmm... and you think the fact that the Judge, who doesn't even try to hide her personal dislike for him, and that denied him his Constitutionally-guaranteed right to a bail hearing, was any cause for concern? You'd feel comfortable being tried by a judge who was willing to publically break the rules to screw you? The dollar amount for damages that the FBI had made up carried a maximum potential sentence of around 80 years.
The media, for all intents and purposes, keeps the legal system fair.
The same media system that created the lies about Mitnick that folks like yourself believe, and keep getting perpetuated? The media system that made front-page news out of Kevin, so that LE felt they had little choice but to make an example of him?
If you are being unjustly accused, there are many American organizations who will work to get the word out about your case,
The EFF didn't want to help, the ACLU didn't want to help.
Look at the Dimitry case; ridiculous charges are leveled at him, Slashdot posts a story about it every two weeks, and in the end he gets off
Yeah, he was innocent, and he got to spend months in jail, and had to stay here even after he was released. Worked out great for him.
Look at Kevin Poulsen, one of the more famous hackers of the early 80's. He got caught, plead guilty, served a short prison sentence,
Yeah, him they tried to hang a treason charge on, and he could have faced the death penalty.
Clearly, our justice system is working just fine, and these guys don't need our help.
If I were to have my way, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" would be the method for issuing punishments to criminals.
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."-Ghandi
Lemme guess, you've never done anything illegal in your entire life?
The world is not black and white. So you would kill murderers? Well, how much evidence do you need to decide to kill someone? Death isn't exactly a revocable punishment, now is it? If the judge makes a wrong decision and sentances an innocent man to death does he get killed too? There are tons of other questions like this that illustrate why "an eye for an eye" doesn't work.
You're also showing your lack of understaning of people in general. Crazy punishments wouldn't do as much as you think to deter criminals. Criminals aren't exactly the most clever, forward-thinking individuals around. That's why they're criminals. If the really thought about their future they'd realize that committing serious crimes is not a good idea, even with our current punishments.
Life is too short to proofread.
Yeah, you guys need to get laid!
I forget the URL, but it was in the chapter of his book that was "lost in the edit" but ended up on the web. I forget the URL but it should come up here again during the discussion.
Personally, I believe him. He was a social engineer, not a technical hacker and very good at it too, causing no end of problems to a number of companies. However once caught, he was labeled as 'extremely dangerous' and caught up in a circus where he was first banned from using the phone as well as the computer. I don't believe he was innocent one little bit. At the same time, certain persons involved in prosecuting the case were busy trying to use him to promote themselves. Innocent, he wasn't, but he was treated badly by an incompetent justice system.
See my journal, I write things there
We have an obligation to treat people like they are human beings whether they act like it or not. I don't trust my government to treat me like a human being when they accuse me of being a criminal, drug user, terrorist, pirate, etc. Labels are the first step in oppressive behavior. Its right in front of your eyes, man.
:( Nope, I'm not on your side.
Are you one of those millions of people that want me dead? I'm certainly not on your side, unless of course you love me and care for me and want to give me the proper environment to learn and work in. But you're a heartless old republican.