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CNN Interviews Kevin Mitnick
phantom writes to tell us that a couple of days ago Kevin Mitnick gave an interview to CNN further deconstructing his past exploits and discussing his current activities.
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There was a good interview of Kevin Mitnick in the third release by "The Broken".
He is a reasonable sounding guy, and I think in the interview with "The Broken" sort of dispells some of the myths that were started about him in the book "Cyberpunk" by Katie Hafner and John Markoff.
I read that book when I was in 6th grade and I was totally blow away. I got a modem and started war dialing and memorizing "at" commands just so I could try and be a badass like Kevin Mitnick.
Kevin was very personable, and has clearly given a lot of thought to his current phase in life as a security expert. As you might expect from his background, Kevin has a keen mind for remembering details, and observing human interaction. That's part of what I like about his books, as well as from his presentation at The Fifth Hope.
He stole the code. He electronically hacked into systems and stole code. This is completely different than normal copyright infringement, where you legally have access to something and then copy it illegally. He obtained this source code illegally (hence, he stole it). See the difference?
Have you ever considered the possibility that Mitnick attacked people who were evil/unethical themselves? For example, if the world had not been informed how trivial it was to clone analog cell phones the technology may never have advanced. The corporations didn't give a shit about how primitive the cell network was and how trivial it was to attack. They were only interested in hunting Mitnick down and getting him arrested for fraud. Call me crazy but I would have prefered it if the police had arrested the cell network engineers for hiding information about how insecure their network is from the public. The GSM networks of today are slightly more secure, but they're still hackable. Why? It's not like putting a crypto chip into every phone to do a proper Diffie-Hellman key exchange would be prohibitively expensive anymore. The reason is that upgrading the network to support cryptographically secure key exchange would cost more than it costs to hunt down the few people who still clone sims. So us, the consumers, get substandard security because it doesn't improve the bottom line for the service providers. And it's not like we can just set up our own cell phone network and provide proper security.. you have to be a megacorp that is in bed with all the other megacorps to compete.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Created? Created what? As I recall he was mostly convicted for telephone- and creditcard fraude. Which makes him a common thief, not (his words) the 'Osama bin Mitnick' of the hackercommunity. Which in itself is a strange claim to fame. Does this imply 'somebody' will put him out of business using a MOAB while he's hiding in a cave in Montana? That would be cool, actually.
http://www.takedown.com/evidence/index.html
Voice mail messages to Tsutomu
Call to Mark Lottor
The attacker's on-line sessions
Sessions from other anklebiters (past and present)
Analysis of the machine state after the break-in
Photo from files stolen from Tsutomu
Netcom login records for gkremen (stolen account)
Fun are the live sessions.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The thing that annoyed Digital is that his attacks against the company were mostly around social engineering, not against the OS itself. It didn't quite kill the company but it caused delays to two versions of the operating system and the introduction of Alpha.
See my journal, I write things there
granparent post was right, he's just a dick
Actually, I know Kevin and he is anything but a dick. He knows that he did some stupid things when he was younger, but it was ages ago. Talking to Kevin, he rarely brings up "those days". If you ask him about "those days", he simply says that he made mistakes, did his time and is getting on with his life. He owns a security company now, does lectures and is happy with his family (girlfriend/step-kid).
It is amazing how people who don't know him call him names and mock/criticize those who show interest in his past. If these people really cared as little as they try to portray, they wouldn't bother posting. It is most likely they are trying to hide a feeling of inferiority
CNN: Do you miss being on the run? (stupid question CNN!)
:)
MITNICK: No, no, I don't miss it all. I like my life now. I made some really stupid mistakes in the past as a younger man that I regret. I'm lucky that I've been given a second chance and that I could use these skills to help the community.
But now that I've turned over a new leaf and people are interested in my skill-set, now the notoriety of my name helps me in my business.
Make up your mind, are you helping the community or are you helping your own business?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
There were a couple of things that make the case interesting (not worthy of DROOL, of course). The fact that his crimes amounted to, well, being a dick, but the government and his corporate victims pulled a random number out of their ass as "damages" and it was pretty much accepted without question by the court. That has a certain interest. Much greater damage happens to a much wider variety of systems today but somehow the prisons are not full.
The fact that he was held without being charged for an extremely long time is worrying. I tend to think Mitnick needed a better lawyer, but the judge definitely bought into a lot of BS about Mitnick's magical powers.
I think most people who followed the case just saw the government abusing their power. The sheer pretentiousness of most of the crap written about Mitnick's crimes probably makes some sympathetic to him just by default.
I don't think I'd take anyone seriously who compared the two men.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
I have no strong opinions on whether Kevin is a martyr or the spawn of Satan, but do you think anyone would turn up to his lectures were it not for his reputation gained in "those days"?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.