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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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Nothing to see here, please move along.
Damn, he's good.
Fr33 K3v1n!!!!
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
hahahahaha oh that's rich.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Why is it that people get so worked up over Mitnick?
He was a dick to a bunch of people, he got in trouble, he spent some time in jail. Okay, that sucks for him, but why does everyone drool over him?
Woz was an electronic prankster, but he wasn't a jerk, and he *created things* instead of just making people unhappy. I could see being a Woz fan, but waving a "Kevin" flag is just weird.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
He was overheard muttering "I hacked the FBI and wiretapped NORAD."
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.
Does anyone know exactly how exagerrated or perhaps accurate the movie "Takedown" was?
"Copyright infringement is not theft!"
Okay, now do the one about "theft of service," "stolen kisses," and "stealing your thunder." And can you do the one about Apple's "don't steal music" sticker? I just love that one!
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
He stole it
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.
Yeah, that whole "reading" thing must be a bit beyond you, eh?
Flooding in eastern states leaves 10 dead has been on CNN.com's front page since Sunday.
I'm not crazy,I'm actively irresponsible.
they did a phone interview with a guy who could whistle tones to blow up the world and make baby orphans die and stuff. they are lucky he didnt explode their brains with his telepathic powers!
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
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?
Well Internet has been spotty here in the aftermath... so i couldn't have seen that story.
But my sat tv works..and there was only mention on FOX news... This evening (monday) and this started Saturday night.
A bullet sounds the same in every language. So stick a fucking sock in it...
- Someone breaks into your house and takes your tv
- Someone walks into your house (door was unlocked), reads your gay porno magazines, and leaves.
Do *you* see the difference?What's with the vacuum?
granparent post was right, he's just a dick
the kind of people who admire criminals do so for one overriding reason: for all of their other failures, criminals do have courage
so if you admire kevin mitnick, you admire him because he has the balls to do what you do not
meanwhile if you don't admire kevin mitnick, then good for you: you probably have a modicum of courage about your character, without the failures of character mitnick has/ had
as for his prosecution, well if that's what gets you fired up, then you aren't really interested in kevin mitnick at all, you are interested in law enforcement and prosecution and rights
those who admire kevin mitnick only do so because they are spineless themselves, and are drawn to anyone who shows initiative, while anyone with initiative in themselves find nothing attractive about mitnick at all, and could care less
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"See the difference?"
I saw a difference before your post, but now i'm just confused. That's a pretty crazy leap you made to get to your conclusion.
Lets try and make things simpler and see where we end up?
Copying is illegal?
No, distribution is illegal. Therefore it wasn't anything to do with copyright infringement, so both you and the GP are misguided.
Copying files after breaking into a network is stealing?
No that's just copying files after breaking into a network, a different crime i would imagine (it may be theft but not in the sense that your post makes it out to be).
Breaking into a network breaks various laws, copying files after breaking into a network *is* probably against some law or another but its not 'stealing' in a reasonable sense i.e you haven't taken something away from the victim. Although now that i think about it reasonable people will say that if someone copies some private file they have taken something (data) that's not theirs to take, so i guess as usual nothing is simple.
Could it be something else?
Unauthorised copying?
Unauthorised access?
Or perhaps copying data that you gain access to illegally is just a part of any overall legislation that deals with computer crime.
Conclusion
I really don't know.
But it's probably not so 'simple' as your post makes it out to be (in its roundabout way).
Copying files is not illegal in the copyright sense.
Copying files after breaking into a machine/network is undoubtably against the law in most countries.
It may be deemed theft, but not in the sense that you stole a cow or car. More like theft of trade secrets (is there such a thing?).
The End.
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.
What the guy says is "which is ESSENTIALLY stealing".
;-)
What you say is that you don't respect him because it's not TECHNICALLY stealing at all.
Essentially, that doesn't make too much sense. Copyright infringement doesn't really come into this, or if it does, what he did goes a bit beyond your average copy protection circumvention (which I'm all for, btw).
But when people come breaking into your computer and copying all you have, you can call it whatever you like
I think, therefore I am...I think.
That's just about the most idiotic generalization I've ever read, bar SCO propaganda. I'm quite confident to hand you this compliment even if I don't really know who this Kevin guy is. Have you any idea how many reasons one can have to admire someone? Being spineless seems like a very very distant reason to me. I don't know what it is that bugs you about this Kevin or his fan club, but just reading the article tells me there could be quite a lot to admire regardless of what people think he stands for.
Admiration does not have to be coupled to the whole spectrum of human foibles and weaknesses. You can admire someone's guts even without having actually looked at his innards. You can hate someone's guts and equally admire him for it, etc etc etc...
I think there's even cause to admire this guy just by the emotions he seems to evoke in total - (barely saved my karma there)...
I think, therefore I am...I think.
I'm surprised the US did that to their own citizens in those days. Now they are just incarcinating foreigners as animals in Gutatinmo Bay. Also their trials are designed to bring a guilty veridict. I imagine if the regualar joe kept his dogs in those conditions he would have been sued/fined big by the RSPCA or equivlant in no time.
The two terminologies have become obscured through apathy, ignorance and cluelessness, I'm afraid. If mitnick can't make the distinction, there's no way anyone else with lesser technical merit (the press) will.
"I get hired to hack into computers now and sometimes it's actually easier than it was years ago. "
"Compared to the time you were an illegal hacker, and the contemporary landscape, how easy is it to hack a computer?"
"..target to visit a Web site, which exploits a technical flaw and allows the hacker to take over the computer."
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Is there a bot on this site that posts stupid mindless two line replys to peoples posts?
It seems to be written something like this:
Perhaps if you actually read my post it I quite clearly made out my position on ILLEGALY breaking into a computer and copying its files. Doing so will see in a very real concrete and steel barred prison.
The crime you have committed isn't neccessarely theft in the traditional sense.
Either your going for the 'quick & witty' mod, or you're stupid, perhaps both?
Plus i dont have a social security number, so copying it would be a bit hard. But if i understand correctly it's not exactly hard to get anyway given the prevalence of its (mis)use in your country.
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
Unpublished works are more protected, as obtaining a copy deprives the owner of the exclusive right. Especially source code has a real value, often millions, which would be lost if it were leaked and spread to the public. In this case the damages are the total value of the product, the cost of development.
There was a case long ago where a hacker obtained a document about 911 operating procedures. Initially they charged him with millions of damages, which included a lot of manhours of work, the cost of all computer systems used to write it, etc. When it was discovered a copy of the document could be ordered by anyone for a few dollars, the case was dropped. This is because the crime switched from stealing an unpublished work to copying a published work.
My dad had a TI-994A. Here we go!
...
ATDP#######
(LINE IS BUSY)
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A/
(LINE IS BUSY)
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(LINE IS BUSY)
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So many lost hours waiting to connect to the local bbs... I should have learned to play basketball.
My favorite part of the interview is the discussion on social engineering. Funny how we invest all of this money into improved security, hardware, etc, etc, etc and then people can make a phone call and get passwords over the net. Years ago when I was in high school, we had a class project to make a little website on our internal server at school. A friend of mine and myself ended up getting two different hosting accounts at different ISP's and moving our little projects online for the rest of the world. Long story short, he tells me one day on the phone, "I can hack your site." I challenged him to do so and 5 minutes later all the text on the index was changed. All he did was call the ISP and tell them he had forgotten his password, gave my name and address (all common knowledge) and they gave him my password over the phone. The entire call took about 30 seconds. This was years ago and I'm sure quite a bit has changed with ISP's, but it just goes to show how dangerous a naive employee and a telephone can be.
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> Is there a bot on this site that posts stupid mindless two line replys to peoples posts?
Yes.
So by your logic it's ok if communists eat your puppies
You shall see a cow on the roof of a cotton house.
As far as I'm concerned some of what Kevin did he should of and was made to pay for. My problem wasn't that it was how the government handled it, as far as I'm concerned it was unconstitutional holding him in solitary confinement without allowing representation or charges for years.
You're right, he wasn't anywhere near as likeable or admirable as the Woz. For years I wanted to be like him in creating the Apple. I was in high school when micro/homebrew computers were coming out and I'd go down to Rad Shack and play around with the Trash, er TRS 80. That was when I decided I wanted to major in Computer Engineering. It was a tuff choice as I also wanted to major in Marine Biology or Oceanography, the other person I wanted to be like was Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The documentary about Kevin Mitnick, made by 2600: Freedom Downtime: http://freedomdowntime.com/ Really good documentary, if you see the DVD version, it has many hours of interviews with Kevin Mitnick. This documentary won the New York Film Festival, best documentary award.
Remember though, these were men that were actively seeking to kill Americans so I have little sympathy for their plight
And I suppose you have positive proof they are guilty, say maybe videos of them conmitting crimes? If so why don't you share that with the military and put them on trial then? Fact is is many were only guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong tyme.
FalconShould there be a Law?
ya know, the prince of thieves?
a very foolish oversight. i scoff.
and meta-moderation isn't bound by the same rules as moderation. I'm modding down the insightful rating as unfair. It wouldn't rate an insightful rating even if it was particularly useful, but it isn't even that, and here's why:
When I complete the thought it goes like this:
I could care less, but it would be hard, real hard, and you aren't making it any easier.