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Kevin Mitnick
This nOde last updated February 3rd, 2004 and is permanently morphing...
(10 Cib (Owl) / 4 Pax 36/260 - 12.19.10.17.16
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phreak
grew up in Sepulveda, California
born Kevin David Mitnick 1963.
aka's:
The Condor, N6NHG, Anton
Chernoff, Fred Weiner, Lee Nusbaum, Brian Merrill, David Stanfill, Thomas
Case.
former member of The Roscoe
Gang
arrested at age 17
Kevin Mitnick (born August 6, 1963) is one of the most
famous crackers (black-hat hackers)
to be jailed and convicted. Mitnick was arrested by the FBI on February 15,
1995 and charged with breaking into some of the United States' most "secure"
computer systems.
Following his arrest, Mitnick was held without bail for
over two years before sentencing: he has said that he set some kind of United
States record by being held for four and a half years without a bail hearing,
while also held in solitary confinement for eight
months "in order to prevent a possible nuclear strike being initiated by
me from a prison
payphone". The course of his trial and punishment became a cause celebre
amongst the hacker community. This movement was spearheaded by 2600's "Free
Kevin" campaign.
He was released from prison in January 2002, but banned
from using the Internet
until the midnight of January 21, 2003. On January 21, 2003, on the live television
show The Screen Savers on TechTV, Kevin Mitnick visited the first website since
his release, the blog of his girlfriend. Mitnick is now working in consulting,
and will be a keynote speaker at a security conference for executives held in
November 2003. He also is CEO of the security company Defensive Thinking.
His arrest is detailed in the book Takedown. Other media inspired by Mitnick's story include the movie, also with the name Takedown, sometimes mistitled as Hackers 2: Takedown.
Mitnick is also the subject of a two-hour documentary by 2600 entitled Freedom Downtime. It is from the perspective of a fellow hacker and offers a very different view of his case than found in Takedown or most other media today. The film is the winner of the Audience Award for Documentaries at the 2002 New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.
As a hacker, Mitnick is best known for his use of social engineering. He wrote a book on this subject after leaving prison but before returning to the Internet: The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security. It was published in October 2002. The first chapter of the book was omitted by the publisher. It gives some details of his own "career" and his grievances against hacker-journalist John Markoff. The chapter has since been made available elsewhere.
Chapter 1
Kevin's Story
by Kevin Mitnick
I was reluctant to write this section because I was sure it would sound self-serving. Well, okay, it is self-serving. But I've been contacted by literally hundreds of people who want to know "who is Kevin Mitnick?". For those who don't give a damn, please turn to Chapter 2. For everybody else, here, for what it's worth, is my story.
Kevin Speaks Some hackers destroy people's files
or entire bard drives; they're called crackers or vandals. Some novice
hackers don't bother learning the technology, but simply download hacker
tools to break into computer systems; they're called script kiddies. More
experienced hackers with programming skills develop hacker programs and
post them to the Web and to bulletin
board systems. And then there are individuals who have no interest
in the technology, but use the computer merely as a tool to aid them in
stealing money, goods, or services. Despite the media-created myth
of Kevin Mitnick, I'm not a malicious hacker. What I did wasn't even against
the law when I began, but became a crime after new legislation was
passed. I continued anyway, and was caught. My treatment by the federal
government was based not on the crimes, but on making an example of me.
I did not deserve to be treated like a terrorist or violent criminal: Having
my residence searched with a blank search warrant; being thrown into solitary
for months; denied the fundamental Constitutional rights guaranteed to
anyone accused of a crime; being denied not only bail but a bail hearing;
and being forced to spend years fighting to obtain the government's evidence
so my court appointed attorney could prepare my defense.
What about my right to a speedy
trial? For years I was given a choice every six months: sign a paper waiving
your Constitutional right to a speedy trial or go to trial with an attorney
who is unprepared; I chose to sign. But I'm getting ahead of my story.
Starting Out my path was probably set early in life. I was a happy-go-lucky
kid, but bored. After my father split when I was three, my mother worked as
a waitress to support us. To see me then an only
child being raised by a mother who put in long, harried days on a sometimes-erratic
schedule would have been to see a youngster on his own almost all his waking
hours. I was my own babysitter. Growing up in a San Fernando Valley community
gave me the whole of Los
Angeles to explore, and by the age of twelve I had discovered a way to travel
free throughout the whole greater L.A. area. I realized one day while riding
the bus that the security of the bus transfer I had purchased relied on the
unusual pattern of the paper-punch that the drivers used to mark day, time and
route on the transfer slips. A friendly driver, answering my carefully-planted
question, told me where to buy that special type of punch. The transfers
are meant to let you change buses and continue a journey to your destination,
but I worked out how to use them to travel anywhere I wanted to go for free.
Obtaining blank transfers was a walk in the park: the trash bins at the bus
terminals were always filled with only-partly-used books of transfers that the
drivers tossed away at the end of their shifts. With a pad of blanks and the
punch, I could mark my own transfers and travel anywhere that L.A. buses went.
Before long, I had all but memorized the bus schedules of the entire system.
This was an early example of my surprising memory
for certain types of information;
still, today I can remember phone numbers, passwords and other items as far
back as my childhood. Another personal interest that surfaced at an early
age was my fascination with performing magic.
Once I learned how a new trick worked, I would practice, practice, and practice
until I mastered it. To an extent, it was through magic that I discovered the
enjoyment in fooling people. From Phone Phreak,
to Hacker my first encounter with what I would
eventually learn to call social engineering came about during my high school
years, when I met another student who was caught up in a hobby called phone
phreaking. Phone phreaking is a type of hacking that allows you to explore the
telephone network
by exploiting the phone systems and phone company employees. He showed
me neat tricks he could do with a telephone,
like obtaining any information the phone company had on any customer, and using
a secret test number to make long-distances calls for free actually free only
to us--I found out much later that it wasn't a secret test number at all: the
calls were in fact being billed to some poor company's MCI account). That
was my introduction to social engineering-my kindergarten, so to speak. He and
another phone phreaker I met shortly thereafter let me listen in as they each
made pretext calls to the phone company. I heard the things they said that made
them sound believable, I learned about different phone company offices, lingo
and procedures. But that "training" didn't last long; it didn't have to. Soon
I was doing it all on my own, learning as I went, doing it even better than
those first teachers. The course my life would follow for the next fifteen
years had been set.
One of my all-time favorite pranks was gaining unauthorized access to the telephone switch and changing the class of service of a fellow phone phreak. When he'd attempt to make a call from home, he'd get a message telling him to deposit a dime, because the telephone company switch received input that indicated he was calling from a pay phone. I became absorbed in everything about telephones-not only the electronics, switches, and computers; but also the corporate organization, the procedures, and the terminology. After a while, I probably knew more about the phone system than any single employee.
And, I had developed my social engineering skills
to the point that, at seventeen years old, I was able to talk most Telco
employees into almost anything, whether I was speaking with them in person
or by telephone. My hacking career started when I was in high school.
Back then we used the term hacker to mean a person who spent a great deal
of time
tinkering with hardware and software, either to develop more efficient
programs or to bypass unnecessary steps and get the job done more quickly.
The term has now become a pejorative, carrying the meaning of "malicious
criminal." In these pages I use the term the way I have always used it
in its earlier, more benign sense.
In late 1979, a group of
fellow hacker types who worked for the Los Angeles Unified School District
dared me to try hacking into The Ark, the computer system at Digital Equipment
Corporation used for developing their RSTS/E operating system software.
I wanted to be accepted by the guys in this hacker group so I could pick
their brains to learn more about operating systems. These new "friends"
had managed to get their hands on the dial-up number to the DEC computer
system. But they knew the dial-up number wouldn't do me any good: Without
an account name and password, I'd never be able to get in. They were about
to find out that when you underestimate others, it can come back to bite
you in the butt. It turned out that, for me, even at that young age, hacking
into the DEC system was a pushover. Claiming to be Anton Chernoff, one
of the project's lead developers, I placed a simple phone call to the system
manager. I claimed I couldn't log into one of "my" accounts, and was convincing
enough to talk the guy into giving me accessing and allowing me to select
a password of my choice. As an extra level of protection, whenever
anyone dialed into the development system, the user also had to provide
a dial-up password. The system administrator told me the password. It was
"buffoon," which I guess described what he must have felt like later on,
when lie found out what had happened. In less than five minutes,
I had gained access to Digital's RSTE/E development system. And I wasn't
logged on as just as an ordinary user, but as someone with all the privileges
of a system developer. At first my new, so-called friends refused
to believe I had gained access to The Ark. One of them dialed up the system
and shoved the keyboard in front of me with a challenging look on his face.
His mouth dropped open as I matter-of-factly logged into a privileged account.
I found out later that they went off to another location and, the same
day, started downloading source-code components of the DEC operating system.
And then it was my turn to be floored. After they had downloaded all the
software they wanted, they called the corporate security department at
DEC and told them someone had hacked into the company's corporate network.
And they gave my name. My so-called friends first used my access to copy
highly sensitive source code, and then turned me in. There was a lesson
here, but not one I managed to learn easily. Through the years to
come, I would repeatedly get into trouble because I trusted
people who I thought were my friends. After high school I studied
computers at the Computer Learning Center in Los Angeles.
Within a few months, the
school's computer manager realized I had found a vulnerability in the operating
system and gained full administrative privileges on their IBM minicomputer.
The best computer experts on their teaching staff couldn't figure out how
I had done this. In what may have been one of the earliest examples of
"hire the hacker," I was given an offer I couldn't refuse: Do an honors
project to enhance the school's computer security, or face suspension for
hacking the system. Of course I chose to do the honors project, and ended
up graduating Cum Laude with Honors. Becoming a Social Engineer some
people get out of bed each morning dreading their daily work routine at
the proverbial salt mines. I've been lucky enough to enjoy my work. In
particular you can't imagine
the challenge, reward, and pleasure I had in the time I spent as a private
investigator. I was honing my talents in the performance art called social
engineering-getting people to do things they wouldn't ordinarily do for
a stranger-and being paid for it. For me it wasn't difficult becoming proficient
in social engineering. My father's side of the family had been in
the sales field for generations, so the art of influence and persuasion
might have been an inherited trait. When you combine an inclination for
deceiving people with the talents of influence and persuasion you arrive
at the profile of a social engineer. You might say there are two
specialties within the job classification of con artist. Somebody who swindles
and cheats people out of their money belongs to one sub-specialty, the
grifter. Somebody who uses deception, influence, and persuasion against
businesses, usually targeting their information, belongs to the other sub-specialty,
the social engineer. From the time of my bus transfer trick, when I was
too young to know there was anything wrong with what I was doing, I had
begun to recognize a talent for finding out the secrets I wasn't supposed
to have. I built on that talent by using deception, knowing the lingo,
and developing a well-honed skill of manipulation.
One way I used to work on developing the skills
in my craft (if I may all it a craft) was to pick out some piece
of information I didn't really care about and see if I could talk somebody
on the other end of the phone into providing it, just to improve my talents.
In the same way I used to practice my magic tricks, I practiced pretexting.
Through these rehearsals, I soon found I could acquire virtually any information
I targeted. In Congressional testimony before Senators Lieberman
and Thompson years later, I told them, "I have gained unauthorized access
to computer systems at some of the largest corporations on the planet,
and have successfully penetrated some of the most resilient computer systems
ever developed. I have used both technical and non-technical means
to obtain the source code to various operating systems and telecommunications
devices to study their vulnerabilities and their inner workings." All of
this was really to satisfy my own curiosity, see what I could do, and find
out secret information about operating systems, cell phones, and anything
else that stirred my curiosity. The train of events that would change
my life started when I became the subject of a July 4th, 1994 front-page,
above-the-fold story in the New York Times. Overnight, that one story
turned my image from a little known nuisance of a hacker into Public
Enemy Number One of cyberspace. John Markoff, the Media's grifter
"Combining technical wizardry
with the ages-old guile of a grifter, Kevin Mitnick is a computer programmer
run amok." (The New York Times, 7/4/94.) Combining the ages-old desire
to attain undeserved fortune with the power to publish false and defamatory
stories about his subjects on the front page of the New York Times, John
Markoff was truly a technology reporter run amok. Markoff was to earn himself
over $1 million by single-handedly creating what I label "The Myth of Kevin
Mitnick." He became very wealthy through the very same technique I used
to compromise computer systems and networks around the world: deception.
In this case however, the victim of the deception wasn't a single computer
user or system administrator, it was every person who trusted the news
stories published in the pages of the New York Times.
Cyberspace's Most Wanted
Markoff's Times article was clearly designed to land a contract for a book
about my life story. I've never met Markoff, and yet he has literally
become a millionaire through his libelous and defamatory "reporting" about
me in the Times and in his 1991 book, Cyberpunk.
In his article, he included some dozens of allegations about me that he
stated as fact without citing his sources, and that even a minimal process
of fact-checking (which I thought all first-rate newspapers required their
reporters to do) would have revealed as being untrue or unproven.
In that single false and defamatory article, Markoff labeled me as "cyberspace's
most wanted," and as "one of the nation's most wanted computer criminals,"
without justification, reason, or supporting evidence, using no more discretion
than a writer for a supermarket tabloid. In his slanderous article,
Markoff falsely claimed that I had wiretapped the FBI (I hadn't); that
I had broken into the computers at NORAD (which aren't even connected to
any network
on the outside); and that I was a computer "vandal," despite the fact that
I had never intentionally
damaged any computer I ever accessed. These, among other outrageous allegations,
were completely false and designed to create a sense of fear about my capabilities.
In yet another breach of journalistic ethics, Markoff failed to disclose
in that article and in all of his subsequent articles-a pre-existing relationship
with me, a personal animosity based on my having refused to participate
in the book Cyberpunk In addition, I had cost him a bundle of potential
revenue by refusing to renew an option for a movie based on the book.
Markoff's article was also clearly designed to taunt America's law enforcement
agencies.
"...Law enforcement," Markoff
wrote, "cannot seem to catch up with him...." The article was deliberately
framed to cast me as cyberspace's Public Enemy Number One in order to influence
the Department of Justice to elevate
the priority of my case. A few months later, Markoff and his cohort
Tsutomu Shimomura would both participate as de facto government agents
in my arrest, in violation of both federal law and journalistic ethics.
Both would be nearby when three blank warrants were used in an illegal
search of my residence, and be present at my arrest. And, during their
investigation of my activities, the two would also violate federal law
by intercepting a personal telephone call of mine. While making me
out to be a villain, Markoff, in a subsequent article, set up Shimomura
as the number one hero of cyberspace. Again he was violating journalistic
ethics by not disclosing a preexisting relationship: this hero in fact
had been a personal friend of Markoff's for years. My first encounter
with Markoff had come in the late eighties when he and his wife Katie Hafner
contacted me while they were in the process of writing Cyberpunk, which
was to be the story of three hackers: a German kid known as Pengo, Robert
Morris, and myself.
What would my compensation be for participating?
Nothing. I couldn't see the point of giving them my story if they would
profit from it and I wouldn't, so I refused to help. Markoff gave me an
ultimatum: either interview with us or anything we hear from any source
will be accepted as the truth. He was clearly frustrated and annoyed that
I would not cooperate, and was letting me know he had the means to make
me regret it. I chose to stand my ground and would not cooperate despite
his pressure tactics. When published, the book portrayed me as "The
Darkside Hacker." I concluded that the authors had intentionally included
unsupported, false statements in order to get back at me for not cooperating
with them. By making my character appear more sinister and casting me in
a false light,
they probably increased the sales of the book. A movie producer phoned
with great news: Hollywood was interested in making a movie about the Darkside
Hacker depicted in Cyberpunk. I pointed out that the story was full of
inaccuracies and untruths about me, but he was still very excited about
the project. I accepted $5,000 for a two-year option, against an additional
$45,000 if they were able to get a production deal and move forward.
When the option expired, the production company asked for a six month extension.
By this time I was gainfully employed, and so had little motivation for
seeing a movie produced that showed me in such an unfavorable and false
light. I refused to go along with the extension. That killed the
movie deal for everyone, including Markoff, who had probably expected to
make a great deal of money from the project. Here was one more reason for
John Markoff to be vindictive towards me. Around the time Cyberpunk
was published, Markoff had ongoing email correspondence with his friend
Shimomura. Both of them were strangely interested in my whereabouts and
what I was doing. Surprisingly, one e-mail message contained intelligence
that they had learned I was attending the University of Nevada, Las Vegas,
and had use of the student computer lab. Could it be that Markoff and Shimomura
were interested in doing another book about me? Otherwise, why would they
care what I was up to? Markoff in Pursuit Take a step back to late
1992. I was nearing the end of my supervised release for compromising Digital
Equipment Corporation's corporate network. Meanwhile I became aware that
the government was trying to put together another case against me, this
one for conducting counter-intelligence to find out why wiretaps had been
placed on the phone lines of a Los Angeles P.II firm. In my digging, I
confirmed my suspicion: the Pacific Bell security people were indeed investigating
the firm. So was a computer-crime deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department. (That deputy turns out to be, co-incidentally, the twin brother
of my co-author on this book. Small world.)
About this time, the Feds set up a criminal informant and sent him out to entrap me. They knew I always tried to keep tabs on any agency investigating me. So they had this informant befriend me and tip me off that I was being monitored. He also shared with me the details of a computer system used at Pacific Bell that would let me do counter-surveillance of their monitoring. When I discovered his plot, I quickly turned the tables on him and exposed him for credit-card fraud he was conducting while working for the government in an informant capacity.
I'm sure the Feds appreciated that!
My life changed on Independence Day, 1994 when my pager woke me early in the
morning. The caller said I should immediately
pick up a copy of the New York Times. I couldn't believe it when I saw that
Markoff had not only written an article about me, but the Times
had placed it on the front page.
The first thought that came to mind was for my personal safety-now the government
would be substantially increasing their efforts to find me. I was relieved that
in an effort to demonize me, the Times had used a very unbecoming picture. I
wasn't fearful of being recognized they had chosen a picture so out of date
that it didn't look anything like me! As I began to read the article,
I realized that Markoff was setting himself up to write the Kevin Mitnick book,
just as he had always wanted. I simply could not believe the New York Times
would risk printing the egregiously false statements that he had written about
me. I felt helpless. Even if I had been in a position to respond, I certainly
would not have an audience equal to the New York Times s to rebut Markoff's
outrageous lies. While I can agree I had been a pain in the ass, I had never
destroyed information, nor used or disclosed to others any information I had
obtained. Actual losses by companies from my hacking activities amounted to
the cost of phone calls I had made at phone-company expense, the money spent
by companies to plug the security vulnerabilities that my attacks had revealed,
and in a few instances possibly causing companies to reinstall their operating
systems and applications for fear I might have modified software in a way that
would allow me future access. Those companies would have remained vulnerable
to far worse damage if my activities hadn't made them aware of the weak links
in their security chain. Though I had caused some losses, my actions and
intent were not malicious ... and then John Markoff changed the world's perception
of the danger I represented. The power of one unethical reporter from
such an influential newspaper to write a false and defamatory story about anyone
should haunt each and every one of us. The next target might be you.
After my arrest I was transported to the County
Jail in Smithfield, North Carolina, where the U.S. Marshals Service
ordered jailers to place me into 'the hole' - solitary
confinement. Within a week, federal prosecutors and my attorney reached
an agreement that I couldn't refuse. I could be moved out of solitary on
the condition that I waived my fundamental rights and agreed to:
a) no bail hearing; b) no preliminary hearing; and, c) no phone calls,
except to my attorney and two family members. Sign, and I could get out
of solitary. I signed. The federal prosecutors in the case played every
dirty trick in the book up until I was released nearly five years later.
I was repeatedly forced to waive my rights in order to be treated like
any other accused. But this was the Kevin Mitnick case: There were no rules.
No requirement to respect the Constitutional rights of the accused. My
case was not about justice, but about the government's determination to
win at all costs. The prosecutors had made vastly overblown claims to the
court about the damage I had caused and the threat I represented, and the
media had gone to town quoting the sensationalist statements; now it was
too late for the prosecutors to back down. The government could not afford
to lose the Mitnick case. The world was watching.
I believe that the courts
bought into the fear generated by media coverage, since many of the more
ethical journalists had picked up the "facts" from the esteemed New York
Times and repeated them. The media-generated myth apparently even
scared law enforcement officials. A confidential document obtained by my
attorney showed that the U.S. Marshals Service had issued a warning to
all law enforcement agents never to reveal any personal information to
me; otherwise, they might find their lives electronically destroyed.
Our Constitution requires that the accused be presumed innocent before
trial, thus granting all citizens the right to a bail hearing, where the
accused has the opportunity to be represented by counsel, present evidence,
and cross-examine witnesses. Unbelievably, the government had been able
to circumvent these protections based on the false hysteria generated by
irresponsible reporters like John Markoff. Without precedent, I was held
as a pre-trial detainee-a person in custody pending trial or sentencing-for
over four and a half years. The judge's refusal to grant me a bail hearing
was litigated all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the end, my defense
team advised me that I had set another precedent: I was the only federal
detainee in U.S. history denied a bail hearing. This meant the government
never had to meet the burden of proving that there were no conditions of
release that would reasonably assure my appearance in court. At least
in this case, federal prosecutors did not dare to allege that I could start
a nuclear war by whistling into a payphone, as other federal prosecutors
had done in an earlier case. The most serious charges against me were that
I had copied proprietary source code for various cellular phone handsets
and popular operating systems. Yet the prosecutors alleged publicly
and to the court that I had caused collective losses exceeding $300 million
to several companies. The details of the loss amounts are still under seal
with the court, supposedly to protect the companies involved; my defense
team, though, believes the prosecution's request to seal the information
was initiated to cover up their gross malfeasance in my case. It's also
worth noting that none of the victims in my case had reported any losses
to the Securities and Exchange Commission as required by law. Either several
multinational companies violated Federal law-in the process deceiving the
SEC, stockholders, and analysts--or the losses attributable to my hacking
were, in fact, too trivial to be reported. In his book he Fugitive
Game, Jonathan Li-wan reports that within a week of the New York Times
front-page story, Markoff's agent had "brokered a package deal" with the
publisher Walt Disney
Hyperion for a book about the campaign to track me down. The advance was
to be an estimated $750,000. According to Littman, there was to be a Hollywood
movie, as well, with Miramax handing over $200,000 for the option and "a
total $650,000 to be paid upon commencement of filming." A confidential
source has recently informed me that Markoff's deal was in fact much more
than Littman had originally thought. So John Markoff got a million
dollars, more or less, and I got five years. One book that examines the
legal aspects of my case was written by a man who had himself been a prosecutor
in the Los Angeles District Attorney's office, a colleague of the attorneys
who prosecuted me. In his book Spectacular Computer Crimes, Buck Bloombecker
wrote, "It grieves me to have to write about my former colleagues in less
than flattering terms.... I'm haunted by Assistant United States Attorney
James Asperger's admission that much of the argument used to keep Mitnick
behind bars was based on rumors which didn't pan out." He goes on
to say, "It was bad enough that the charges prosecutors made in court were
spread to millions of readers by newspapers around the country. But it
is much worse that these untrue allegations were a large part of the basis
for keeping Mitnick behind bars without the possibility of posting bail?"
He continues at some length, writing about the ethical standards that prosecutors
should live by, and then writes, "Mitnick's case suggests that the false
allegations used to keep him in custody also prejudiced the court's consideration
of a fair sentence." In his 1999 Forbes article, Adam L. Penenberg
eloquently described my situation this way: "Mitnick's crimes were curiously
innocuous. He broke into corporate computers, but no evidence indicates
that he destroyed data. Or sold anything he copied. Yes, he pilfered
software but in doing so left it behind." The article said that my crime
was "To thumb his nose at the costly computer security systems employed
by large corporations."
And in the book _The Fugitive
Game_, author Jonathan Littman noted, "Greed the government could understand.
But a hacker who wielded power for its own sake ... was something they
couldn't grasp." Elsewhere in the same book, Littman wrote: U.S.
Attorney James Sanders admitted to Judge Pfaelzer that Mitnick's damage
to DEC was not the $4 million that had made the headlines but $160,000.
Even that amount was not damage done by Mitnick, but the rough cost of
tracing the security weakness that his incursions had brought to DEC's attention.
The government acknowledged it had no evidence of the wild claims that
had helped hold Mitnick without bail and in solitary confinement. No proof
Mitnick had ever compromised the security of the NSA. No proof that Mitnick
had ever issued a false press release for Security Pacific Bank. No proof
that Mitnick ever changed the TRW credit report of a judge. But the
judge, perhaps influenced by the terrifying media coverage, rejected the
plea bargain and sentenced Mitnick to a longer term then even the government
wanted. Throughout the years spent as a hacker hobbyist, I've gained
unwanted notoriety, been written up in numerous news reports and magazine
articles, and had four books written about me. Markoff and Shimomura's
libelous book was made into a feature film called Takedown. When the script
found its way onto the Internet,
many of my supporters picketed Miramax Films to call public attention to
the inaccurate and false characterization of me. Without the help of many
kind and generous people, the motion picture would surely have falsely
portrayed me as the Hannibal Lector of cyberspace. Pressured by my supporters,
the production company agreed to settle the case on confidential terms
to avoid me filing a libel action against them.
Final Thoughts
Despite John Markoff's outrageous and libelous descriptions
of me, my crimes were simple crimes of computer trespass and making free telephone
calls. I've acknowledged since my arrest that the actions I took were illegal,
and that I committed invasions of privacy. But to suggest, without justification,
reason, or proof, as did the Markoff articles, that I had deprived others of
their money or property by computer or wire fraud, is simply untrue, and unsupported
by the evidence. My misdeeds were motivated by curiosity: I wanted to
know as much as I could about how phone networks worked, and the ins and outs
of computer security. I went from being a kid who loved to perform magic tricks
to becoming the world's most notorious hacker, feared by corporations and the
government. As I reflect back on my life for the last thirty years, I admit
I made some extremely poor decisions, driven by my curiosity, the desire to
learn about technology, and a good intellectual challenge. I'm a changed
person now. I'm turning my talents and the extensive knowledge I've gathered
about information security and social engineering tactics to helping government,
businesses and individuals prevent, detect, and respond to information security
threats. This book is one more way that I can use my experience
to help others avoid the efforts of the malicious information thieves of the
world. I think you will find the stories enjoyable, eye-opening and educational.
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cache
