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CNN Interviews Kevin Mitnick

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tue Oct 11, 2005 12:58 AM
from the explorations-of-modesty dept.
Quickies
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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CNN Interviews Kevin Mitnick 50 Comments More /

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  • 404 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2005, @01:01AM (#13762589)
    Nothing to see here, please move along.

    Damn, he's good.

  • May I be the first to say (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mateito (746185) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @01:02AM (#13762592) Homepage
    Fr33 K3v1n!!!!

  • "past exploits" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Capt'n Hector (650760) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @01:04AM (#13762599)
    hahahahaha oh that's rich.

  • Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by typical (886006) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @01:08AM (#13762612) Journal
    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.

    • Re:Sigh (Score:5, Informative)

      by mcrbids (148650) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @01:55AM (#13762768) Journal
      Why is it that people get so worked up over Mitnick?

      Dude, have you *read* the story of Mitnick? Yeah, he did some things he shouldn'ta. He knew it. He was a dick. He also didn't send out P3N15 spam, nor did he do any particular damage to the systems he infiltrated.

      But where it gets interesting? His prosecution... He was denied more rights than most people know they have, and was even denied right to a phone call because they feared he could launch bombs by squeaking ringtones into the phone!

      Simple absurdity.
      • 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 yo
        • Admire? Who said anything about admire? Oh I see, you have nothing real to say so you argue against something nobody said. How is that working out for you?

        • Freud (Score:3, Insightful)

          by zpok (604055)
          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.
          Admira

        • Re:wrong (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2005, @04:35AM (#13763243)
          Why would one need to admire him in order to be outraged by the rights he was denied?

          I want certain rights for everyone, including people I hate.

        • Re:wrong (Score:5, Interesting)

          by DavonZ (13344) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @04:37AM (#13763252) Homepage
          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
          • 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"?

        • Re:wrong (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Dr. Evil (3501)

          Mitnick was arrested at a time when failure to provide due process, innocent before being proven guilty and right to a fair trial were still popular ideals.

          Yes, he was guilty, yes he served his time, yes it was probably an appropriate amount of time... but!

          ... the process he went through to get to that outcome was very unfair and ignored his rights.

          When you get down to it, Mitnick was a screwed up kid who got a power trip out of manipulating people and accessing secret information. He amassed power t

    • Re:Sigh (Score:3, Interesting)

      by QuantumG (50515)
      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

    • Re:Sigh (Score:2, Insightful)

      by h0tr0d (160151)
      Because he was the first 'hacker' the public had the chance to put a face to and could truly be afraid of because of all the over-hype by the media. Mitnick's noteriety for his hackery will forever place him in infamy as far as the general public is concerned for the same reason serial killers such as John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, and Charles Manson are.
    • It's quite simple actually. Mitnicks actions captured the attention of people not as technically inclined as himself. He inspired peoples imaginations and before long Kevin was toning with his mouth.. (and causing quadrillions of dollars worth of damage!)
    • I think it has something to do with him being held without trail for like four years or some such. I don't know many specifics but from what I've read it seems he didn't get his "due course" or whatever you yanks call it.

    • Re:Sigh (Score:2, Interesting)

      by burne (686114)
      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.

    • Re:Sigh (Score:4, Interesting)

      by hughk (248126) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @04:33AM (#13763237) Journal
      He cost Digital a bundle, both for RSTS/E (an early 16-bit minicomputer OS) as well as VMS. In the latter case, he triggered a complete code review after gaining access to the main VMS development cluster which ended up costing Digital a fortune.

      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.

    • Re:Sigh (Score:3, Interesting)

      by justins (80659)

      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?

      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 hap

  • Debunks Some Myths (Score:5, Funny)

    by J_Omega (709711) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @01:09AM (#13762615)
    but he denies the stories that he hacked into NORAD -- North American Aerospace Defense Command -- or that he wiretapped the FBI.


    He was overheard muttering "I hacked the FBI and wiretapped NORAD."

  • The Broken Interview (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ubrayj02 (513476) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @01:11AM (#13762620) Homepage Journal
    There was a good interview of Kevin Mitnick in the third release [thebroken.org] 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.
    • . I got a modem and started war dialing and memorizing "at" commands just so I could try and be a badass like Kevin Mitnick.

      Yeah. Once upon a time, I knew quite a bit about the Hayes-compatable MODEM command set. It all fell to crap as "compatable" became "hayes-ish". Sad, though, the only ones I actually used over the years:

      ATZ - reset the modem to factory defaults.

      ATI1, ATI2, ATI3, ATI4, etc. - what kind of modem is this, anyway?

      ATDT[phone#] - Dial a phone number.

      ATH0 - self evident.

      How many do you rememb
      • You pretty much named all that I can remember. It has been a while.

        In my freshman year of high school I think that fax machines were getting more and more common - and they had really convoluted AT commands. I think that I was so isolated I just thought the only way to do things was by typing them in manually. I remember trying really hard to memorize all the new commands that came with our brand new 14.4k fax/modem. I even started bringing the manual to school and reading it in class when I had time. Lucki
      • A/ - repeat last command (?)

        ATA - answer

        ATD worked without the "T" for touch-tone. My modem would dial one touch tone digit, wait and see if the phone company recognized it (to see if you had paid the touch-tone fee), and then either continue dialing with tones, or re-dial with pulses.

        There were a bunch of tweaks to timing that was possible (maybe AT@0) . I made the dial speed really short and lowered the "time from off-hook to first digit dialed" to the minimum possible. I wrote a program to auto-dial ever
      • Some of us old-timers remember ATDP or, and how is this for an indignity, having to dial manually with your rotary phone a few hundred times before you got a carrier and popped your handset into your coupler only to have your idiot sister pick up the phone forcing you to later, rinse and repeat.

        Clearly I have some unsettled issues here. I'll be quiet now.

  • Mitnick spoke at The Fifth Hope (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gbnewby (74175) * on Tuesday October 11 2005, @01:30AM (#13762689) Homepage
    Here is a link to the speaker page: http://www.the-fifth-hope.org/hoop/5hope_speakers. khtml [the-fifth-hope.org]. Scroll or search to get Kevin's speech (two parts; audio only or audio plus video). I got to speak with him a little at the conference, as well as some family members (including his grandmother, who was featured in Freedom Downtime).

    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.

  • that's ballsy (Score:5, Funny)

    by xtermz (234073) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @01:40AM (#13762719) Homepage Journal
    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!

  • Look at the evidence (Score:5, Interesting)

    by houghi (78078) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @02:46AM (#13762932) Homepage
    http://www.takedown.com/evidence/index.html [takedown.com]
    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.
    • the entire site looks to me like someone desperate to sell a book.

      and people say mitnick is full of himself? they've obviously never seen that site -- all the chest-thumping by the website author gets rather tiresome.

      the website is also hideously ugly, almost as if the author doesn't want you to read it.

  • Milhouse all grown up (Score:3, Interesting)

    by digitaldc (879047) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @06:51AM (#13763609)
    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? :)

    • Re:wtf? (Score:4, Funny)

      by shark72 (702619) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @01:24AM (#13762667)

      "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!

    • Re:wtf? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rm69990 (885744) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @01:41AM (#13762727)
      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?

      • Re:wtf? (Score:4, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2005, @02:12AM (#13762834)
        hey, it's a straw man. all we need is the tin man and dorothy, then you can go visit the wizard.

        1. Someone breaks into your house and takes your tv
        2. Someone walks into your house (door was unlocked), reads your gay porno magazines, and leaves.
        Do *you* see the difference?

      • Re:wtf? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by i_am_not_a_bomba (904443) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @02:40AM (#13762919)
        "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.

          • Re:wtf? (Score:4, Funny)

            by i_am_not_a_bomba (904443) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @05:02AM (#13763326)

            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:

            $array = array(i rape your mother, they steal your children, communists eat your puppies) ;
            $bad_thing = array[rand(3)] ;
            echo "So by your logic it's ok if $bad_thing" ;

            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.

      • Re:wtf? (Score:3, Informative)

        by robnauta (716284)
        You're right. The law makes a distinction between a published work and an unpublished work. Everyone is assumed to have access to a published work (like a book that's in the bookstore or library), and making an illegal copy for profit is copyright infringement. In this case the damages are the number of copies * the sale prive.
        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 i
    • 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 ;-)

    • Re:Takedown? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by B11 (894359) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @01:37AM (#13762712)
      Actually, it was pretty exagerrated, Kevin explained his side to /.ers here [slashdot.org] a while ago. If you read his books, he also alludes to the fact that some people have really blown-up his capabilities to trump up charges, or insipre FUD in the general, non-technical populous.

      Truth is, Kevin Mitnick has become a poster boy for hackers, but he was by no means the most "dangerous" or the most skilled by any means. Most famous yes, most "powerful," no.

    • Re:Takedown? (Score:5, Informative)

      by ambrosine10 (747895) on Tuesday October 11 2005, @01:58AM (#13762783)

      There's a good article on Kevin Mitnick [rotten.com] in the Rotten Library that discusses this.
    • I can only guess it has something to do with "sucking", for which a vacuum cleaner serves as an icon. The ALT for it is "quickies", which reminds me of blow-jobs, which in turn reminds me of idiots using vacuum cleaners to vaguely satisfy their desires (or hurt themselves.) How does this apply to Mitnick? Hmmm. He sucked? He was an idiot? This is all about jerking off to a demi-god of nerddom? The write-up sucks? The linked server's bandwidth is easily sucked? Heck if I know.

      We'll probably start to get a be
      • Ah hell, I even managed to miss the "from the explorations-of-modesty dept." joke. I'm sticking with the sexual inuendo hypothesis for now.

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