17 January 2003

Kevin Mitnick's Story Uncut For those of you living under a stone for the last five years or so, Kevin is the hacker who had been imrpisoned after a natiowide (US) campaign of terror was orchestrated against him by the FBI, the legit tabloids, and a whole bunch of characters who tried to make a quick buck out of his social engineering capabilities. Most of you are probably familiar with the "Hackers to Takedown" movie or the synonymous book, both of which I deny to link to since they were both an attempt to provide a caricatoure of a hacker (ie. I haven't read the book but the movie which is based on the book portrayed Kevin as never having sex even and being a complete control freak) rather than sketch the actual person behind the horror-film, catch-the-computer-terrorist like headlines.   I am not gonna enter the hacker or cracker debater here.What is for certain is that Kevin paid his debt to society. And although many reckon that he was accused of crimes he did not commit, he was found guilty of criminal activities and therefore, I am not in position to raise questions as to his penalty or guilt. Nevertheless, I cannot deny that I had been sympathetic towards Kevin's plight and part of the reason had been the fact that Kevin never broke into a system with the intent of making money. But that's enough. Kevin's story is controversail by itself. If you fancy reading more about it, here's the place.  It's the first chapter of Kevin's book "The Art of Deception". I reckon that the first chapter which reads more like a short autobiography of Kevin's life has been excluded from the book that hit the shelves. Slashdot also carried a review of the book and the threaded discussion is rather interesting.    3:39:40 AMSay it loud  []