MoreKevin

Early life
Kevin Mitnick began social engineering or perhaps discovered his first engineerable situation at the age of 12. He realized he could bypass the punchcard system used for the Los Angeles bus system: by buying his own punch, he could get free bus rides anywhere in the greater LA area. Social engineering became his primary method of obtaining information, whether it be user names and passwords, modem phone numbers or any number of other pieces of data.

In high school, he was introduced to phone phreaking, the activity of manipulating telephones which was often used to evade long distance charges for his benefit.[1]


[edit] Computer cracking
This short section requires expansion.

Mitnick broke into his first computer network in 1979, when a friend gave him the phone number for the Ark, the computer system at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) used for developing their RSTS/E operating system software. He broke into DEC's computer network and copied DEC's software, for which he was later convicted. This was the first of a series of run-ins with the law.


[edit] Shifting identities
Kevin Mitnick would change his identity by exploiting how the identification system worked in the United States. He would obtain the birth certificates of recently deceased newborns and very young children (around the ages of 1 to 3 years old), as the government had no distinct record of their death since they never worked nor were involved in society. Furthermore, the certificates would have to be from someone who was born and died in places far apart, as it was more difficult to trace back to the original source. He changed his identity about three or four times, any time he changed jobs. He claimed to have learned most of this information through a book titled Paper Trail, written by Barbara Snow Gilbert.

Mitnick was arrested after the FBI obtained a search warrant, searched his house, and found his wallet with numerous fake IDs. He was caught in an accident by having the fake identification still in his possession. Once out of jail, he was able to evade the FBI and police for a relatively long time.


[edit] Controversy
Kevin Mitnick's criminal activities, arrest, and trial were controversial, as was the journalism surrounding his conviction.

The controversy is highlighted by the differing views offered in two books: John Markoff and Tsutomu Shimomura's Takedown, and Jonathan Littman's The Fugitive Game. Littman made four notable allegations:

journalistic impropriety by Markoff, who had covered the case for the New York Times
overzealous prosecution of Mitnick by the government
mainstream media over-hyping Mitnick's actual crimes
Shimomura's involvement in the matter being of unclear or dubious legality

Further controversy came over the release of the movie Takedown, with Littman alleging that portions of the film were taken from his book without permission.

The case against Mitnick tested then-nascent laws that had been enacted for dealing with computer crime, and it raised public awareness of security issues involving networked computers. The controversy remains, however, as Mitnick is often used today as an example of the quintessential computer criminal although his exploits are less notable than his notoriety suggests.

Supporters of Mitnick have asserted that many of the charges against him were fraudulent[2] and not based on actual losses.[3]

Falsehoods have also surrounded Mitnick's exploits. For example, many mistakenly believe that Mitnick was once in the FBI's most wanted list. Federal prosecutor Kent Walker said in an interview with the New York Times that Mitnick "…was arguably the most wanted computer hacker in the world, he allegedly had access to corporate trade secrets worth millions of dollars. He was a very big threat".[4] The headline of the resultant article, "A Most-Wanted Cyberthief Is Caught in His Own Web," was later picked up by Associated Press, Time Magazine and Reuters, thus perpetuating the myth.

While Mitnick's actual actions may not have justified the level of official concern they did, the fact that his activities were criminal is not disputed. Mitnick's first adult criminal sentence was considerably shorter than is the norm today.

The film Freedom Downtime, a documentary that centers on the topics of Kevin Mitnick's incarceration in a maximum security prison, Miramax's film's screen adaptation of Takedown, and the "FREE KEVIN" movement, was made in 2001 by Emmanuel Goldstein and produced by 2600 Films.


[edit] Attacks on Mitnick's sites
On August 20, 2006, Kevin Mitnick's site was defaced by Pakistani crackers with offensive messages against him. The domain names defensivethinking.com, mitsec.com, kevinmitnick.com and mitnicksecurity.com displayed the vandalism for hours before the affected files were replaced.

Mitnick commented:

The Web hosting provider that hosts my sites was hacked, fortunately, I don't keep any confidential data on my Web site, so it wasn't that serious. Of course it is embarrassing to be defaced—nobody likes it.
As a notorious figure, Mitnick has been targeted by hackers who wish to bolster their status and for people seeking to prove their abilities.[5]

Zone-H reports that on one occasion, there was a struggle between different black hat and white hat hackers when some defacers put their nicks on Mitnick's site and fans replaced the vandalized copy with an original unmodified one. This went on for a full day.[6]