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Famed hacker comes clean
03/10/2002 12:57 - (SA)
Elinor Mills Abreu
San Francisco - Famed hacker Kevin Mitnick said on Wednesday he is coming clean and hoping to make some money in the process by writing a book and auctioning off the infamous laptops he used to break into networks while he was a fugitive in the 1990s.
Labelled a "computer terrorist", Mitnick was on the run from the FBI for three years, hacking into the networks of Novell Inc, Motorola Inc, Sun Microsystems Inc, Nokia Corp and computer scientist Tsutomu Shimomura, who helped the government capture him.
The US Secret Service thought they had Mitnick cornered when they raided a Seattle apartment rented to a "Brian Merrill" on October 28, 1994.
However, they walked away with his Toshiba Satellite 4400SX instead of Mitnick, who was down the street at the time, working on his resume at Kinko's and eavesdropping on reports of the raid on his police scanner.
Mitnick wasn't so lucky on February 15, 1995, when agents swooped in on his Raleigh, North Carolina, apartment and finally arrested him. He was held without bail for four and a half years. His trusty laptop at the time, a Toshiba 1960CS, is now on eBay with a high bid of $9.200.
The other laptop is also up for auction. It features a "fine layer of fingerprint dust" and red "X" marks where fingerprints were lifted, as well as a mouse still housed in an FBI evidence bag, according to the description.
The computers are signed on the bottom by Mitnick and Steve Wozniak. "You've got the whole world in your hands. - Woz (Free Kevin!)" Wozniak wrote. That is a customised version of the phrase Wozniak and Steve Jobs used to write on blue boxes, tone generators used to make free phone calls they sold before they founded Apple Computer Inc.
"Both of these laptops were very integral during my hacking heyday," Mitnick said.
Mitnick previously auctioned off his prison ID cards on Dutchbid.com after eBay, Amazon and Yahoo refused to let him sell on their websites.
He said he will use the money to pay an attorney who has been trying to get his revoked amateur radio licence back.
'Art of deception'
Mitnick (39) pleaded guilty in March 2000 to wire fraud, computer fraud and intercepting communications. Under supervised release, which ends January 21, 2003, he has permission to use a cellphone and computer, but not the internet.
He lives in Thousand Oaks, near Los Angeles, and must get approval to travel outside of southern California and to offer professional advice on computer-related matters.
Officials gave him permission to write a book, titled The Art of Deception, which features a foreword by Wozniak.
Due to go on sale October 25, the book describes how people can get sensitive information without even stepping near a computer through "social engineering" - the use of manipulation or persuasion to deceive people by convincing them that you are someone else.
Spies, bored teenagers and private investigators use the technique to get past receptionists and guards and to get information - like passwords, which can be used to break into networks - out of people over the telephone.
Although Mitnick is barred from making money by telling his story until 2010, he said the book is more educational than tell-all.
"Some of the techniques and tricks have been used by me against certain corporations, but all the stories in the book are strictly fictitious," he said.
Asked to respond to criticism that he is profiting from crime, Mitnick said he is trying to make a living and to use his unique skills to help corporations from being victimised.
"I've done what I've done. I paid my debt to society. I'm not interested in hacking or going back to that lifestyle," he said. "I've learned my lesson and I don't do that anymore.
Once held for eight months in solitary confinement because the FBI feared he could launch nuclear missiles from a prison pay phone, Mitnick recently started a security consultancy called Defensive Thinking.
- Reuters
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