Re: From convicted hacker to dotcom backer

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

Forwarded by: security curmudgeon <jericho () attrition org>


> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=003100565149417&rtmo=VDwSs3gK&atmo=hhhhhhhe&pg=/et/01/1/28/ccprof28.html
>
> Sunday 28 January 2001
>
> Kim Schmitz has broken into computers at the Pentagon and Nasa and
> raided Citibank's coffers. Now he is rescuing LetsBuyIt.com,
> writes Amanda Hall.

> Schmitz is famous in cyberland as Kimble, the world renowned
> superhacker who, from a flat in Munich, routed his way into
> hundreds of top secret files at the Pentagon, at Nasa, the CIA and
> the FBI.
>
> He got into scores of companies and institutions; he read high
> security information on Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War; he
> read the news before it was broadcast; he even got into Citibank's
> system and transferred $20m by taking tiny amounts from the
> accounts of 4m customers and giving it to Greenpeace.

CIA.. FBI.. Gulf War.. news.. 20million from Citibank..

I don't recall the name 'Schmitz' being involved on the Citibank hack.
I remember a 'Vladimir Levin', and the amounts ranging from 10 - 12
million.

I remember the 'Phonemasters' being part of a short list to compromise
several FBI machines (and NCIC).

Does all of this strike anyone else as odd?

> "This was freaking," he says. "Before hacking there was freaking,
> a way of going into a phone system, messing it up and phoning for
> free.

err, phreaking.

> That was how I got into the business of getting through barriers
> and finding ways to bypass security, get onto servers and doing
> all sorts of crazy things. That was how the hacking started."
> Every time Schmitz hacked into a computer, he would leave behind
> his hacker identity - the name Kimble and a skull on either side.

This sounds just like se7en and him supposedly leaving his name with
the cobra logo...

> "People knew when they turned their computer on and this popped up
> that it was me," he says. "Every hack was a trophy. I had a big

This sounds EXACTLY like se7en, almost word for word. se7en was later
discoverd to be a fraud who had little or no hacking past.

> The software he used to sabotage Citibank and transfer the $20m to
> Greenpeace took him just a week to write.

Anyone have a link or reference for this?

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