Hacker Mitnick to be released Friday

[mea culpa <jericho () DIMENSIONAL COM>]

Forwarded From: darek.milewski () us pwcglobal com


Hacker Mitnick to be released Friday
By Kevin Poulsen, ZDNN
January 20, 2000 8:20 PM PT

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2425165,00.html?chkpt=zdhpnews01

Nearly five years after news of his arrest blazed across the nation's
headlines, hacker Kevin Mitnick will walk out of a medium security prison
in Lompoc, Calif., early Friday morning -- and into an uncertain future.

The 36-year-old hacker will be greeted at the gate by friends and family
members. His mother will drive him to Los Angeles, where his first order
of business will be to obtain a driver's license, report to his new
probation officer and see a doctor about injuries he suffered in a prison
bus accident last year.

"He's having neck pains, and back and shoulder pains," said Reba
Vartanian, Mitnick's grandmother. "He hasn't had a regular doctor in five
years."

A free man for the first time since 1995, he will live in the Los Angeles
suburb of Westlake Village with his father, Alan Mitnick, a general
contractor.

Less clear is what Mitnick is going to do for a living. Under court order,
the hacker is banned for three years from using any kind of computer
equipment without the prior written permission of his probation officer --
a restriction that even the court acknowledged would affect his
employability.  "He's experiencing a lot of frustration over the things he
can't do," said Eric Corley, editor of the hacker magazine 2600 and the
leader of a "Free Kevin" grass-roots movement.  "Keep in mind this is
someone who's been kept away from these things for five years, and when he
gets out he won't even be able to touch them."

Does incarceration cure an addict?  The restrictions, and long history of
recidivism, make one former friend and partner-in-crime pessimistic about
Mitnick's future. "Do you cure a drug addict or alcoholic by incarceration
on its own?" asked Lew DePayne, rhetorically. "Do you cure him by taking
away his ability to earn a living?"

'I think that the significance of this case is that he was so prolific. He
not only had done this once before, but he did it on such a large
scale'|Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Painter Mitnick and DePayne
became friends in the late 1970s, when they were both teenagers.
Together, they explored and manipulated the telephone network as Los
Angeles' most notorious "phone phreaks." In the 1980s, DePayne seemingly
dropped out of the scene, while Mitnick moved on to corporate computers
and networks, developing a penchant for cracking systems in search of
proprietary "source code," the virtual blueprints for a computer program
or operating system.

Mitnick had already been in a series of minor skirmishes with the law
when, in 1989, he suffered his first adult felony conviction for cracking
computers at Digital Equipment Corp. and downloading source code. He
served one year in federal custody, followed by three years of supervised
release.

In 1992, Mitnick was charged with a violation of his supervision for
associating with DePayne again. He went underground and online, using the
Internet to crack computers belonging to such cell phone and computer
makers as Motorola (NYSE: MOT), Fujtsu and Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW)
and to copy more proprietary source code. The FBI captured him on Feb. 15,
1995, when computer security expert Tsutomu Shimomura suffered an attack
on his machine and responded by tracking Mitnick to his hideout in
Raleigh, N.C.

Shimomura and New York Times reporter John Markoff went on to write the
book "Takedown:  The Pursuit and Capture of America's Most Wanted Computer
Outlaw -- By The Man Who Did It." Shimomura and Markoff sold the movie
rights to Miramax Films, who cast Skeet Ulrich as Mitnick. But since
shooting wrapped on the project in December 1998 the movie has languished
on the shelf with no known theatrical release date, surrounded by swirling
rumors of a direct-to-video or cable TV release. Miramax publicists didn't
return telephone inquiries about the project.

Mitnick's arrest began a series of courtroom battles over procedures and
evidence that finally ended last year in a plea agreement.

'Do you cure a drug addict or alcoholic by incarceration on its own?'|Lew
DePayne The hacker pleaded guilty in March 1999 to seven felonies and
admitted to his Internet hacking. In August 1999, Judge Marianna Pfaelzer
sentenced him to 46 months in prison, on top of an earlier 22 months
sentence for the supervision violation and cell phone cloning. With credit
for his lengthy period of pretrial custody, and some time off for good
behavior, Mitnick's served just under five years in prison.

"My sincere hope is that he gets his act together and complies with the
conditions of his supervised release and doesn't engage in further hacking
activity," said Assistant U.S.  Attorney Christopher Painter, one of
Mitnick's two federal prosecutors. Painter's work on the Mitnick case
helped propel him to a position as deputy chief of the U.S. Department of
Justice's computer crime and intellectual property section in Washington,
D.C. He begins at the DOJ in March.


"I think that the significance of this case is that he was so prolific. He
not only had done this once before, but he did it on such a large scale,"
Painter said. "If past ends up being prologue, then certainly we'll go
back to court and deal with it at that time."

> From hacking to ham?

Greg Vinson, one of Mitnick's defense attorneys, foresees a rosier future
for the hacker, perhaps with a job that exploits his famous ability to
"social engineer" people into doing his bidding.

"I think he's had a number of different offers to kind of do PR-type of
work,"  said Vinson, who also points out that Mitnick might still get a
computer job. "You have to remember the order says, 'Without the prior
express permission of the probation office.' So it's not absolutely
prohibited."

If Mitnick can't use computers, he reportedly hopes to indulge his love
for technology by returning to amateur radio, a childhood passion. Federal
Communications Commission records show that Mitnick's license expired last
month. According to Kimberly Tracey, a ham radio operator in Los Angeles
and a friend of Mitnick's, he's been scrambling to renew it.

"This is going to be part of Kevin's life, because they've taken away
computers and everything else," said Tracey. "I hope they don't take away
this."

Mitnick was unavailable for comment on his imminent release. Sources close
to the hacker say he granted the CBS news show "60 Minutes" an exclusive
interview last week, which is scheduled to air Sunday.

But in an interview with ZDNet News last July, Mitnick complained about
his treatment by the government prosecutors, who he said were "grossly
exaggerating the losses in the case and the damages I caused." (See:
Mitnick says, "I was never a malicious person.")

LePayne: Anger a major stumbling block DePayne, Mitnick's former friend
and co-defendant, worries that Mitnick's anger will work against him in
his new life.

"I don't know if that's ever going to go away; I don't know if he'll be
able to deal with it," said DePayne, speaking from his home in Palo Alto.
Calif., where he's serving six months house arrest for aiding Mitnick's
hacking during his fugitive years. "That's going to be a major stumbling
block for him going forward."

DePayne said he last heard from Mitnick the night of his arrest, on a
message left on his answering machine. Now 39 years old, divorced and
heading a small Internet company of his own, DePayne insists he doesn't
plan on associating with the impish hacker he first met as a brash
teenager two decades ago.

"I can't be fooling around with these stunts and practical jokes that
Kevin might want to fool around with," said DePayne. "I'll miss Kevin. I
won't miss the trouble he brings
 to the table."

Kevin Poulsen is a former hacker. He writes a weekly column for ZDTV's
CyberCrime.

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