Kevin Mitnick: The Most Notorious Hacker

[PHOTO]

Kevin Mitnick arriving at the federal courthouse in Raleigh, N.C. on February 17, 1995.
News & Observer photo by JIM BOUNDS.


After dodging the authorities for the last two years, the hacker legend, Kevin Mitnick was caught by the FBI in Raleigh, North Carolina, on February 15, 1995. Mitnick's criminal acts include the theft of thousands of programs and data files and over 20,000 credit card numbers from computer systems all over the country. Despite all the break-ins and violations, he received a very light sentence. In fact, for all the numerous computer crimes that he has committed over a span of 15 years, he has seemingly been treated liberally by the authorities.

Mitnick had an unhappy childhood; his parents divorced while he was very young. His mother was usually working at her waitress job, and he was a shy, lonely, overweight kid that had trouble making friends. As a teenager, he found computers, and computer hacking was an activity at which he could excel. In addition it became a way to make friends and feel powerful and important. His first successful hacking was breaking into his high school's own system, the Los Angeles Unified School District's main computers.

In addition to being a hacker as a teenager, he also became an experienced phracker. "Phrackers", also known as "phone freaks", are individuals who learn how to and do make unauthorized long distance phone calls with several different methods. In 1982 he was caught stealing technical manuals from Pacific Bell telephone company in an attempt to learn more tactics for phracking. Mitnick was sentenced to probation, but he quickly violated it by hacking into a local university. As a consequence, he was given six months in jail.

Then in December of 1988, he was arrested for stealing programs and tapping into Digital Equipment's computer network. Digital Equipment officials claimed that Mitnick had caused $4 million in damage to computer operations and stole over $1 million in computer software. In 1989, he was convicted and served one year in prison and six months in a resident treatment center. At the center he participated in a program to try to help him break his "hacking addiction".

After his release in 1990, he seemed to be attempting to reform. He had trouble finding a computer related job, due to his past reputation, but he finally found work with a private investigation firm called Tel Tec Investigations. Then in 1992 after Kevin's brother, Adam, died of a heroin overdose, he fell into depression and began to revert to his old habits. In late 1992, when the FBI went to question Mitnick about some computer break-ins at Pacific Bell, they found that he had fled. From that time forward, Mitnick was "on the run" from the FBI, and in several instances, he escaped just narrowly. He moved from city to city, all the while continuing to hack into computer networks through a laptop and cellular phone. Some of the computer systems that he is suspected of invading include: California Dept. of Motor Vehicles, an Army computer system, Motororla's Cellular Division, and "The Well".

Then on December 25, 1994, Mitnick hacked into the home computer of Tsutomu Shimomura, a well known security expert. Shimomura became determined to find the intruder. After about two months of work, Shimomura helped the FBI track the intruder's (Mitnick's) computer work to Raleigh, North Carolina. Mitnick was soon arrested at his apartment at 1:30 am on February 15, 1995.

Kevin Mitnick was to be tried July 10, 1995 on a 23 count federal indictment. He was going to be charged with the crimes of: computer fraud, wire fraud, cellular phone fraud, and the use of illegal telephone devices to divert toll costs. And he was additionally charged for probation violations, including other charges covering six jurisdictions. He was facing a maximum sentence of 20 years for each of the 23 counts. In the last week of June 1995, Mitnick's lawyer plea bargained an agreement to charge Mitnick with possession and use of 15 illegal access numbers to gain access to several computers. In return, federal prosecutors dropped the 22 other counts and reduced the actual jail sentence to approximately 8 months.

The history of Kevin Mitnick's crimes and punishments should make one point very clear. The current system for law enforcement and justice for computer crimes is totally ineffective for some individuals. If Mitnick had received harsher sentencing in one of his prior convictions, or if it was well established that anyone convicted of illegal computer break-ins would face serious punishment, he might not have been so quick to return to hacking. When the system gives a repeat offender light sentences, that only makes the crime look like a more worthy risk. Perhaps a better solution would be to let convicted computer hackers walk free, but somehow bar them from ever touching a computer again.

Sources

Hafner, Katie (1995, August) "Kevin Mitnick, Unplugged", Esquire, p.81-88.

Minor, J. R. (1995) ' "Hackers, Phrackers, and Crackers" ,The true story of
Kevin Mitnick-World famous Computer Hacker', Interzine.

Sussman, Vic (1995, February) "Gotcha! A Hard-Core Hacker Is Nabbed",
U.S. News & World Report, p.66.


Links to More Information about Kevin Mitnick




This summary and page was created by:
Dan Scholes (Scholedm@webster2.websteruniv.edu)

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