Hackers to Shake Down Takedown
   ------------------------------
   by Wendy Grossman  (July 15, 1998)

   Protests from the hacker community are expected Thursday outside
   Miramax's offices in New York and Los Angeles over the impending
   production of the movie Takedown.

   Based on the 1996 book by security specialist Tsutomu Shimomura and
   New York Times reporter John Markoff, the book recounted the pursuit
   and 1995 arrest of computer hacker Kevin Mitnick, who has been jailed
   in Los Angeles for three years without bail while awaiting trial on
   charges of computer and telephone fraud.

   "Emmanuel Goldstein," editor of 2600: the Hacker Quarterly, wrote
   a review after obtaining a 20 March version of the screenplay: "If
   this film is made the way the script reads, Kevin will be forever
   demonized in the eyes of the public, and mostly for things that
   everyone agrees never even happened in the first place."

   Among many the scenes Goldstein (in real life generally known as Eric
   Corley) singled out for criticism: Mitnick changing medical records,
   Mitnick clobbering Shimomura on the head with the top of a metal
   garbage can, and Mitnick whistling touch tones into a pay phone to
   avoid having to pay. Mitnick has never been accused of tampering with
   medical records or of physical violence, and supporters do not believe
   that Mitnick was motivated by profits.

   "There's a strong consensus in the [hacker] community," says Corley,
   "that putting out these fabrications on the big screen is, quite
   simply, wrong, and must be stopped. We're not trying to stop anyone's
   creative fictionalized story. But this is being labeled as the way it
   really happened with real people. Since the one person demonized the
   most is being kept from defending himself, it's up to the rest of us
   to do what's right."

   Miramax declined comment, leaving open the question of how much the
   screenplay has changed since the version Corley saw and in what
   direction. No date has been announced for the film's release.

   Markoff says he has not seen the screenplay and is not involved with
   the film. "I've only read what's been posted to the Web, and Eric
   Corley is the only one I've seen commenting on it," he says. "There
   are lots of things in it that never happened, but I expected that.
   This is Hollywood, after all."

   Mitnick, who was first arrested for hacking offenses in 1980, when he
   was only 17, has become the archetypal "dark-side hacker" in the minds
   of the media and a large percentage of the public. First profiled in
   Markoff's 1991 book Cyberpunk (written with Katie Hafner), Mitnick's
   early exploits included an obsession with phone phreaking. In 1988,
   arrested for hacking into DEC's computers, he accepted a plea-bargain
   that resulted in a year in prison, followed by six months in a
   counseling program for addiction to computers.

   In 1992, however, a federal judge issued a warrant for Mitnick's
   arrest for having violated the terms of his parole. At CFP95, Kent
   Walker, the California DA who spearheaded the investigation leading to
   Mitnick's capture, said that Mitnick's violation was missing three
   consecutive meetings with his parole officer, an offense that by
   itself would typically have sent him back to jail for less than a
   year.

   The time Mitnick has spent in jail awaiting trial -- while due partly
   to his having waived his right to a speedy trial and to delays
   requested by the defense to gain time to examine the evidence -- is a
   sore point in the hacker community. Hackers regard him and others in
   situations similar to his as political prisoners.