'Skeet's a Scab!'
   -----------------

   Hackers usually choose more precise forms of protest: punching holes
   in operating systems with "WinNuke," unleashing "Satan" on
   unsuspecting systems, or just hijacking home pages. Last Thursday's
   civil disturbance outside the offices of Miramax Films was, by
   comparison, much more civil and sloppy--but no less adamant.

   Led by Phil Torrone of kevinmitnick.com and Eric Corley of hacker
   zine 2600, the ragtag 17-person bunch marched up and down outside
   375 Greenwich Street to protest the production of Takedown. The film,
   set to star Skeet Ulrich, loosely recounts the pursuit and capture of
   the now incarcerated hacker Kevin Mitnick. According to Torrone, the
   script, based on the book Takedown by John Markoff and Mitnick tracker
   Tsutomu Shimomura, unfairly criminalizes Mitnick, who is still
   awaiting trail after some three and a half years in jail. "The script
   is far, far from the truth," making Mitnick out to be violent and
   racist, says Torrone. "He's more a Larry Flynt type than a criminal."
   Webcinema.org head Jonathan Sarno, who attended the protest, says
   the script has glaring technical gaffes--like describing the sound of
   a modem in Mitnick's apartment as "deafening." "It's written by a
   newbie--it's totally AOL and so dumb," he says.

   For a good hour during lunch, the protesters handed out "Stop Miramax"
   leaflets, milled about with their "Takedown is $hakedown" and "Skeet's
   a Scab" placards, and made taunting calls to the Miramax offices on
   their cellphones. Though these are people who rarely operate in
   daylight, much less in public, they managed to get the message across.
   No Miramax executives came down, but one elderly couple tried to grok
   the situation. "We definitely support free access to information and
   people like Kevin," said husband Philip Stein. "We like young smart
   people that keep the corporate forces from taking control of the
   government."