Freedom Downtime ($30)
    An In-Depth Analysis of $2600's Main Cash Cow    

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

    --- Quote from George Orwell (Eric A. Blair [1903-1950])


"The FBI was not driving this investigation.  it was the victims getting together and getting even."

    --- February 19, 1995 USENET posting by Mark Seiden, one of the network security experts who helped track down Kevin Mitnick.


"People will see this movie and think this is a true story, when so much of it has been completely fabricated."

    --- Quote from one of the $2600 Magazine sheep in Freedom Downtime ($30).  That, right there, is a textbook definition of irony!


"[Kevin] Mitnick made a habit of stealing the identities of dead children (usually infants & toddlers) while he was on the run.  He's admitted this in several interviews since his release.  Yeah, that's really f*cking cool.  Defiling dead babies.  Stop for a minute and ask what the parents of these children must feel like...  What YOU would feel like.  Quit making Mitnick a f*cking demi-god.  He's just another fat little jew with too much time (and too much of his daddy's money) on his hands.  Quit idolizing him."

    --- "Anonymous Coward" quote about Kevin Mitnick on Slashdot marked, of course, "-1 Troll."




Introduction

For reasons no one fully understands, Evil Corley (Emmanuel Golddigger) is looked at as the Fürher...  err...  the Pied Piper of the "hacker" world.  Of course, looking a little deeper, we'll also see a hypocritical, very-rich, very-clueless, copyright-holding, BBS-file-selling, all-around asshole.

He tends to gloss over those parts on his little radio show, though...

$2600 Magazine recently made a "fakeumentary" called Freedom Downtime ($30) which supposedly covers the "untold story" of the Kevin Mitnick legal case and court trial.  Of course, through careful editing, story-telling, and a complete disregard for any facts, Freedom Downtime ($30) was enjoyed by all the clueless "hacker" kiddies - with the standard hoopla of any Hollywood movie.  And we all know $2600 Magazine would never sell-out to some Hollywood-types, right?

Hint: There is a HOPE sticker shown during the subway scene and the sales of $2600 Magazine almost tripled.

Kevin Mitnick burned a lot of bridges in Southern California when he was younger.  Piss off the wrong people, especially ham radio operators, and it can come back to haunt you.

"Speaking before a chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery, I met a woman whose view of Mitnick paralleled [Susan] Thunder.  'I had to clean up the mess that little twerp made,' she told me angrily, 'and I don't care if they throw the book at him.'"

    --- Quote from Jay Bloombecker's Spectacular Computer Crimes article.

Kevin Mitnick was arrested at least five times (and even served jail time in 1988-89) before his 1995 arrest.  His speedy trial is put on hold when you are some loser who can't seem to shape up (and wave that right for more defense time).  It also gave him an incentive to stop his illegal trespassing on other people's computer systems.  Evil Corley "forgets" to mention this.

"Sorry, but I didn't create the character, Kevin [Mitnick] did.  He has now been arrested six times in fifteen years.  Each time, except for this last time, he was given a second chance to get his act together.  He chose not too.  It seems to me that he is an adult and makes choices.  He chose to keep breaking in to computers.  He knew what the penalty was.  So what's the problem?"

    --- John Markoff in an online The WELL discussion with author Charles Platt about Kevin Mitnick's "most wanted" status.

Kevin Mitnick used a scanner (communications receiver) and a DDI device to monitor cellular phone conversations to help him evade federal authorities while he was on the run.  This is a big no-no and highly illegal.  Evil Corley "forgets" to mention this.

Kevin Mitnick waved his right to a speedy trial to gain more time for his defense, because he knew he was guilty!  Evil Corley "forgets" to mention this.

Also, the "three years without a trail" is another exaggeration they like to use to scare the kiddies.  At least 22 months out of those three years were because Kevin Mitnick was in prison for cellular fraud and supervised release violations - which he plead guilty to!

Debunking the "Mitnick has been in prison for three years without a trial" myth by "Osiris."

Debunking the "Mitnick has been in prison for three years without a trial" myth by "MajickMutex."

Debunking the "Mitnick had no speedy trial" myth by "MajickMutex."

"'The court wants to go to trial,' she told Mitnick and his attorney, echoing her previous statement that she was 'very, very anxious [to] try this case.'"

    --- U.S. District Court Judge Mariana Pfaelzer expressed her disapproval with the request for a trial delay.


"Dressed in a wrinkled navy pin-striped jacket and pulling up his too-long gray slacks, Mitnick flatly said, 'Guilty' when U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer asked how he pleaded to a count of illegally using stolen cellular telephone numbers.  Mitnick allegedly used the codes to dial into computer databases....

If Mitnick pleaded not guilty, his case would have gone back to North Carolina for trial.  After the hearing, Mitnick was led away in handcuffs by federal marshals. He is being detained at a federal jail in downtown Los Angeles."

    --- April 22, 1996 quote from the Nando.net article Mitnick Pleads Guilty to Hacking Charges.

Also, he's not as innocent as Evil Corley makes him out to be:

"Oh yeah, yeah..  It was an invasion of privacy.  Going and getting access to other people's information is obviously a gross invasion of privacy and it is wrong."

    --- Kevin Mitnick interview on CBS' 60 Minutes.


"... there are other ISPs with a privacy problem.  colorado supernet sniffed sessions (sniffed by mitnick) contain a number of customer social security numbers."

    --- February 18, 1995 USENET posting by Vin McLellan with a reply from Mark Seiden on the "credit card" episode.  If you think your Social Security Number may have been intercepted by Kevin Mitnick - call your lawyer now!!!  Kevin Mitnick is worth millions.  Sue the bastard!!!


"OK, so I think Kevin Mitnick is a schmuck.  I think he should probably [sic] get some jail time.  But he has RIGHTS!  They are being stepped on.  If they'll step on his rights, they'll step on yours next."

    --- Comment from The Cheshire Catalyst (Robert Osband, N4SCY), former editor of the original TAP newsletter.  Why doesn't Evil Corley mention this anywhere in Freedom Downtime ($30)?


"So they have a thing called a Social Security Death Index.  But for infants, people that are one, two, three years of age when they die, there is no record ... that's created.  So the key is, if you can find an infant that died in a different state than they where born in, you can become them, and that's what I did."

    --- Kevin Mitnick interview with Kevin Rose from thebroken, Video Release 03.  This sick asshole actually complains about being in prison.

Mitnick was denied his bail hearing because he was a flight risk - and was held on a probation hold.  The fact that he was caught using some dead baby's identification to cover his ass, and was running from the FBI and U.S. Marshals for a few years is good proof of this.  More importantly, is the fact that his appeal to this was denied twice by the most liberal circuit court in the country!  They'll scream this was illegal, but it is in fact legal per the Bail Reform Act of 1984.  When Mitnick was arrested back in 1988, he was also denied bail because, like Evil Corley, Kevin Mitnick simply can not be trusted.

"Mitnick was denied bail under the provisions of the so-called Bail Reform Act passed in 1984.  This act allows for detention in those cases where the judicial officer 'finds that no condition or combination of conditions of release will reasonably assure the. . .safety of any other person.'  However, the comments of those judicial officers denying Mitnick bail suggest that preventing future crimes, not preventing Mitnick's flight, was the major basis for their actions.  As such, the decision calls into question the ability of a judge or magistrate to predict future behavior."

    --- Quote from Jay Bloombecker's Spectacular Computer Crimes article.


"Motions to set bail for him were rejected by the judge, who agreed with prosecutors that he was both a flight risk and posed a danger to the public.  The denial of bail was upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.  [Donald] Randolph says he is now preparing an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court."

    --- July 23, 1998 quote from Mike Brunker in his Mitnick Trial Will Venture Onto New Legal Ground MSNBC article.

Mitnick was also placed in administrative segregation because he simply can not be trusted and he also likes to manipulate the prison's phone system.  Any man who hangs around with criminals, like Evil Corley, or steals the identities of dead Gentile babies is NOT a trustworthy or decent human being.  Also, it's trivial for any real hacker to whip up a quick hardware or software interface to allow DTMF tones to delete any files (evidence) on a remote computer system.


Related Audio & Video


Miscellaneous & Notes


Start the Movie Already!

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

    --- Quote from George Orwell (Eric A. Blair [1903-1950])


"Anyone who stands up for what he believes in is an inspiration.  That's the spirit of a hacker, and it's the spirit of an individual."

    --- Evil Corley


---=>[    View Freedom Downtime Online    ]<=---

A "Lock Your Damn Dog Up Or We'll Run It Over Again" Production Presents

An overview of Evil Corley taking some time off from his rough job of selling other people's old BBS files to bring you ...


a.k.a. "Cruising For Little Boys"

(Transcript is fairly complete.  Comments will be in TABLES & BOLD.)


Edward E. Cummings - Hacker

"All we can do is try to publicize - the facts, not what the government is saying, but the facts.  And not simply parrot or regurgitate what the government is saying, because that's... largely bullshit."

It was the dead of winter.

I don't remember it ever being so cold, and we were on a mission.

A bunch of us had volunteered to drive our good friend to his new home, the Schuylkill federal prison, in the middle of Pennsylvania.

Mark Abene -Hacker

He called himself "Phiber Optik," and you'd have to look pretty hard to find someone who didn't think he was brilliant.

"MoD was never more than a bunch of prepubescent underachievers who got (and still get) their kicks by pretending to be competent hackers."

    --- Quote from Voyager (Will Spencer) in alt.2600.  Voyager is a MIT graduate, a former editor of Phrack, and maintainer of the alt.2600/#hack FAQ.  (Additional Info)  Most of the techniques used by the MoD guys (telco metallic test systems for audio/data interception, PAD-to-PAD, Telenet/Sprintnet, Tymnet, X.25, credit report systems, #1A/#4/#5 ESS & DMS-100 messages, etc.) were originally discovered by the LoD guys.


"All of the nonsense surrounding your case and that of your compadres should remain old news.  Nothing you did was overtly spectacular, despite your self-rightous indignations.  Everything you in MOD accomplished was old hat.  All had been done before, and all will happen again in the future.  Why continue the risk of putting your arm out of its socket patting yourself on the back?  It was all no big deal."

    --- February 8, 1993 response from Chris Goggans (Erik Blookaxe) to John Lee's (Corrupt/NeTw1z) trolling on the MindVox mailing list.


"MOD managed to alienate the vast majority of the computer underground, and people reacted...

MOD was one of the first true examples of a groupthink exercise in hacker sociopathy.  Selling long distance codes, selling credit card numbers, destroying systems and harassing innocent people is not acceptable behavior among ANY group, even the computer underground."

    --- January 13, 1995 response from Chris Goggans (Erik Blookaxe) in an "Open Letter to Wired Magazine."


"Scott [Chasin] and Chris [Goggans] did report, however, that business was good.  They then shifted gears and reported on New York's MOD, perhaps the most unpopular group in the history of hacking.  First they reported on MOD's activities in general, ie; the posting of personal information of other hackers on IRC and Lutzifer, general harassment of many noted members of the hacking community, and the destructions of private systems on various networks.  They then announced the best news of the day, five MOD members (including Corrupt, Phiber Optik, and Outlaw) were raided on December 6."

    --- Quote by Mack Hammer in his article HohoCon '91: The Sordid Details in Informatik Journal, Issue #2.

Also, on the January 14, 1997 episode of Off The Hook, Phiber confuses the XOR'ing of the RF signals in CDMA phones as some "silly little exclusive-OR kind of thing" in the terms of encryption, when in fact, this is done to increase the users-per-spectrum ratio of the RF signals.  Also note that all digital encrpytion systems use XORs at some point.

Before we left, we had one night of fun on the streets of Philadelphia, in the middle of an ice storm.

Phiber learned by exploring, and was never too busy to explain how something worked to anyone who was interested.

I think that's what must of pissed off the authorities more than anything.

You see, they never even tried to prove Phiber Optik hacked into any computers.  They got him for conspiracy, for talking to people on a tapped phone line about how to hack certain sites.

There were people who actually broke into systems and really f*cked things up, and they never even got arrested.

The movie starts out in 1994 covering the Phiber Optik (Mark Abene) story.  Now here is a person who REALLY was screwed over.  He's not out peddling any books at hacker conventions or showing up on late-night infomercials like Kevin Mitnick, though.?

Although, Phiber could have avoided any jail time by pleading guilty to the lower charges.  Some feel this little charade was actually Evil Corley's fault, as he wanted to milk the "Phiber Optik" story for more money.  Hmmm...  Sound familiar?

"Bahahaha, 'being screwed over by ignorance', that sounds like Phiber - listening to one to many of your speeches about this B.S. that you personally have nothing on the line for except your unaffected 6-digits a year salary is what got him in jail into he first place, along with 4 of his (former) friends who could've taken the deal the feds gave them of pleading early and doing no jail time had it not been for your grandiose BS which made him hold off and plead guilty like he would've done anyway though w/o time.  Funny how such an advocate for the people whose issues sell more than Esquire magazine pays his teenage writers nothing and takes a photo of every attendee at HOPE, tying up the line to pay the $20+ entrance fee for hours.  'The photos were erased on a Hard Drive crash' - hah!"

    --- November 27, 1994 USENET reply by the user "Presto" to one of Evil Corley's propaganda posts.

View the documentary Unauthorized Access for more information on Phiber's sentencing and a short little interview with him.

The feds didn't care.

They wanted to shut down the teachers, the people who didn't know to keep secrets.

Bernie S. - Hacker

There is Bernie S.

He's another one of those guys who loves to explain how technology works to anyone who's interested.

He didn't know it, but Hell was just around the corner waiting for him.

We made one last stop before we dropped Phiber off.

It was a town called Frackville.

We thought was funny, because of a hacker newsletter called Phrack.

We thought it would make a good picture for the rest of the hacker community.

But Bernie S. actually had the balls to get a Frackville cop to pose with Phiber.

These guys had no clue what was going on, but they quickly got into the spirit.

It was the last time we laughed that night.

We drove to the prison.

It felt like it was 20 degrees below zero.

We didn't know they'd throw him in the hole for the entire weekend, some kind of prison welcoming ceremony.

Schuylkill is a minimum security prison, the "hole" is a 15x8 foot room with a slit for the window.  You still have access to basic needs like food, sleep, shelter, and hygiene.

I wonder if Mark spent his time thinking about the rights of the people his fellow MoD thugs used to beat up?  What about the rights of people whose credit reports they used to read?

"Nah.  There was the occasional robbery here and there.  But I was probably the only kid using my money from robberies on computer equipment."

    --- March 5, 2009 quote from John Lee of the MoD.

And, like the gullible idiots we were, we figured we'd have a chance to say goodbye.

Wait...  You just said the Gay Pedo Posse spent an entire day jerking each other off in an ice storm, and you never thought of saying "goodbye?"

We didn't.

They grabbed him, and we had to run out of there to keep them from taking our camera.

"Hackers" often block cameras from taking pictures at DEFCON, HOPE, and other hacker conventions:

No Pictures at CCC

Phiber came home 10 months later a hero, and everyone seemed to know that sending someone like that to prison was a big mistake.

After it was over, we were pretty sure it wouldn't happen again.

Were we ever wrong.

The Specials - Bad Boys

Bad boys gone to jail
Look at you, boy, you've come of age and now you're going around saying you're a bad boy.
You say that you'll never go to jail 'cause you're so bad and you cannot fail.
Oh bad boy.
Oh rude boy.
Oh bad boy.
Gots to believe me.
Oh bad boy.
Here is how you fail.
Gots to believe me one time.
You went to town just to fool around.
You met a girl who was wearing a frown.
You going around, boasting, feeling bad.
Now you're sitting in jail.
Don't you feel so sad.

Kevin Mitnick, the world's most dangerous computer hacker.

Katie Hafner

Katie Hafner - Co-Author, Cyberpunk

"My regret about Cyberpunk is talking about Kevin and how he was always eating and how he was overweight.  People have really gotten on my case about that."

"Some guy came up to me at an Austin book thing and said, 'Why did you go on and on about Kevin's weight?'  And he was right.  I did that to the point where it just wasn't tasteful.  Where it was sort of just beating an issue that didn't need to be beaten."

Douglas Thomas

Doug Thomas - Author, Hacker Culture

"For a period after he was arrested, incarcerated, and released into a halfway house, I couldn't find a single article that talked about him without mentioning, for example, his weight.  And the real fascination with Kevin's body and its relationship to technology is one of the things that absolutely hooked me."

"I found a number of articles in Time, Newsweek, and the New York Times, written by people like [John] Markoff and Joshua Quittner and so on, and they would say, 'Kevin was in a halfway house where he no longer touched a computer, and lost 100 pounds,' as if those two things were connected."

"In 1988, USA Today put his picture on the front-page morphed or superimposed with the image Darth Vader, and I thought this is a remarkable combination of two things and it's really picking up on the idea of the 'Dark-Side hacker.'"

Photo from an article showing a partial Darth Vadar helmet imposed with Kevin Mitnick's picture and the headline "Mitnick: Hacker on the dark side?"

Issues of $2600 Magazine often use the same sensationalism on their covers to scare Evil Corley's little kiddie following.

Of course, Evil Corley would never do anything like that, right?    [poster-2a]    

Also, John Markoff didn't come up with the "Dark-Side Hacker" description of Kevin Mitnick.  A reporter named John Johnson, of the Los Angles Times, did back in an article from 1989.  This was almost three years BEFORE the release of Cyberpunk.

"The darkside hacker label was created during the late 1980s by the Southern California press.  It is a label that I noted, but I didn't create.  However, he's right I don't regret using it."

    --- John Markoff in a December 1995 online discussion with Charles Platt on the infamous "Dark-Side Hacker" title.


"'This guy (Mitnick) is not an ax murderer, but he is costing dozens of companies thousands to clean up after him,' Markoff said during an interview Wednesday.  'I don't think that in any of my writing I have ever meant to demonize Kevin Mitnick.'"

    --- January 22, 1996 quote from John Markoff in this article.


"Whatever -- Mitnick.  Focus on all the other hackers who are actually TECHNICAL.  Mitnick is just a con artist."

    --- June 12, 2008 quote from Annalee Newitz in her online review of The Best of $2600: A Hacker Odyssey.

If ever there was someone who fit that description, it was Kevin.

The mere mention of his name was enough to incur the wrath of the authorities.

Over the years, his reputation grew and so did the falsehoods.

In numerous articles, Kevin was said to have broken into NORAD, harassed actress Kristy McNichol, and turned his friends' home phones into payphones.

Overview of some of the things Kevin Mitnick is accused of doing.

$2600 Magazine also mentions the "Kevin hacked NORAD" story in Vol 6, No. 1 (Spring 1989) under the title "Hackers in Jail" five years BEFORE John Markoff's New York Times article!  Sssssssshh...  Don't tell Evil Corley that!

Susan Thunder's DEFCON Speech  - Social engineering and psychological subversion of trusted systems speech at DEFCON 3.  Note how many times she says "we."  She also mentions using telco metallic test systems (SAS/SARTS, LMOS, CALRS, MONTLA, ESS Talk & Monitor, ordering bridge lifter taps via COSMOS/SWITCH, etc.) to intercept private telephone communications.  (7.9M MP3)  (M4B)

Searching for Susy Thunder  by Claire L. Evans  (Mirror)

Lewis De Payne - Mitnick Co-Defendant / Friend

"His beginning was on ham radio.  And on ham radio, it's a close-knit community.  A couple of dozen people at the most on a particular repeater or channel.  And, you know, they would get into challenges.  And, of course, Mitnick would be the underdog.  'Let's challenge him, let's do this and that.'  When he met their challenges, they'd start crying and screaming as if they were innocent victims of Kevin's.  This has been the case throughout."

"And then people would start unfairly using other contacts that they had.  In one case there was a lieutenant or commander in the LAPD.  One ham radio operator who was a friend of him, got him to write a letter saying Kevin was interfering with LAPD communications, and all sorts of crazy things in his past."

Cyberpunk was published in 1991 by Katie Hafner and then husband John Markoff, and it relied almost entirely on the words of people who Kevin had a falling out with, as well as those who didn't know him at all.

Picture of Agent Steal (Justin T. Petersen).  He first tracked down Kevin Mitnick (while working for the FBI) before Tsutomu Shimomura and John Markoff did, so he does know what Kevin Mitnick was capable of.

"Now that everyone has had their say.  [Kevin] Poulsen ratted on me 1st, called 911 while I was in a C.O. [Central Office].  2nd, [Ronald M.] Austin had his own agenda.  3rd, [Kevin] Mitnick was a feather in my cap.  I was paid to nail him and I did.  I didn't even know him.  Now people pay to hear him chirp about caller ID spoofing.  j/k  The person who received my $150K wire transfer walked.  I kept him out of it.  Also, the P.I. firm I was wire tapping for was never charged, I made sure of that.

    --- Justin T. Petersen (Agent Steal) in a September 2008 YouTube comment to his "Digital Desperado" interview on CNN.  (Transcript)

Katie Hafner's main hacker sources for Cyberpunk where "Susan Thunder," (Susan Headley), "Roscoe," (Lewis De Payne), Lenny DiCicco, and Steven Rhoades (and Evil Corley).  All these people knew Kevin Mitnick.  Also, Justin T. Petersen had nothing to do with making the book Cyberpunk.

Kevin Mitnick himself said that Cyberpunk is only "20 percent fabricated and libelous."  Even that number is slowly going down as Mitnick's lies are now being exposed...

"Fun Fact: I used to work with the former FBI agents who took down Mitnick.  They hardly considered him a hacker, and also share your disdain for the weasel.  I miss that job."

    --- June 12, 2008 quote from "Dunny0" under Annalee Newitz's review of The Best of $2600: A Hacker Odyssey.

Hafner and Markoff never talked to Kevin, because he wanted to be paid for his time.

"[Katie] Hafner confirmed that [Kevin] Mitnick had refused cooperation after his offer to meet for pay was rejected but denied that his action caused any malicious or unfair behavior.  She said 'I feel that the payment of interview subjects is completely unethical and I have never been involved in such a thing and did not intend to start then.  We mentioned in the book that Kevin had refused to cooperate but did not reveal that he had asked for payment.  Since he has not brought the subject up, both in a call to the Tom Snyder radio show when I was on and in the 2600 letter, I will confirm the fact that his non-cooperation was due to our refusal to pay.'

Hafner continued 'Mitnick's lack of cooperation certainly did not lead to any malice or bias directed toward him.  Everything in the book is, to the best of my knowledge, factual and we did everything possible to insure its accuracy.  We attempted to get a confirming source for everything we were told and interviewed dozens of persons for the Dark Hacker section alone.'"

    --- Quote from Katie Hafner in this October 1, 1991 Newsbytes article.

But it really didn't take much to dispel the rumors.

NORAD denied any break-ins.

Kristy McNichol had no idea she was being harassed.

And no evidence ever surfaced of any payphone conversions.

Evil Corley says Kevin Mitnick never turned a friend's home phone into a pay phone.  Technically, this requires a line card change (to generate the +/- 130 VDC coin control voltage), but it is possible to change the Line Class Code (LCC) on a home phone (1FR to DTF).  I'd bet good money that Kevin Mitnick is familiar with recent change input messages under a #1A ESS (or DMS), or at least social engineering someone at a recent change center to do it for him.  Also, this fax from Pacific Bell Security contradicts a lot of things Manny says didn't happen.  Hmm...

"One of my all-time favorite pranks was gaining unauthorized access to the telephone switch and changing the class of service of a fellow phone phreak.  When he'd attempt to make a call from home, he'd get a message telling him to deposit a dime, because the telephone company switch received input that indicated he was calling from a pay phone."

    --- Kevin Mitnick quote from the "Forbidden Chapter" of The Art of Deception.


"Even friends were not safe.  [Steven] Rhoades said he once picked up his phone at home and heard a recorded message telling him to 'please deposit 25 cents.'  [Lenny DiCicco] said he once found that all his company's calls were being forwarded to his home phone, a prank he was sure Mitnick was behind."

    --- Quotes from this Kevin Mitnick news story collection.


"I remember him as WA6VPS, back in the days when he turned WB6JAC's home phone line into a pay phone."

    --- Quote from N3EG in this QRZ forum thread from 2023.


"I was able to do a lot of [telephone] traffic analysis and actually identify the telephone numbers that belonged to the federal agents, and where they were at particular times.  I was able to monitor their whereabouts when they were getting close to me."

    --- Quote from Kevin Mitnick on the June 6, 2007 episode of Off The Hook discussing his illegal monitoring of private cellular phone conversations (and CDR, uplink, & call control data) belonging to active FBI Special Agents.

Kevin Mitnick and his little butt-buddies did use telco metallic test systems, radio scanners, and modified cellular phones to intercept private telephone communications without proper authorization.

And I bet you thought $2600 Magazine cared about your privacy!  Hah!

On the August 18, 2011 episode of The Colbert Report, the March 1, 2017 episode of Off The Hook, and in his new book, Kevin Mitnick now admits to using the Talk & Monitor function at the controlling SCC to access the Remote Trunk Test Unit (RTTU) / Central Trunk Test Unit (CTTU) of a #1A ESS in Maryland to intercept a private phone conversations of alleged employees of the NSA.

John Markoff mentioned this a while back and Kevin initially denied it ever happened.

But none of this ever got printed.  Kevin's name was enough to convict him, regardless of the actual evidence.

And then there was Security Pacific.

"Two weeks after Magistrate Tassopulos detained [Kevin] Mitnick, Magistrate Robert Stone heard an appeal from the detention order.  Assistant United States Attorney Leon Weidman said investigators believed that Mitnick might have been the instigator of a false report released by a news service in April, 1988, that Security Pacific National Bank lost $400 million in the first quarter of that year."

"'Kevin's not like me,' she explained.  'He's really crazy.'  I asked her about his being held without bail and she approved.  'Any punishment he gets is O.K. with me,' she said.  'He's dangerous.'"

    --- Quotes from Jay Bloombecker's Spectacular Computer Crimes article.  The bottom quote is an example of the misinformation spread by people like "Susan Thunder" (Susan Headley) - and not John Markoff.

$2600 also mentions the Security Pacific Bank incident in Vol. 6, No. 1.

After being hired, Kevin had once again been terminated because of the stories that followed him.

And this resulted in yet another Mitnick myth being born.

Lewis De Payne - Mitnick Co-Defendant / Friend

"There was a Newswire article coming out that stated that Security Pacific had lost billions of dollars, or something, in bad loans - which would have affected their stock price.  That was actually tracked down to some error that someone made in entering the information.  It had nothing to do with it not being true, or anything like that, but it was an error that someone made in entering the information."

"Well, immediately, because there were people, employees at Security Pacific that knew Kevin Mitnick - including one ham radio operator, immediately that was attributed to, 'Kevin Mitnick did this.'  And that's how that rumor spread."

Kevin Mitnick was well known for messing around (and being a big time pain-in-the-ass) with amateur radio repeater systems in Southern California.

"'Tell me about the Security Pacific incident,' I prod Mitnick.  'The one where they said you put out the false release, saying they lost hundreds of millions of dollars.'"

"'I was legally hired by Security Pacific Bank.  It was in writing.  They even sent around a notice saying, 'Please welcome Kevin Mitnick aboard...'"

"'My f*cking luck, one of the ham radio operators worked for the bank.  He contacted the bank [and sabotaged Mitnick's hiring].  Somebody apparently did a news wire that said they lost four hundred million dollars.  I didn't do it.  If somebody had actually called the bank they might have found out the truth.  I don't even think it happened.'"

    --- Quote by Kevin Mitnick in Jonathan Littman's book The Fugitive Game.

Those repeater owners and users would often fight back...

I'd seen this all before.

Hackers were always getting blamed for things they didn't do.

In many cases, for things that weren't even possible.

It was obvious somebody had to set the record straight.  Somebody who would command respect.

Bill Clinton with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell  Bill Clinton with Harvey Weinstein  Bill Clinton with Sam Bankman-Fried

William J. Clinton - President of the United States

"Hackers break into government and business computers, stealing and destroying information, raiding bank accounts, running up credit card charges, extorting money by threats to unleash computer viruses."

Whoa, hold on a second!

What was this guy reading?  The Weekly World News?

Hackers don't steal and extort, they play with all kinds of things.

Like those Simplex locks on the FedEx boxes.

    

In typical corporate brainpower, FedEx uses the same combination on every drop box in the country.

It's always fun to stick something really big in there, that couldn't possibly fit in the chute, just to f*ck with the guy.

And, hey, he got some cheap beer out of it too.

Jon Lebkowsky - Civil Libertarian

"If you go somewhere you're not supposed to be and bring something back to show people.  That always struck me as being a whole lot like a panty raid.  And you know, panty raids are really in the grandest tradition of this country.  Try to make your way in there, get the stuff, and get back out with it, without getting your head cut off."

Brad Carter vs. McDonald's Employee

BC: "What we're doing here is we're talking on McDonald's external speaker for their drive-thru.  And what we're doing to do that, is we have a modified ham radio.  Modified, meaning it transmits on frequencies other than the ones it was intended to.  In this case, it's standard business band frequencies.  154.6 MHz seems to be the standard McDonald's frequency."

McD: "I'll take your order."

BC: "The blonde, would you please kneel down for a second?"

BC: "Could one of you take off your tops?  We'll give you the food for free."

McD: "You bastards, you better stop being smart!"

"Here comes the manager!"

BC: "Really?"

Additional drive-thru pranks:

While corporate America would always be the playground of hackers - it was mostly about fun and exploration, not damage or profit.

But try telling that to corporate America.

Try putting downloadable back issues of $2600 Magazine on the Internet once...

Try selling t-shirts with a Digg or Slashdot logo once...

Try registering a domain name with the word 'Digg' in it once...

Try putting downloadable copies of Kevin Mitnick's books on the Internet once...

Try putting downloadable copies of any of the O'Reilly computer books on the Internet once...

Try putting a recording of a "Mythbusters Q&A Forum" on the Internet once...

Kevin Mitnick had already paid a heavy price for his curiosity.

He had served a year-and-a-half in 1988 for logging into DEC computers without authorization.

By simply looking at the VMS operating system, DEC claimed he caused millions of dollars in damage and was sentenced as if he had caused that amount of physical damage.

The child molesters at $2600 Magazine will sue you for "thousands of dollars" if you put copies of their little magazine on the Internet.  A little hypocritical, aren't we?

He was also held without bail and they put him in solitary confinement for eight months because they thought he could do even more damage from the prison payphone.

He was denied bail, by three different federal judges, because he was a flight risk (especially with shady contacts in Israel and other Jewish supremacist organizations) and had run before.  Why didn't you mention that?

Additional information is in Jay Bloombecker's Spectacular Computer Crimes article.

After his sentence, Kevin had to serve three years of supervised release, reporting to authorities every month and being restricted in where he could go and what he could do.

He only had a few days to go when federal authorities decided he had violated the terms of his supervised release by associating with Lewis De Payne, and accessing someone's voice mail without permission.

And hacking/social engineering into various telephone company systems, voice mail boxes, probably a few credit report systems, and intercepting private communications also.

It was nothing.

But it was enough.

Knowing how the media and the court system would crucify him over any offense, because he could start World War 3 from a payphone, Kevin decided to just walk away.

Kevin Mitnick intentionally broke the terms of his supervised release and went on the run.  Wait!  Why would an innocent person go on the run?

Funny how he "went on the run" to supposedly avoid being in solitary confinement again, while the penalty for running is even more severe!

Do these people have brains?

In 1992, a federal judge issued a warrant for Mitnick's arrest for having violated the terms of his probation.  At CFP95, Kent Walker, the California D.A. who spearheaded the investigation leading to Mitnick's capture, said that Mitnick's violation was missing three consecutive meetings with his parole officer.

Reba Vartanian - Kevin Mitnick's Grandmother

"I was devastated.  We were never far away from each other, and how was he living on his own without his family to share things with?  It was horrible.  What kind of a life is this?  He is not streetwise.  He's a home person."

He is not streetwise?

Except when using a dead baby's stolen I.D., social engineering, hacked phone switches, and cloned cellular phones to run from U.S. Marshals and the FBI!

Kevin managed to avoid attention.

Then, on July 4, 1994, everything changed.  A front-page story in the New York Times turned Kevin Mitnick into a household word - all over again.

The evil-looking picture, the mythical stories about breaking into NORAD computers and controlling all the telephones in California.  Even the Security Pacific news release tale was retold as fact.

Showing the 1994 New York Times front-page article by John Markoff.  Mentions the same NORAD story that $2600 Magazine mentioned five years before.

Also, Mitnick's access to Pacific Bell's Switching Control Center (SCC) minis combined with personal information on the local Electronic Switching Assistance Center (ESAC) employees could have (theoretically) given him control of most of California's PacBell telephone system.

"Kevin Mitnick (Technical Editor) is the most famous computer hacker in the world.  Since his first arrest in 1981, at age 17, he has spent nearly half his adult life either in prison or as a fugitive.  He has been the subject of three books and his alleged 1982 hack into NORAD inspired the movie War Games.  Since his plea-bargain release in 2000, he says he has reformed and is devoting his talents to helping computer security."

    --- Quote from "About the Author" on Johnny Long's book No Tech Hacking discussing Kevin Mitnick's career.  (Amazon Screenshot)

Wait a minute...  Now Mitnick is using this "alleged NORAD hack" to help boost his book sales?  LOL!  No profiteering going on here...

BTW, Tom Stockman's Air Force SAC story (Mirror) was the basis for the movie WarGames.

Nobody could figure out how the story made it onto the front-page of the Times, since there was nothing new in the story.

But the author was no stranger.

John Markoff, who was quickly becoming a Mitnick expert without ever having met him.

We looked at the story as an amusement back then.

A bunch of us were putting together the first Hackers On Planet Earth conference that August.

The story had gotten so big, that we all walked around with Mitnick masks.

WPIX Reporter

"They came here to the Hotel Pennsylvania by the hundreds.  These usually anonymous creatures of the cyberworld, better known as hackers, were holding a convention."

Throughout that weekend, Kevin called in several times to say "hi."

We all wished he could be there.

But we knew why he was running.

One of the things Markoff hadn't mentioned in his article, was the eight months of solitary confinement.

Alex Kasperavicius - Friend of Kevin Mitnick/Consultant for Miramax

"The guy was in solitary confinement for eight months.  Eight months.  Think about it."

"I mean, that would definitely change a man.  You would run.  You would not want that.  Because it was eight months, not for anything he did, but because the judge was scared."

"And if you get someone who is that unaware of actually what he can do and thinks he can destroy the world.  If you have someone who has much power over you to put you in solitary confinement, you're gonna run.  It makes perfect sense to me."

Some complaining about being in prison and in solitary confinement for eight months.

Evil Corley should ask the parents of the dead babies Mitnick stole IDs from if that was an O.K. punishment, not a bunch of stupid, whiny, rich kids.

Jennifer Granick - Lawyer

"I think it's part hype, part hysteria, part lack of understanding, and...  Umm... part fear."

Reba Vartanian - Kevin Mitnick's Grandmother

"Solitary confinement means no books, no pencil, no paper, no company, nothing to do, but stare at these small four walls.  He would get out one hour a day, and that's it."

Well...  Don't steal a dead baby's identification then!

Jeff Moss - Founder of DEFCON

"Well, you know, he might whistle up some missile launch codes.  That's a big problem with hackers nowadays.  They get a little pissed off and they launch some nukes by whistling.  You know, the fear factor is just insane."

Reba Vartanian - Kevin Mitnick's Grandmother

"Once or twice or maybe more, I can't even remember, they didn't even bring him down to the visitors' room.  They took my daughter and I upstairs to a floor that wasn't occupied at that time.  We were the only ones there and the guard."

"They were hovering over him as though he was an absolute monster.  What could he possibly do, you know?  Could he make a computer out of the telephone?  I don't know what they were afraid of!"

"First of all, he had no desire to.  Secondly, it wouldn't have accomplished anything.  Thirdly, he couldn't do it!"

Read The Art of Deception for some of the tricks Kevin used while in prison.

"I was able to track these numbers through my knowledge of the phone company, and then change the line class code to allow termination, which means those [prison] phones could then receive calls."

    --- Quote from Kevin Mitnick on June 6, 2007 episode of Off The Hook.  Kevin Mitnick admits to using social engineering to remotely change the line termination options on the public defender telephone at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles.  This allowed that prison telephone to take incoming calls, like from his media butt-boy, .  Mitnick also did this so he could contact Kevin Poulsen when he was at the MDC.  This story, and how he did it, are covered in Mitnick's new book.

Messing with the prison telephone system is also one of the reasons why Kevin Mitnick always seemed to be placed in solitary confinement or administrative segregation.

Kevin managed to elude the authorities into the next year.

Then, on February 15, 1995, they found him.  In Raleigh, North Carolina.

CNN

"The FBI's most-wanted computer hacker is behind bars."

"Kevin Mitnick was jailed without bond in Raleigh, North Carolina where he was arrested this week.  He's accused of breaking into corporate computers nationwide.  Private computer experts say so many other hackers are at work that privacy is virtually impossible."

The FBI had managed to track Kevin with the help of a mysterious computer expert, Tsutomu Shimomura.  Who, along with some friends, had managed to track Kevin's cellular phone signal to the apartment he was staying in.

One of Shimomura's friends who was there while the cellular signal was being traced was none other than John Markoff, who wrote an even bigger front-page story this time.

Katie Hafner - Co-Author, Cyberpunk

"Sure enough, I opened the door, the next day to the hotel room, and there was the Times outside the door, and I picked it up and I just thought, 'Oh, my God.'"

This article had a whole new list of things that Kevin had supposedly done, including breaking into Shimomura's ultra-secure computer, leaving nasty voice mail messages and stealing 20,000 credit card numbers, something that was mentioned in the first paragraph on the front-page.

But thirteen paragraphs later, on page D-17, it was revealed that he had never used any of them.

Says he didn't use that Netcom credit card number file, but Netcom (and other ISPs) used credit card numbers for customer verification during password changes.  Kevin Mitnick used numerous hacked Netcom accounts.  That is NOT a coincidence!

Kevin Mitnick finally admits to this on the February 8, 2000 episode of Off The Hook.

Also, why didn't he erase the Netcom credit card numbers when he had a chance?    rm: remove 0108.gz (y/n)? n

The file "0108.gz" is a compressed file that contained copies of credit card numbers from the Internet provider Netcom.

In fact, this was a list of credit card numbers which had been left lying around by Internet service provider Netcom for almost a year.

There was a rumor that Lewis De Payne, who had a valid Netcom account at the time, first had access to this file.  The FBI actually monitored De Payne's Netcom Internet activity in 1994.

That is also how the FBI knew he was in contact with Kevin Mitnick, a violation of Kevin's supervised release rules, at that time.

Jeff Moss - Founder of DEFCON

"Netcom credit card file, everybody had that file.  If you didn't have that file, you were a loser."

"Hundreds and hundreds of people had that, they swapped it around like bubble gum, or something.  And then they claim that he's the one who did it, he's the one that had it, when that was floating around for months before he theoretically had it."

Bruce Sterling - Author, "The Hacker Crackdown"

"Everybody and his sister's got a million credit card numbers.  What's the big deal with credit card numbers?  It's a meaningless thing to have."

"What I want to know, is did he threaten anybody in any way?  Did he claim he was going to do some particular set of harm?  Are there any notebooks that showed he had plans to conspire to commit any particular thing, other than humiliating Tsutomu Shimomura?"

"Which any idiot who's ever met Shimomura could have told him, this was not the guy to mess with.  I mean, I met Shimomura once."

"The first time I met Shimomura was in front of Congress and I was testifying to a Congressional subcommittee, and there's this guy in sandals and, like, ragged-ass cut-offs.  And the rest of us are done up in ties, it's me and the Attorney General from New Jersey.  And we're sitting there, giving our best 'yes, we're in front of Congress' thing."

Shimomura on CSPAN

"And Shimomura is there, in this surfer gear, and he like pulls out this AT&T cell phone, pulls it out of the shrink-wrap, finger-hacks it, and starts monitoring phone calls going up and down Capitol Hill while a FBI agent is standing at his shoulder listening to him."

"I'm like, 'This f*cker's got balls the size of durian fruit.'  You know, this is unbelievable!"

"This is the heaviest guy I've ever seen.  I mean, he's hacking, right?"

"He was finger-hacking this phone in front of Congress with, like, two FBI agents and John Gage from Sun Microsystems in the room with him, and I was like, 'Wow,' you know.  I mean, I was impressed."

Did he threaten anybody in anyway?  Did he claim he was going to do some particular set of harm?  Do any notebooks with plans to conspire to complete any particular thing?

"On another occasion they listened in on his cellular phone conversations and heard portions of a conversation about getting even with somebody's manager.  'We'll really f*ck them up,' Kevin told his friend."

    --- Excerpt from Takedown from when Kevin Mitnick was under investigation for cellular telephone fraud.


"'Look's like he's added an account called Nancy, deleted Bob, and changed a lot of passwords - including mine and root's,' [Mark] Seiden said.  'This looks vindictive.  He's getting destructive now.'  And, in a show of spite, Mitnick had made Markoff's account accessible to anyone on the Internet."

    --- Excerpt from Takedown from when Kevin Mitnick attacked Internex.


"[His one-time probation officer says,] 'He has a very vindictive streak.  A whole bunch of people were harassed.  They call me all the time.'"

    --- Quote from a former Kevin Mitnick probation officer in this article from 1989.  Mitnick once bragged to her that he had tampered with the credit records of FBI Special Agents who investigated him.


"Oh yeah, yeah..  It was an invasion of privacy.  Going and getting access to other people's information is obviously a gross invasion of privacy and it is wrong."

    --- January 2000 Kevin Mitnick interview on CBS' 60 Minutes.


"Kevin Mitnick did have a streak of revenge and he was seldom one-upped.  And you're right, he would often pursue, at least electronically, people who occasionally one-upped him."

    --- Quote from Jonathan Littman on the March 26, 1997 episode of NPR's Talk of the Nation.  Jonathan Littman is often paraded around for "telling the truth" about the Kevin Mitnick saga.


"they will f*ck with me by mistake and they dont want to piss me off :-) or their phones wont have dialtone!"

    --- February 10, 1995 quote from Kevin Mitnick chatting with Jonathan Zanderson.


"Me, and my friends, will kill you..."

    --- Quote from Supernigger's (Zohar Shif [Zeke]) December 27, 1994 voice mail message he left for Tsutomu Shimomura.  (Original & Transcript)

Inside of a week, Shimomura and Markoff had signed a book deal estimated to be worth three quarters of a million dollars.

Jonathan Littman's book deal was around $200,000.  He also signed a movie deal, but that's O.K. because he is "pro-Mitnick" (but "anti-Poulsen").  Imagine if someone wrote a book about YOU with the words "The Twisted Life and Crimes of..." on the cover!

Kevin Mitnick himself is also rumored to have signed a movie deal worth at least $25,000.

Also, Jonathan Littman's The Fugitive Game, The Watchman and Tsutomu Shimomura/John Markoff's Takedown are all distributed by the same company - Little, Brown and Company.

And it gets even better...  Kevin's new book deal telling his "official" story will be put out by, you guessed it, Little, Brown and Company.

It would be another 19 months before Kevin would even be indicted.

The book, entitled Takedown, was finished by the end of the year.

Winn L. Schwartau - Author, Information Warfare

"When I read it, I was aghast.  I was aghast...  It was Tsutomu's eating and skateboarding habits.  I'd been to a lot of the restaurants he'd been to, but I didn't need a hacker book to tell me about them."

Oh Lordy!  Winn Schwartau! (Winn William Lowson Schwartau)  This is the idiot who thinks the High Energy Radio - Ordinance (HERO) classification is some sort of "top secret" military program and that GaAs is also a secret Russian program.

Winn Schwartau also had some shady connections to convicted con artists Ian A. Murphy (Captain Zap, IAM/Secure Data Systems) and Frank Jones (Spyking, Codex Data Systems).  Did Evil Corley forget to mention that?

Winn's DEFCON 7 Speech: HERF Guns, EMP Bombs and Weapons of Mass Disruption.  An electronic Pearl Harbor?  Not likely.

Winn's daughter, Ashley, is one of the people behind the H4ck3rs Are People Too documentary.

"Xxxx has claimed that she is helping Ian [Murphy] with his inheritance, and that she made promises to Ian's father while he was on his death bed.  On a related topic, several years ago Winn [Schwartau] conspired with Ian Murphy and Frank Jones (both convivted felons) to initiate a harassment, and 'dirty tricks' campaign against this author.  Winn then reached out to several other people he knew, and tried to get them to help him in his harassment campaign... several of whom contacted the author to let him know what Winn was up to."

    --- Quote from Ian Murphy's (Captain Zap) security threat profile.  I believe the author referred to is James M. Atkinson of the Granite Island Group.  Here is an example of the "dirty tricks" Ian Murphy and his cohorts tried against James Atkinson.  All the lawsuits were thrown out of court as being frivolous.  (Jim Ross Lawsuit Info)


"Winn's book [Information Warfare] was little more then clueless ramblings plagiarized from other authors who in turn had no idea what they were talking about.  It is a classic case of the blind leading the blind who where then trying to pick the pockets of other blind people."

    --- Quote from the TEMPEST Timeline compiled by John Young.

Roger D. Slates II

Roger D. Slates II - Lawyer

"Takedown.  Well...  (laughing)  I don't know what I want to say about Takedown."

Takedown was not well received.

TAKEDOWN:
Number of crimes documented: 2
Number of meals documented: 42

$2600:
Number of good articles: 2
Number of TinyPedoAds®: 42

[littleboys]

1996 came and went, as did 1997.

Kevin remained in prison without even a bail hearing, and no prospect of a trial anytime soon.

Because he was serving prison time for the charges he plead guilty to.

A 25-count indictment accused him of nothing more serious than lying on the telephone about who he was, and copying software which he never tried to sell or even distribute.

Evil Corley telling yet another lie!

Kevin Mitnick called Mark Lotter in October 1994 and offered to trade him stolen Motorola firmware (Transcript) for access to Lottor's Oki 900 software.

"I did nothing with it, I never used it, I never disclosed it, never sold it, never offered it for sale to anyone at anytime, nor did I attend to."

    --- Quote from Kevin Mitnick on the February 8, 2000 episode of Off The Hook discussing his access to private cellular phone firmware.


"Well, if you're interested in looking at, uh, I have one other one, uh, that's been totally reverse-engineered, disassembled.  Uh, if you wish to take a look, or something, I..."

    --- October 1994 quote from Kevin Mitnick while talking to Mark Lottor.  Mitnick's trying to trade reverse-engineered Motorola cellular phone firmware for Lottor's Oki CTEK software and his joint Oki firmware disassembly work with Shimomura.

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

Mark Lottor's DEFCON Speech  - Mark Lottor has been hacking Oki cellular phones for over three years and his company, Network Wizards, sells a Cellular Telephone Experimenters Kit (CTEK).  From DEFCON 2.  (3.7M MP3)  (M4B)

Cellular Phone Panel - From the first HOPE conference in 1994.  The panel includes Mark Lottor discussing his work with the Oki 900.

Nothing about hacking into Shimomura's machine, nothing about having 20,000 credit card numbers, nothing that would have appeared in a John Markoff story.

North Carolina had also charged him with making free cellular phone calls.

Kevin was given a two-year sentence, more than he would have gotten for manslaughter.

Actually, the sentence was 22 months.  14 months were for violating his supervised release by breaking into Pacific Bell's voice mail system and associating with Lewis De Payne, his co-defendant in the federal trial.

The other eight months were for cellular telephone fraud in North Carolina.

The sentences would have probably been even shorter if Kevin would have just turned himself in, instead of running, or not have violated his probation regulations.

"Yes.  Violation one was the unauthorized access to the Pac Bell confidential voice mail system and violation number two was the admission that he maintained association with Lewis De Payne."

    --- Quote from Donald Randolph, Kevin Mitnick's attorney, admitting Mitnick's guilt in this court transcript on June 16, 1997.  This also includes time for Mitnick's probation violations.

But the federal charges still remained.

They even put him in solitary confinement again because the prison authorities convinced themselves that was going to build a transmitter out of a Walkman, sneak into the warden's office, and monitor his conversations.

The mainstream media made light of it, claiming Mitnick was put in solitary for having too many cans of tuna.

Wait a minute...  The whole "tuna can" episode was caused by Mitnick's own lawyers!  LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"'Our sources say he is indeed a repeat violator of the unauthorized possession of tuna,' said Mitnick's attorney, Donald C. Randolph.

'It does seem a little severe,' Randolph said, but he added that Mitnick had been warned several times by the center's authorities when caught with tuna in his cell.  Randolph was confident that Mitnick would be out of solitary by Tuesday morning."

    --- Mitnick discusses this in his The Fifth HOPE propaganda speech that he purposely hid several cans of tuna from the guards during cell inspections, which is a rule (contraband?) violation.

What everyone seemed to forget was years were going by, and this guy had yet to be tried.

And then, things got a whole lot worse.

June 1998.

A movie version of Takedown was announced.

Skeet Ulrich, who played a killer in Scream, was set to play Kevin Mitnick and Russell Wong, from The Joy Luck Club, would be Tsutomu Shimomura.

It didn't seem to matter to anyone that the real-life Kevin was still rotting in prison without a trial.

Without a trial?

Mitnick plead guilty and was in prison for 22 months, and after that Mitnick's lawyer kept calling for trial delays.

"He [Mitnick] was using his hacking skills to obtain information illegally and then in turn sell it to the P.I. firm he was working for...

...

Mitnick waived his right to a speedy trial.  Furthermore, he continues to file motions that delay the trial.  And as far as bail goes, he has clearly shown he is a flight risk by leaving town and assuming an alias when he knew a warrant was out for his arrest.  Generally speaking 3 time convicted felons do not qualify for bail."

    --- November 24, 1998 posting by Agent Steal (Justin T. Petersen) on the "Free Kevin" mailing list.

According to the script we managed to get our hands on, he had been found guilty and sentenced already.

The magic of Hollywood.

They even brought Kevin and Tsutomu closer.

In real life, they'd only met for a few seconds in a courtroom.

In the Hollywood version, they met in a dark alleyway.  Where Kevin would proceed to bash Tsutomu on the head with a garbage can lid.

"One day during his ritual disposal of the [banana] peels, [Ed] Cummings recalls lifting the 7-pound lid from off the communal can and balancing it precariously on a railing that ran the length of the upper tier.  In a moment of clumsiness, he knocked the lid from off the railing and watched helplessly as it plummeted to the tier below, landing squarely on the large, bald head of [John] Stanfa."

That movie scene was based (very very) loosely on a real-life incident involving Ed Cummings while he was in prison.

We had to tell the world that this was a big mistake.

The truth needed to be told.

And we could either do it ourselves, or use the media.

That's right, the media!  Democracy's biggest allies.

Committed to informing the public, no matter the cost.

The true conscience of America.

CNN

Stop pushing!
Get out of the way, Brad!  Brad!
Watch yourselves!
Come on, guys!
Don't yell at me, everyone's in front of me!
Well, tell them to come back.
He's coming to the mic!
Would you guys get down?
Watch the mic!
The mics!
Let's get out of the way!
Come on!
Larry!

We decided to do it ourselves.

Try watching the videos from HOPE and DEFCON where the little "hacker" sheep are crawling over each other for free T-shirts, stickers, CDs, etc.

So we found Skeet Ulrich's apartment in New York in an old phone book and paid a visit to try and get him the real story.

But he had moved.  I know, because the doorman let me look at every single name in the book.

So the next stop was Miramax Films on the West Side.

We figured they'd appreciate a chance to correct the all the mistakes in the screenplay.

And we knew we'd be warmly received because, well, this was Miramax - the company had distributed Michael Moore's latest film.

You know, the guy who films in everybody's lobby.

By now they should have realized Michael Moore is a fat, phony con artist and is just a tool for the One Percent.

Manufacturing Dissent  A good movie uncovering Michael Moore.  (Additional Info #1, Additional Info #2)

Shooting Michael Moore  Moore truth.  Less fiction.  (torrent)  (IMDb Entry)

  

Evil Corley & Miramax Employees

EC: "Hi, we're looking for Miramax?"

MIR: "What's your name?"

EC: "Emmanuel Goldstein."

MIR: "Who you here to see?"

MIR: "Sorry, you can't film in here."

EC: "You can't film here?"

MIR: "No, it's a landmark.  Sorry, you can't."

EC: "So there's no way you can call upstairs..."

MIR: "You have to call them, they will call me."

This wasn't going well.

How could a movie company tell us to stop filming?

All we wanted to do was talk to somebody.

What a letdown.

Evil Corley & Miramax Employees

MIR: "His light is on, so he's capturing everything.  So please go outside before he has to call the police."

EC: "All right, we don't want that, so we'll go outside..."

We called the office and waited to hear back from them, but we never did.

It was like they were scared of us.

Maybe they actually agreed with Bill Clinton, that hackers were as one-dimensional as they were in this movie script.

How could we get them to see the other side?

That night, New York City introduced unlimited ride MetroCards.  We decided to find out how long it would take for our cards to reset, so we would let people in for free.

This is what the hacker world was really all about.

Why didn't they see this?

Why did it always have to be something evil to the people who didn't get it?

We had only one option.

Off The Hook - July 7, 1998  (MP3 Audio)

"O.K. for Off The Hook, 'I recently heard the show where you received a copy of the script for Takedown.  I found it to be really amusing how the script writers can take the truth and not twist it or fabricate it, but just plain lie about what happened.'"

$2600 Meeting Sheep

"I've heard about Kevin's story, and thanks to Off The Hook I heard about this meeting, and I decided to come and see what I could do to help..."

$2600 Meeting Sheeple

"It wasn't from me, it's from somebody else, I knew who that is."

- "Is there a good catchiness?"

"Yeah, yeah.  'From Supermax to Miramax: Three-and-a-half Years With No Trial.'"

"And then you can make another one, 'From Miramax to Supermax: And No Trial.'"

Off The Hook - July 7, 1998

"When they see two "Free Kevin" stickers, when they see 10, 20, 100, they're gonna say, 'Who the Hell is Kevin?'  They'll keep saying it until somebody answers them."

$2600 Meeting Sheeple

"One or two people that know more about it, are one or two people more on our side."

"Those two people get two people who get two people.  That's how it works."

"We're gonna be in their face every step of the way."

"If it comes to showing this thing on the screen, in theaters, we're going to be there, too.  I mean, what we're doing now isn't going to be finished until Kevin has his trial, until Kevin is out."

$2600 Meeting Sheeple

"'Guilty by Hollywood' or something like that."

- "That's a good one.  I like that."

$2600 Meeting Sheep

"Yeah, I did look at the script, and I don't know, it's a shame and it definitely shouldn't be something out there.  For someone who knows very little about Kevin to then see this movie and have ideas in their head that are untrue."

We had tried talking to them and they wouldn't listen.

Now, by having a demonstration outside their offices, they would have to listen.

But we were a bunch of hackers.

What did we know about demonstrations?

Just that they can turn into riots, especially when the mayor was banning demonstrations outside City Hall, and the cops were shooting people a whole lot more.

Marxist-Leninists and Communists, like Evil Corley, have killed over one hundred million people in the last 100 years.

We needed guidance, someone with experience.

We looked all over town for an activist.

Maybe one of those gray-haired hippies from the '60s.

We found one.  Sort of.

Evil Corley & New York City Street Activist

EC: "What's it like demonstrating here?  Do you get harassed?"

NY: "They hate our guts because they don't want the truth to come out..."

EC: "Why do you think there isn't more activism?"

NY: "Because people don't care, they're scared.  They're afraid they'll get into trouble.  I can understand it.  But we still have to take a stand, afraid or not.  We have to at least give it a try, we have to give it a shot, you know?"

EC: "Has this cop been giving you any trouble?"

NYC: "No, he hasn't bothered me."

NYC: "... and we have a President that wants to suck their brains out..."

EC: "That bothers a lot of people."

NYC: "... but, anybody that's decent gets bothered when a little child is tortured to death, you know?"

EC: "...or when a President is sucking their brains out."

NYC: "Yeah, yeah."

He wasn't exactly what we had in mind.

I got a real earful about the evils of homosexuals and Communists.

But in the end, he told us the one thing we needed to hear.

New York City Street Activist

"When you demonstrate, make sure you're in the right."

And that's the one thing we were sure of.  We were right.

The day arrived.

We had no idea what to expect.

We just kinda stood there for a while, not knowing what to do.

Our converted phone company van got more attention than we did.

Noah Kenickstein - Lawyer & Phil Torrone

NK: "My name is Noah Kenickstein, I'm an attorney."

PT: "For Miramax?"

NK: "No, no.  For you all!"

PT: "I didn't even know..."

NK: "I'm a lawyer.  I'm representing you all."

PT: "Okay.  Great."

NK: "So, no one's getting arrested, right?"

PT: "I didn't plan on it."

NK: "Good."

The National Lawyers Guild actually sent someone to protect us, and that was the turning point.

Things began to come together.  Even members of the media started to show up.

Where were these people during that useless puppet Michael Moore's movie releases?

So wait...  When that fat piece of shit Michael Moore tells a bunch of lies in a movie, it is good.  But, if someone else were to lie about little Kevin-Wevin, it's the end of the world and they all protest.  What a bunch of tools.

Note that Michael Moore's agent is Ariel Emanuel, the Jewish supremacist brother of Rahm Emanuel and son of Benjamin Emanuel.  Benjamin Emanuel was one of the Irgun Zvai Leumi terrorists who helped blow up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946 - while dressed up as Arabs...  (The Age of Terror - In the Name of Liberation)

Also, Michael Moore is funded by the same (((billionaires))) who also supports WBAI and Pacifica Radio.

Now...  Wouldn't THAT make a good movie?  LOL!  Don't hold your breath...

  
Michael Moore's Multi-Million Dollar Mansion

It seemed like everyone except Miramax was taking this seriously.

We learned that when you stand outside a film studio's offices with picket signs, people notice.

Noah Kenickstein - Lawyer & NYPD

NK: "These folks are gonna put on a little demonstration here.  They're gonna be marching around.  I thought I would tell you.  You could tell the..."

NYPD: "I'll tell the precinct, sir."

NK: "Tell the precinct, and tell them I'm a lawyer.  It's nice and calm.  No problems at all."

NYPD: "I'm glad sir."

NK: "But they're having a little, they'll be marching around.  So if you wanna have..."

NYPD: "I've got it."

NK: "I wanted to tell you that."

NYPD: "I appreciate that very much.  Could you tell me, sir, approximately how many?"

NK: "I would say there's gonna be 50 people, Patty?  50 to 60, maximum 50."

NYPD: "50 to 60 people?  What area are you doing it in?"

NK: "In front of Miramax Films.  They're demonstrating about a movie that they're making."

NYPD: "Thanks a lot, I appreciate you stopping me."

NK: "Everybody's nice and calm.  I'll tell them that, sir.  Thank you very much for the advice."

NYPD: "Okay, no problem."

Protester

"No, they're not gonna come on purpose.  People are, you know...  You're talking about, you're talking about suits.  They don't give a f*ck.  You got to go hand it to 'em."

Don't harass the people who walk by...

Some people have crisis' going on in their lives.  They can't be bothered with our problems.

Noah Kenickstein - Lawyer & Miramax Employee

MIR: "Do you have a permit?  Who's in charge out here?  Do you all have a permit?  As long as you don't block the front of the entrance.  You stay to the side, please.  Thank you."

NK: "They can walk in front.  The cops have been..."

MIR: "As long as you don't block the entrance, I don't have no problem."

NK: "They have a First Amendment right..."

MIR: "Don't block the entrance.  That's all I'm saying."

Phil Torrone

PT: "It's ringing.  I got put in voice mail, guess they got too many calls.  I just went straight to voice mail.  This one's reaching voice mail.  I'll leave a message."

PT: "'Hi, this is the protest outside.  Are you guys there?  If you get this, come outside.  We're right down here.  I see someone.  All right.  Well, maybe you'll pick up the phone or come downstairs later.'"

- "You calling the Publicity Department?"

PT: "No, I just called the main number.  I got a hold of them yesterday and I asked for directions to the protest and they told me they couldn't get me from where I was at to here.  I said, 'Okay, I'll call you back tomorrow when I'm out front.'  I see them, they've got their heads out."

- "There's one."

PT: "They're not answering the phones."

    

    

CNBC Reporter & Phil Torrone

CNBC: "Waving banners that said 'Free Kevin' and holding 'Stop Miramax' posters, the small but vocal crowd of protesters stood outside Miramax Pictures' New York offices yesterday.  At issue: this script, entitled Takedown, the story of the nation's most notorious computer hacker, Kevin Mitnick.  Mitnick is currently being held in prison without bail awaiting trial on computer crimes.  It's a script these Kevin Mitnick supporters say is libelous and would hurt Mitnick's chances of getting a fair trial."

PT: ""It might influence the jury.  It might change a lot of things in a negative way.  I mean, he's trying so hard to at least get a trial, and then this comes up where he's constantly being defamed."

You never know who you might see when you're standing outside a film studio.

Kevin Bacon had no interest whatsoever.

I don't think that was Kevin Bacon.

But, was that other guy the big goofy geologist from Big Bang Theory?

But radio personality Lazlow did.

Lazlow Jones - Radio Personality

"With the proliferation of the news, TV news journalism like Primetime Live and these shows that completely distort the facts, and shows like 60 Minutes being forced to go in the same direction.  People don't know the facts about the case."

"They don't know the facts about hackers.  I'd say that hackers are the Communists of the 1990s where, basically, if anybody says 'hacker' all of a sudden you've got this 'demon 666' across your head.  Nobody actually understands any of it."

"What I do in my part, on the radio with my syndicated show, is try to get people to open their brains, because I talk to a lot of old people, because I'm on a lot of news talk stations.  So, when I can, I put Emmanuel or Bernie S., or anybody else on there to talk about the state of what's going on, because nobody else will cover it.  The people who do cover it in the mainstream media, are going to cover it for profit, like the guy that wrote the book."

Radio host "Lazlow" tells the truth.  Even mentions CBS' 60 Minutes and the lie-by-rule mainstream media that distorts the facts.  Why can't Evil Corley figure that out?

Oh, and real hackers fights Communists:

KGB Officer Yuri Bezmenov on Demoralization  - Former KGB officer and Soviet defector Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov explains Communist psychological warfare methods and results.  Edward Griffin interview from 1984.  (5.5M MPG)

KGB Officer Yuri Bezmenov on Yoga & Brainwashing  - Former KGB officer and Soviet defector Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov explains why the KGB was interested in yoga.  Edward Griffin interview from 1984.  (4.5M MPG)

KGB Officer Yuri Bezmenov on Marxists & "Useful Idiots"  - Former KGB officer Yuri Bezmenov explains how Marxist leaders use informers to make lists of anti-Communist and other politically incorrect people who they want to execute once they -- actually a Jewish oligarchy -- come to power.  The oligarch's secret lists include "civil rights" activists and idealistically-minded "useful idiot" leftists as well.  Bezmenov provides several real world examples of how Marxist leaders even execute and/or imprison each other.  Edward Griffin interview from 1984.  (5.5M MPG)

KGB Officer Yuri Bezmenov on American Mass Media  - Former KGB officer Yuri Bezmenov explains how the American mass media spread lies about life in the Soviet Union.  Bezmenov also explains how the LOOK magazine article falsely claimed that the Russian people were proud of their victory in the Second World War, where in reality the Judeo-Bolshevik-Communist-Marxist government was happy that Hitler had been defeated so that they could remain in power.  Edward Griffin interview from 1984.  (4.2M MPG)

"This is Edward Griffin's shocking video interview, 'Soviet Subversion of the Free-World Press' (1984), where he interviews ex-KGB officer and Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov who decided to openly reveal KGB's subversive tactics against western society as a whole.  Bezmenov explains how Jewish Marxist ideology is destabilizing the economy and purposefully pushing the U.S. into numerous crises so that a Big Brother tyranny can be put into place in Washington, how most Americans don't even realize that they are under attack, and that normal parliamentary procedures will not alter the federal government's direction.  He then explains how Marxist leaders use informers to make lists of anti-Communist and other politically incorrect people who they want to execute once they - actually a Jewish oligarchy - come to power.  The oligarch's secret lists include 'civil rights' activists and idealistically-minded 'useful idiot' leftists as well.  Bezmenov provides several real world examples of how Marxist leaders even execute and/or imprison each other.  Also he explains how American embassy employees were known to betray Soviets attempting to defect, how their existed a 'triangle of hate' in the Soviet government, why he realized that Marxism-Leninism was a murderous doctrine, and how the CIA ignored (or didn't care) about Communist subversion.  He also mentions that revolutions throughout history are never the result of a majority movement, but of a small dedicated and highly-organized group who seize power, whether for good or bad.  Next he explains how the American mass media spread lies about life in the Soviet Union.  Bezmenov also explains how the LOOK magazine article falsely claimed that the Russian people were proud of their victory in the Second World War, where in reality the Judeo-Bolshevik-Communist-Marxist government was happy that Hitler had been defeated so that they could remain in power.  Find out how the KGB utilized various individuals to undermine the western society in its morals and values."

Yuri Bezmenov - Deception Was My Job  Complete hour-and-a-half video interview.  (YouTube)

The Grand Socialist Project for America  In-depth analysis of the above Yuri Bezmenov videos.

Goying, Goying, Gone  Information on YouTube suppressing video interviews of Yuri Bezmenov.

Zionist Butchers : The Genocide of 65 Million Russians  (YouTube)

Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917

Jewish Communists: The Documentary Record

CNBC Reporter

"The demonstrators say they have sent a copy of this illicitly obtained script to Kevin Mitnick in jail, and that he absolutely hates it.  Miramax's parent, Disney, may not like it either.  The controversy comes on the heels of the dumping of $43 million in Disney stock by the Texas Board of Education.  The board's complaint: that Miramax films have too much sex and violence."

Miramax Protesters

"Miramax distorts the facts!"

Was that (((Harvey Weinstein))), President of Miramax?

He walked right by us.

He didn't even get a "Stop Miramax" brochure?

Of course we had a brochure for Harvey.

Phil Torrone

PT: "Okay, I'll talk to you later.  Bye."

- "What did they say?"

PT: "I don't know.  There she is.  That's the one who answered the phone.  She hung up on me yesterday.  I got through.  They waved.  Did you see them wave?"

Miramax Protesters

"Miramax distorts the facts!"

Miramax Employee

"They said if you use a bullhorn or obstruct people's walkways, you have to have a permit.  If you continue to use that, I'm gonna have to call the cops."

Miramax Protesters

"Miramax distorts the facts!"

Miramax Protester

"I think that three years is a long time to be held without actually having a trial, and I think that what Miramax is doing is going to jeopardize his right to have a free and honest trial.  So that's why I'm out here protesting.  Thank you."

Some more whining about the movie's lies.

They don't mention any of the lies in Michael Moore's movies, or what's broadcast on (((CNN))) or (((MSNBC))) daily, though...

Alex Kasperavicius - Friend of Kevin Mitnick/Consultant for Miramax

"They all were aware of the thing in front of the building in New York City.  They talked about it on the set, asked me about it."

"They said 'Did you talk to Emmanuel?  That's great!'

"They were waving out the windows.  They think it's fantastic.  And they all want 'Free Kevin' stickers.  The whole crew.  If you give me some, I will send it to them.  They will put them on their cars."

Miramax Protesters & Random New York City Person

PRO: "Hello, sir.  Do you know who Kevin Mitnick is?"

NYC: "No, I do not."

PRO: "Computer hacker who's been in jail for three-and-a-half years without a trial.  Miramax has decided to make a movie about him.  The script is false.  It makes him out to be a violent racist, which he is not.  I want to know what you think about it."

NYC: "When are they doing the film?"

PRO: "They start shooting in a couple weeks."

NYC: "How do I find out the truth?"


Ovadia Yosef, John Markoff, Katie Hafner, Kevin Mitnick, Steve Rombom, and Jonathan Zanderson ALL agree:
Stop the anti-Semitic hate against the Palestinians!
Demand that Israel allow Gentiles to control high-level Israeli government positions!
Demand open borders for Israel!

Kevin Mitnick is not a racist!  The Israeli government is open to Gentiles!  LOL!

That "japboy" comment during a talk session with "jsz" (Jonathan Zanderson) was just a joke!

10 Feb 1995 12:53:20 PST my hero is japboy!

Note that Mitnick stayed in several Jewish (i.e. "racist") halfway houses during his teenage rehabilitation years.

Also note that Kevin Mitnick (and several members of his family) used to hang around with the deranged, mentally-unstable supporters of the Jewish supremacist "Jewish Defense League" domestic terrorist group.

"I was also looking for a white baby boy with an easily pronounced, Anglo-sounding surname.  Trying to pass for Indian, Latino, or black would obviously not work unless I intended to have a good makeup artist follow me around everywhere I went."

    --- Quote by Kevin Mitnick in his book Ghost in the Wires.  Mitnick, who is of the Ashkenazi/Khazar race, admits to intentionally using the stolen identifications of dead White (Gentile) babies for his criminal spree.  If this isn't "racist," then I don't know what is!


The FBI linked the JDL to 37 terrorist attacks carried out from 1977 to 1984.

Jewish supremacist, racist, anti-Gentile, anti-Germanic hate groups, like the JDL and ADL, teach that Jews are superior to the Gentile and don't need to obey their laws.  This is why Jews like Kevin Mitnick can so easily break the law, or steal other people's identities, without feeling any sort of remorse.  It's because Jews have no conscience.  Remember, these are the same people who had no problems killing tens of millions of innocent Christians and Gentiles all over Europe and Russia during the 20th century.

"There's Irv Rubin.  He's like the head of the JDL [Jewish Defense League]..."

"I tell Mitnick I found his childhood mentor, Irv Rubin, the head of the radical Jewish Defense League in Los Angeles.  'Oh, from the JDL' Mitnick says, surprised.  'He doesn't know too much about me as a hacker - just as a normal person involved with them back when I was a kid.  My stepfather at the time was heavy into that.'"

"'What kinda things would you do?'"

"'Shooting,' Mitnick says."

"'I remember participating in the marches,' recalls the hacker.  'I knew the guy that actually bombed one of these air places and then he had to skip off to Israel.'"

    --- Quote by Kevin Mitnick in Jonathan Littman's book The Fugitive Game.

"Goyim [non-Jews] were born only to serve us.  Without that, they have no place in the world - only to serve the People of Israel...  Why are gentiles needed?  They will work, they will plow, they will reap.  We will sit like an effendi and eat."

    --- Quote from Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the head of Shas's Council of Torah Sages and a senior Sephardi adjudicator, as reported in the Jerusalem Post discussing Jewish privilege.  (Mirror)

Here is a video of Yosef's funeral showing just how much support he (and his comments) had.

Jewish Supremacist Ovadia Yosef - Funeral #2    Jewish Supremacist Ovadia Yosef - Funeral #1

Miramax Protesters & Random New York City Person

NYC: "Kevin Mitnick is great.  They should take him out of prison."

PRO: "Hold on, I want to talk to you."

NYC: "My main thing is the only reason he ended up running afoul of the law is because people don't have access to communications.  All you got is big corporations, like Miramax, with access to communications."

Miramax Protesters & Random New York City Person

NYC: "First Amendment!  Yeah!"

Miramax Protesters & Two Random New York City Women

PRO: "This is in America.  It's happening here."

NYC: "He was in jail three years without a trial?"

PRO: "He's still in jail."

NYC: "This happens a lot, though.  You always have unauthorized biographies and stuff like that.  Where it's like, you have an autobiography, you have an authorized biography.  This is sort of like an unauthorized."

PRO: "This is different, though.  This is going to be big.  This is going to be a feature film."

NYC: "He hasn't had a trial yet?"

PRO: "Hasn't had a trial yet.  Not only that, in the movie, they already wrote that he had a trial."

NYC: "That's not right.  They have to put a waiver, I think they should hold the film until after he's had a fair trial.  I mean, it happens.  It happened, unfortunately.  You know, I don't think it should be...  Obviously, it's probably not legal to have a lawsuit against Miramax.  I think they should have to wait until he's had a fair trial, and also they shouldn't use his real name.  If they want to change the facts, they should change the name.  Make it a fictional story."

Miramax Protesters & Random New York City Person

PRO: "You ever hear of Kevin Mitnick?"

NYC: "No.  Who's that?"

PRO: "Well, if you're walking away, I really can't..."

Miramax Protesters & Random New York City People

NYC: "I saw something about this on CNBC on Friday.  How did you guys get a hold of the script?"

PRO: "Ahh...  Hey, come on..."

NYC: "Okay.  All right.  You're a lawyer.  Isn't it illegal if they're gonna slander him?  Can't they try and stop them on legal grounds?"

PRO: "Three-and-a-half years is a long time.  Think about what you've done for the last three-and-a-half years, and imagine being in jail while all that stuff was happening.  For just that.  Just for copying software."

NYC: "I've copied software."

The child molesters at $2600 Magazine will sue you for "thousands of dollars" if you put copies of their little magazine on the Internet.  A little hypocritical, aren't we?

Also, in 1992, Kevin Mitnick was using his hacking skills to illegally obtain personal information, like Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) records which require impersonating a law enforcement officer, and then in turn, selling that information to the private investigation firm (Teltec Investigations, Inc.) he was working for.

Mitnick also impersonated a police officer when he "social engineered" McGraw Cellular Communications employees after his apartment was raided in Seattle.

"'He would give a requesting officer's name and would basically use his identity and birth date,' said Bill Madison, a DMV spokesman in Sacramento."

    --- Quote from a John Johnson article from a July 10, 1994 Los Angeles Times article discussing how Kevin Mitnick would social engineer DMV records.

This was why the FBI initially went after him.

Miramax Protesters & New York City qt3.14 with Glasses

QT: "What did he do?"

PRO: "He hacked.  I would like to know your opinion on the slandering in this film?"

QT: "Ahhh...  Miramax sucks.  So, like, Free Kevin!"

Sean Gullette - Actor

"Well, you know, I can't talk shit about a movie I haven't seen or read the script of, you know?  But the one relevant thing that I could say, is it seems to me there is a witch-hunt, sort of hysterical mentality vis-á-vis hacking, you know?"

"People are very quick to fly off the handle and condemn as terrorists people who are, you know, exploring a new technology landscape in a way that they don't understand."

"That's as far as I can go, not having seen it."

Not only did we find a receptive bunch at local theaters, they even started to do our work for us.

New York was great.

But it was only the start.

We had to travel to get to the right people.

So we put together a camera crew and made sure none of us had anything planned for the next several weeks.

Next comes an across-the-country trip that took several weeks.

Don't these people have jobs?  How much money is $2600 Magazine pulling in?

We charted out a course, and headed to the airport.

That's where we got our economy-sized rental car with unlimited mileage.

The plan was to head down to Wilmington, North Carolina, where filming for Takedown was about to begin.

On the way, we figured we'd make a detour and stop at DEFCON, the annual hacker convention in Las Vegas.

If we were going to do that, we should stop in San Diego to say "hi" to Tsutomu Shimomura, and maybe convince him to stop using Kevin Mitnick as a cash cow.

HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!

Evil Corley actually says "Tsutomu Shimomura should stop using Kevin Mitnick as a cash cow."

Holy F*ck!  Who's going to be the keynote speaker at those HOPE conventions from now on?

[cash_cow]

"Psst...  Hey Kevin!  Listen to me and we can both pull in six-figures a year by scaring teenaged boys."

And if we did that, it would be rude not to visit John Markoff to ask him to inject some accuracy into his stories about Kevin.

When's $2600 Magazine going to inject some accuracy in stories about anything?

Since we were suddenly adding 10,000 miles to this rental car, we might as well stop in on some of the corporations that were claiming Kevin Mitnick cost them millions of dollars in damages.  Just to see what the Hell they were talking about.

There's something about Pennsylvania.

I call it the Prison State.

Now we move on to Pennsylvania, which through careful editing has prisons everywhere you look.

Wow!  A high crime rate in a n!gger-infested, Democrat-voting state.  Shocking!!!

    


"Them damn Amish people are at it again!"

As of December 31, 2009, there were 1,057,038 registered voters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Registered voters constitute 68.3% of the total population:

   Democrat: 829,873 (78.5%)
 Republican: 134,216 (12.7%)
Libertarian: 2,631 (0.2%)

FBI Crime Stats

Old City Names    Chicago/Philly More Dangerous than Iraq

Stores - Then    Philadelphia - Today
Then vs. Now

  

Video of a Target Store in San Fransisco

Canada's Most Wanted

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.  It was their final, most essential command." - George Orwell, 1984.

That's because they seem to have prisons everywhere you look.

And almost everyone I know who's gone to prison seems to wind up in Pennsylvania.  Weird.

Not only that, but every time I get pulled over by a cop I seem to find myself in the Prison State.

I knew I'd better be careful.

But, let's not get off on the wrong foot, Pennsylvania's a great place.

Home of such landmarks as the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, that little surveillance camera above Independence Hall, and the house where Thomas Jefferson signed the Declaration of Independence, and that's just down the block from the Afro-American Museum and its new neighbor.

Shows a security camera above Independence Hall.  If you savage Democrats would get some manners and stop mugging and murdering people, maybe they could take the cameras down!  Do you see any video cameras in Republican-voting areas?  When you flood the country with non-White third-world trash, what do you expect?  Evil Corley really is a brain-dead idiot!

"Afro-American Museum" next to a prison.  Classic.  Maybe they should "rap" about getting jobs, taking care of their families, walking on the Moon, or going to schools and libraries?

Here is good article about hero Philadelphia police officer William Thrasher standing up and telling the truth.

"Wherever you find the Negro everything is going down around him, and wherever you find the White man you see everything around him improving."

    --- Robert E. Lee to Col. Thomas H. Carter, May, 1865.


"The Negro is indolent and lazy, and spends his money on frivolities, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent."

    --- Che Guevara.


"The amalgamation of Whites with Blacks produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence in the human character, can innocently consent."

    --- Quote from Thomas Jefferson, 1814.


"Blacks can't run it.  Nowhere, and they won't be able to for a hundred years, and maybe not for a thousand...  Do you know, maybe one Black country that's well run?"

    --- Quote from President Richard M. Nixon, 1973.


"I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the White and Black races.  There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in the favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.  I have never said anything to the contrary."

    --- Quote from Abraham Lincoln in his reply to Stephen A. Douglas in Ottawa, Illinois on August 21, 1858.

Well...  Gee, a maximum-security federal prison right in the middle of Philadelphia.

How times change.

Thanks in part to Democrats, the (((ACLjU))), the (((media))), and tools like Evil Corley and the One Percent.

They say it's illegal to take pictures of any prison, even those under construction, even those right in the middle of a city.

"Hackers" often block cameras from taking pictures at DEFCON, HOPE, and other hacker conventions:

No Pictures at CCC

We couldn't find a law anywhere that backed this up but try and take a picture of a prison without getting threatened by some prison guard or cop.

Yet there they are filming, without being "threatened" by any prison guards or cops.  Hmm...

Here, look at this part.

Maybe there are subtle details that will lead to a prison uprising some day.

Kevin Poulsen - Ex-Hacker

"I think fully half of the people in federal prison, if not more, shouldn't be there.  It's not violent criminals.  You know, drug crimes.  Somebody gets a mandatory 10 years for selling $800 worth of LSD.  That's not right either.  That's the way the federal system works.  It's just not right."

Interview with Kevin Poulsen.  Another person who really got screwed, by Jonathan Littman nonetheless!  Wait...  Did Evil Corley forget to mention that?

Jennifer Granick - Lawyer

"I know the state of California has more prisoners than South Africa.  Incarceration is a big business.  I think that's part of the reason.  There is less and less tolerance on the part of the public for people who have transgressed the rules."

Hey sweet cheeks...  You think South Africa is a stable country?  It's not, because South Africa is in turmoil and lawlessness runs high.  South Africans are basically in a civil war right now.  Gee...  I wonder why?

Also, did she mention that almost half the prison population in California (27% of Federal) are illegal aliens their host countries refuse to take back?  Also note this idiot supports the lawsuits in NOT having to show an I.D. before voting.  She wants illegal aliens to be able to vote in our elections.  So much for "security" in our elections...

"At the height of segregation and apartheid under Hendrik Verwoerd, South Africa was almost as peaceful as Switzerland but she was immoral.  Today we are the apotheosis of racial morality and political correctness, yet as violent as the Congo or Liberia."

    --- Quote from Dan Roodt.

South Africa FAIL

Winn L. Schwartau - Author, Information Warfare

"We have a huge prison population...  This gets into other questions.  Putting a computer hacker in with sex offenders and murderers is probably the worst thing you can possibly do to somebody who has not murdered, is not a violent criminal!"

"Somebody who's a technological who's gone over the edge.  Then, again, we have to define what we mean.  We need a new classification system for technological law."

"At on point in one of my books, I talked about setting up a court system especially for technology, where the people that we're prosecuting and the judges and the people involved in the cases would have some technological basis to evaluate and try the case in a reasonable manner and to come up with an alternative sentencing system that reflected more the nature of the crime."

Winn Schwartau!  Mentions his books again!    (Information Warfare & Terminal Compromise)

Oh, and as the non-White population goes up in the U.S., the prison population will also go up.  Duh!  Are you morons really hackers?

    

Lots of Whites in a country = Lower prison population
Lots of non-Whites in a country = Higher prison population

It's very simple to understand...

Xail - Hacker

"If you're exposed to people like that for too long, you change with them.  You become one of them.  Next thing you know, you'll be locked away again for doing what they do."

Edward E. Cummings - Hacker

"One night, I was in my cell in a minimum-security facility at Bucks County Prison."

"Two guards stormed in and flipped my bed upside down, and locked me in handcuffs, and started rummaging through my storage locker demanding to know where my computer was."

"And I'm like, 'I don't have a computer here.  What are you talking about?'"

"They were squeezing the toothpaste out of my tube ostensibly looking for a computer, or whatever they were looking for.  It was bizarre!"

Note how he said the guards were "looking for a computer in his toothpaste," and then quickly adds "or whatever they were looking for."

This is a perfect example of the manufactured fear $2600 Magazine likes to use to scare people.

But Pennsylvania was more than prisons, it was a place of learning.

And the Age Expo was where thousands of senior citizens learned that corporate America really cared about them.

The guy representing Bell Atlantic was the most sincere of the bunch.

How could you not trust a fox?

Freddie the Phone Fraud Fox was passing the corporate numbers to the seniors, over $4 billion in phone fraud every year.

Freddie said most of that was because of evil computer hackers.

And I met him.

Freddie knew words like "digit" would only confuse older people.

It made more sense to say things like "ten-number number."

Bell Atlantic Phone Rep

"It means they will have to dial the area code, along with their seven-digit number, each time they place a call within and between 215, 610, and the new 267 for 215, and the 484 for 610 area code."

Educated Senior Citizen

"You give them out in blocks of 10,000 and people that get these blocks of 10,000 end up using 300 numbers, and all the others are tied up wasted."

The Rutles - "Easy Listening"

Easy listening.
Never mind the world outside.
Easy listening.
Famine, war, and genocide.
Easy listening.
Forget the loony on the loose.
Easy listening.
Rising crime and child abuse.
Ignore the poisoned atmosphere.
Open up another beer.
The media feeds you every day.
What to think and say.

We went back, to a familiar place.

Everything was just as we left it only it was about 90 degrees warmer.

But you could still feel the chill after four-and-a-half years.

It was kind of surprising how nobody tried to stop us from filming.  So we filmed everything.

The medium-security facility, the minimum-security prison camp, the sign that lets minimum-security prisoners know when they've escaped, and Unicor, the local slave-labor office where prisoners make furniture for the government for pennies a day.

And we almost made it out.

It was the first time we had ever gotten pulled over by prison cops.

Wow!  Strong security near a prison.  Shocking!

You guys really are "elite hackers," aren't you?

How could we not drop in on our friends at CERT, the Computer Emergency Response Team?

These are the guys that tell the world when there's a threat to computer networks.

They'd back us up and tell the world that Kevin Mitnick posed no threat at all to NORAD, Kristy McNichol, or the American way of life.

We thought computer people worked odd hours, but these guys apparently took Saturdays off.

So we asked the security guard to come down and let us leave a pamphlet or two.

There must be something that gets triggered whenever you say Mitnick's name.

We were meeting far too many cops in so brief a period of time.

Evil Corley trespasses on private property - then complains about it when asked to leave!  So much for protecting our rights and privacy!

Note the guards are campus police, not real police officers.

But at least Pennsylvania was living up to its name.

We explained why we were there, but wound up getting the message we expected.

    

Evil Corley & Negro Campus Cop

NCC: "You're not welcome."

EC: "We're used to that."

NCC: "In the event that you should maybe happen to come again, if you are not welcome, and I find out that you are not welcome, you will be exactly where Kevin is, and then you'd be defeating your purpose.  I'm here to do the job, and my job right now is..."

EC: "... to get us out of here.  I understand that."

NCC: "I know a lot of people who's in prison who probably shouldn't be there.  But that's our judicial system.  You know what I mean?  Sometimes it works and sometimes it don't.  Believe me, I've seen it not work in the favor of my people many many times.  I'm gonna parlay the rest of this, my tedious job is to run you for wants and warrants and all that kind of stuff, if you would expedite your leaving."

EC: "We'll get out of here, we'll head for the border right away."

NCC: "One Nine radio.  The gentleman has been given a standard warning.  I'll give you his name and stuff."

Affirmative action negro campus cop talks about "his" people.  What about the rights of their victims?  'Dats bees Whitey's fault!

Before we left, we decided to check the mood of the street.

Typical $2600 Magazine Subscriber

"She told me not to mess with her.  She did everybody she could in the weeds and then she moved to the projects."

"It's not Kevin's fault.  Free Kevin.  Kevin has nothing to do with it."

"The broad quit me 'cause I was alcoholic and I wasn't making no money.  I was broke, that's why she quit me.  The reason I don't have a girlfriend, is I don't have no money."

"Oh, wow.  He seems like a nice guy.  Why would you want to do anything to him?  You think his girlfriend's gonna quit him or something?"

It was time to go.

Daniel Johnston - "Sad Sac and Tarzan"

We was peeling potatoes.
Back in World War Two.
And we was playing that rock and roll.
After school for you know who.
Hidden from the public.
It was behind the scenes.
There was a relic.
They called the purple hair.

    

With Kevin Mitnick locked away, the phone companies of the world felt safe from intruders, but the fact remained, lots of people were exploring all the time, online and off.

Evil Corley & Kansas City Hackers

KC: "Allied Signal Aerospace.  More Sprint PCS up there.  Informix, Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems..."

EC: "You're scaring me.  It's like this flat area where there's like no trees or anything, just industry."

KC: "Yep."

Oklahoma, the state that created Hanson.

People kept telling us our sound guy looked like one of the Hanson brothers.

Since we happened to be going through their hometown of Tulsa, we figured we'd go to one of Tulsa's bustling malls and turn the "Free Kevin" campaign into a Hanson campaign.

We could use the publicity and if we could confuse some Tulsans in the process, all the better.

And it sure wasn't hard to do that.

Once we'd finished confusing people at the mall, we headed over to Oral Roberts University in the hopes that the religious right would climb on board.

When the vice president of the university, a former federal agent, came down the stairs with a golf club. we took the hint.

There wasn't a golf course for miles.

Electric Hellfire Club - "Hellflower"

Hellflower, Satan's power.
You grow more beautiful by the hour.
You feed our hearts.
And you free our minds.
With the essence of the souls that you devour.
Shrinking violet makes the scene.
In the formal garden of the queen.
Bloody Mary, so contrary.

Lewis De Payne - Mitnick Co-Defendant / Friend

"They had a hard time getting into my place.  I had the bedroom door closed, so I did not hear the pounding on the door.  They were pounding on the door out there for a good 10 minutes, or so."

"They actually started calling on the cellular phone and leaving messages on my answering machine.  'This is the FBI.  We're at your door.  Open up.'"

Xail - Hacker

"I wasn't there when they searched my home.  My mom had to get me from school.  My dad was the only one home.  They thought that he was me.  They were looking for somebody that was an adult.  When they found out that I was like, 13 - they didn't know what to do."

Lewis De Payne - Mitnick Co-Defendant / Friend

"I think when they walk in and want to take things, they should be told to go to Hell.  Take what they want, we'll see you in court, don't even talk to me."

"I think, the problem of course, is that hackers don't have the resources to do this.  They want to try to get off cheap so they cooperate, and they plea bargain, and they end up pleading guilty to something they didn't do.  And that sets the record bad for them going forward."

"I think if people had the resources, or if there were an organization dedicated to helping people, to providing the resources.  You know, something that's much more than just a dummy front, such as the EFF, an organization that's actually truly willing to help in those matter that we'd see a lot more progress along those lines."

"The government, for once, would have to start conforming to the same laws that they're supposedly enforcing."

Louie calls the EFF a dummy front.  This is true.

Edward E. Cummings - Hacker

"We were detained for two hours there in the parking lot.  There were 13 police officers and I think five or six police cars.  I told them what was going on, but they seemed to think there was more going on than there was.  Without my consent, they took my box of crystals even though they admitted there they didn't know what they were."

Bernie S. (Ed Cummings) interview.  Lots of lies and glossing over of the facts.  Said "don't riffle through my things" or something like that.  He didn't specifically say "no."  And this asshole was selling Red Box crystals!  That's a direct violation of the hacker ethic.  Except for those assholes at $2600 Magazine, which will do anything for a little profit.

That asshole Ed Cummings "forgets" to mention he stuffed evidence down his pants to hide it from the cops, and was actually told once before to stop selling "Red Box" toll fraud devices.  This asshole didn't have one Red Box, but hundreds of them.  He was also involved in some shady credit card operations in the past.  That ad in the back of $2600 with the person selling 6.5 MHz crystals with a Pennslyvania address was Eddie.

People are finally starting to wake up to the fraud originated by Bernie S. and $2600 Magazine.  Listen to the June 17, 2009 episode of Off The Hook for a hilarious account of how little Eddie was denied entry to Canada.  But when Trump temporarily suspends immigration from countries known to support terrorism - Evil Corley and the One Percent have a total breakdown and are out in the streets protesting...

    

Lewis De Payne - Mitnick Co-Defendant / Friend

"They took anything and everything that had magnetic media on it, or had an electrical plug on it.  They took other unrelated items such as a woman's purse.  I'm not quite sure how that fits into the scope of their investigation.  Every business card I had.  They took everything just to make life difficult on me."

"They took other unrelated items, such as a woman's [Bonnie Vitello's?] purse..."

Louie... that's probably where you and Kevin kept your stolen identifications.  Why don't you mention this?  Why don't you mention that you were in contact with Mitnick while he was on the run, and didn't turn him in?

Isn't that one of the "laws" you'd like to see enforced?

Listen to Kevin Mitnick's The Fifth HOPE keynote propaganda speech for more clues on Kevin's use of stolen identifications.

Xail - Hacker

"They told me they're not trying to chastise me, and then one of them said he used to play with baseball cards when he was a kid or something."

Lewis De Payne - Mitnick Co-Defendant / Friend

"They would be searching my wardrobe.  I'd be standing there with the guy, he's asking me questions and he's going through every pocket in my wardrobe.  Then it suddenly dawned on me, I don't have to stand there.  So I walked out of the room."

"He stopped searching the wardrobe and walked out with me.  It was very obvious."

"Their tactics weren't meant to actually accomplish something.  Searching every pocket of every shirt in my closet, that tactic wasn't meant to do anything except intimidate me."

Edward E. Cummings - Hacker

"They showed up at my friend's house where a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old had just been put to bed."

"They came storming into the house with guns drawn, ran up the steps, and said, 'Freeze!  Secret Service!  Don't move!'"

"Of course I was sitting at the keyboard of a computer, so I looked extremely dangerous.  I was thrown to the floor, handcuffed, and hog tied, and all that, and dragged out."

"I told my friend Ellen Fisher, who was there, to call my lawyer, which she did."

"They kept telling me to 'shut up.'"

"I was taken back to the police station in Havertown, Pennsylvania and locked in a cell for about three hours while my car was searched."

"Then a Secret Service agent interviewed me, or interrogated me, wanted to know what I was doing with the crystals.  And I said I was making them available to people.  He tried to get me to say I was committing fraud with them, which I was not.  He got very irate that I wasn't telling him what he wanted to hear.  Eventually they just locked me back in the cell again."

"They refused to let me call my lawyer.  In fact, my rights weren't read to me."

Edward Cummings (Bernie S.) was selling Radio Shack Tone Dialers (#43-141) and 6.5 MHz crystals (and instructions) for the explicit purpose for creating a "Red Box," which is a device that simulates the coin tone generator in a Western Electric pay phone.  That's a fancy way of saying "toll fraud."

He also once stuck evidence down his pants to hide this little fact from the police.

Lewis De Payne - Mitnick Co-Defendant / Friend

"There were many instances in which I told them I wanted to consult with my attorney and they said, 'No, that's not a good idea.'  They wouldn't let me get an attorney."

"So finally, when they all shifted from my apartment to searching my office, actually at work, I got to drive down in my own car."

"I called an attorney on the phone and by the time they were at my work, so was an attorney.  The [FBI] agent in charge, Ken McGuire, in particular, gave me a very nasty and disappointed look at the fact that I was willing to protect my rights."

"It's really amazing.  He really gave me one of these, 'Your bad, you shouldn't have done that' looks.  'Now you're really in for it.'"

Xail - Hacker

"NASA people told my parents I was cocky because I told them to choose harder passwords."

Wow...  Hacking systems used by open-community (and open-source) NASA scientists.  I'll bet that was a real challenge...

And you really wonder why people think today's "hackers" are mindless idiots?

Off The Hook - January 4, 2000  - Xail is sentenced to a year of "VisionQuest Wagon Train."

The sentence for harassing anyone at NASA, their hardware, or their infrastructure should be death...

Bruce Sterling - Author, "The Hacker Crackdown"

"I had cops tell me pretty well straight out, 'We really didn't want to harm Junior.  So we took his computer and gave it to the boys over in traffic management, and it was just really groovy.'  Wait a minute.  You're like, you took this kid's equipment?  They were like, 'It was his dad's, but he was using it.  Dad should have known better.'"

"So this is $4,000 worth of equipment full of heaven only knows what content and you just pocketed it, basically?  Now you're going to charge him?  They said, 'If we charge him, we've got to bring him up under 14 different interstate laws.  He's gonna be a felon and be ruined.  We explained this to them and they said, 'Take the machine, take the machine, please.'"

"But that's not legal.  That's nothing like legality.  It's blackmail, basically."

Lewis De Payne - Mitnick Co-Defendant / Friend

"It's like with anyone else.  Simply because you have a badge, doesn't give you the right to be an asshole.  Unless you'd like me to be an asshole back to you.  I don't care who you are.  You will obtain the respect from me that you earn.  Period."

Just because you think you're some hot-shit hacker type, also doesn't give you the right to be an asshole.

Just read some of Lewis De Payne's old USENET postings for more information on that!

Xail - Hacker

"I may have hacked NASA, but who doesn't?"

    

They say they clocked us at just under 100 miles per hour on the interstate in New Mexico.

And the cop wouldn't let us go until I gave him my Social Security number.

And, to make matters worse, he told us we were still eleven hours away from Vegas.

Things seemed pretty bleak.

But, then, a miracle happened.

All right!  He said eleven hours and we made it in two and a half.  These highway patrol people don't know what they're talking about.

All right, Las Vegas.  Let's do it!

Dead Kennedys - "Viva Las Vegas"

Twilight City gonna set my soul.
It's gonna set my soul on fire.
Got a whole lot of money that's ready to burn.
So get those stakes up high.
There's a thousand pretty women waiting out there.
They're all waiting, they're devil-may-care.
And I'm just the devil with love to spare, so.
Viva Las Vegas!
Viva Las Vegas!
Viva Las Vegas!
How I wish that there were more than the 24 hours in the day.
Even if I ran out of speed, boy...

Evil Corley & Plaza Hotel Employee

EC: "We're looking for the DEFCON conference.  We're supposed to be filming here."

PH: "DEFCON conference?"

EC: "Yes, it's like computer hackers..."

PH: "Not that I know of.  Were they gonna start inside the computer and work their way out?"

EC: "No, no.  It's about a thousand computer hackers coming here."

PH: "I've never heard of it."

EC: "Boy, they must've done a good job keeping this quiet."

PH: "They even got me going."

EC: "Plaza Hotel, Las Vegas?"

PH: "Plaza Hotel, Las Vegas...  New Mexico."

EC: "New Mexico?"

It was a mistake anybody could have made, except nobody else seems to have made it.

At least if we were in New Mexico we could stop by Los Alamos National Labs, home of well-guarded nuclear secrets and one of the many places Shimomura had mysterious connections to.

If we could get the word to the people here, we just might turn some heads.

In those few places where we actually did get in, we always seemed to stay a little too long looking at the things we weren't supposed to be looking at.

This guy was mean, and told us to get the Hell out.

More harassing innocent people.  This time at Los Alamos National Labs.

Yes... we get the message.  Evil Corley and his Gay Pedo Posse are too stupid to work at LANL, so they have to take out their repressed & perverted sexual frustrations by harassing innocent people and Tsutomu Shimomura.

Don't you just love when a bunch of "hackers" whine about strong security - while at a F*CKING NUCLEAR RESEARCH LAB!

As we left, we noticed more of these weird guys in fatigues all around the building.

That's when we got lost on a dark road with no name in the middle of New Mexico with a bunch of military zealots surrounding us.

We got the message.

Dead Kennedys - "Viva Las Vegas"

Twilight City gonna set my soul.
It's gonna set my soul on fire.
Got a whole lot of money that's ready to burn.
So get those stakes up high.
There's a thousand pretty women waiting out there.
They're all waiting, they're devil-may-care.
And I'm just the devil with love to spare, so.
Viva Las Vegas!
Viva Las Vegas!
Viva Las Vegas!
How I wish that there were more than the 24 hours in the day.
Even if I ran out of speed, boy...

Note they don't hold the door open for the guy with a kid in the stroller.

Jeff Moss - Founder of DEFCON

"When I started, I never intended it to last this long.  I thought it was going to be a party and that's it.  A one-time deal."

"When we left, everybody said, 'Hey, are you going to do it again?'  And I said, 'I guess I could do this again.'"

"Since then, more people get involved, more people say, 'We could probably have some music.'  Next thing you know, we've got a live laser light system with LCD wall projectors and DJs coming in from the United Kingdom to spin.  It has taken on this life of its own."

Great shot of them selling free information.  "Wanna buy a T-shirt?  How 'bout some back issues of $2600 Magazine?"

        

"Get that wallet out!  NAMBLA isn't cheap!"

DEFCON Attendee

"We are the Ghetto Hackers.  Low-class, low-budget, high-octane."

Grandmaster Ratte' - Cult of the Dead Cow Member

GR: "Dead!"

Crowd: "Cow!"

GR: "Dead!"

Crowd: "Cow!"

GR: "When I say rocks, you say ass!  Rocks!"

Crowd: "Ass!"

GR: "Rocks!"

Crowd: "Ass!"

GR: "Thank you very much.  Good night."

Cult of the Dead Cow DEFCON Speech  - The announcement of Back Orifice, DirectXploit, and the modular ButtPlugins for B.O.  Last year it was an anniversary world domination party with the divinity of the bovinity + drinks from Lady Carolyn.  What will it be this time?!?!  The release of the Microsoft their Back Orifice Tool!  Read their announcement, and cow-er in their presence!  From DEFCON 6.  (42M M4B)

    

DEFCON Attendee

"I have in my hand, proof positive that NT is not the solution to all your computing problems.  I have here, captured earlier today on film, the 'Blue Screen of Death' at Las Vegas' own MGM Grand Hotel and Casino!"

Thousands showed up.

    

    

    

"I had a 'free Kevin' bumpersticker (one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick#Arrest.2C_convict...).  I now regret having one."

    --- Sept. 24, 2014 quote from 'danesparza.'


'########:'########::'########:'########:
 ##.....:: ##.... ##: ##.....:: ##.....::
 ##::::::: ##:::: ##: ##::::::: ##:::::::
 ######::: ########:: ######::: ######:::
 ##...:::: ##.. ##::: ##...:::: ##...::::
 ##::::::: ##::. ##:: ##::::::: ##:::::::
 ##::::::: ##:::. ##: ########: ########:
 ..::::::::..:::::..::........::........::
'##:::'##:'########:'##::::'##:'####:'##::: ##:
 ##::'##:: ##.....:: ##:::: ##:. ##:: ###:: ##:
 ##:'##::: ##::::::: ##:::: ##:: ##:: ####: ##:
 #####:::: ######::: ##:::: ##:: ##:: ## ## ##:
 ##. ##::: ##...::::. ##:: ##::: ##:: ##. ####:
 ##:. ##:: ##::::::::. ## ##:::: ##:: ##:. ###:
 ##::. ##: ########:::. ###::::'####: ##::. ##:
 ..::::..::........:::::...:::::....::..::::..::
                             ASCII art by rOTTEN

Even though the "Free Kevin" stickers turned into toys, at least everybody here knew his name.

DEFCON Attendee

"Kevin Mitnick?  Oh man, you'll have to go to www.kevinmitnick.com.  Look it up for yourself."

Limor Fried and Deth Vegetable (Lucas Benfry)

"And it doesn't matter what he says about us."

"What matters is us.  What matters is... (laughing)"

We were hot on the trail.

Jeff Moss - Founder of DEFCON

"I don't want to get into Shimomura.  I think he has a very large ego.  And he's a very bright person, and he's very smart, but I think his social skills are lacking."

For years, Shimomura had been eluding me.  I couldn't even get on the same TV shows.

He'd pop up over on CNN, while I was stuck over on a broadcast network.

While he was getting all cozy with Tom Brokaw, I was being interrogated by Mike Wallace.

Mike Wallace

"$2600.  The hacker quarterly?"

Tsutomu wasn't even answering my e-mail, but now there would be no escape.

The San Diego Supercomputer Center, the place where he worked.

We were closing in.

You notice, like how quiet it is?  Like when a deer is about to be killed by a lion?

Evil Corley & SDSC Employees

SE: "You're here to see him?"

EC: "Yes."

SE: "You're looking for Tsutomu?"

EC: "Yes."

SE: "I haven't seen him in three months."

EC: "Really?  Do you know where he is?"

SE: "He's not here.  Let me check with...  Did you make arrangements to meet him here?"

EC: "Well, they weren't very firm, but he knew we were coming."

SE: "You can try his office.  Did you have an appointment with him?"

EC: "It was very informal."

SE: "I'm sorry.  You can try the extension, but I haven't seen him."

EC: "Do I know him?"

SE: "Well, just from interacting on...  But I'm not...  I can't..."

EC: "Definitely should have called first, I guess.  It's just he likes surprises so much.  This sheet of paper that we wanted him to have.  He'll know what it's about.  He wanted a couple of these stickers as well."

SE: "He wanted these?"

EC: "I just wanted to make sure he got them."

SE: "O.K."

EC: "Great.  Thanks so much for your help."

It wasn't much better than the reception we got at Miramax.

But we left our calling card in a place where we knew he'd see it.

Shot of them vandalizing a stop sign with a "Free Kevin" sticker.

And you wonder why people think today's "hackers" are mindless idiots?

Lewis De Payne - Mitnick Co-Defendant / Friend

"I think it's absurd when I find out that Shimomura, in addition, is giving instructions to Skeet Ulrich on how to act more like Kevin.  Here's someone instructing him how to act more like Kevin, and it's a person that met Kevin only once, in court, under circumstances of duress.  Now from there, how he can ascertain how Kevin acts, I don't know."

When I step on this curb, we're officially on his property.

Harassing Tsutomu Shimomura's old neighbor - while he's on the phone!

Evil Corley Corley really is an inconsiderate asshole!

Evil Corley & Tsutomu's Old Neighbor

EC: "Hi.  Sorry to bother you...  We're looking for somebody next door.  We're not sure if we have the right neighborhood.  Tsutomu Shimomura?"

TN: "He moved.  He's long gone."

EC: "How long ago did he move?"

TN: "Seven, eight months?"

EC: "Really?  Do you have any idea where he went?"

TN: "No, he was renting, and the people who own it moved back in."

EC: "He's like in the national news.  Are you aware of that?"

TN: "He's what?"

EC: "There's a movie that they're making."

TN: "You can see, I'm on the phone."

EC: "I'm sorry.  They're making a movie about him."

TN: "They're making a movie?"

EC: "It's all about..."

TN: "I read his book."

EC: "They're making this big Hollywood blockbuster about it.  They may even be filming around here because this is one of the places he lived."

TN: "So I could be a star?"

EC: "You could be a star."

TN: "I've been waiting to be discovered for a long time."

He could be anywhere.  Man, that's scary.

We had one last address to try inside a gated community, but this was getting frustrating.

We have another lead here.  We're certainly seeing a lot of the nicer places of this neighborhood.

"Out of order, please use other door."

You know, if that was a computer, we'd be facing 50 years in jail.

Ahhh...  Hey asshole...  Can you name one person in jail for 50 years for (real) hacking?

No?

Yeah, that's what I thought...

They think we're the Publisher's Clearinghouse.

It was like he was a step ahead of us.

Evil Corley & Neighbor

EC: "Japanese?  Long hair?"

For some reason, people think it's a good idea to have a full directory of every tenant in an apartment complex available to anyone in the world.  But it gave us the definitive proof we needed.  Shimomura wasn't here either.

It's a pretty cool system, though.  Let's try a couple of other things.  We're going to enter the room number this time.  Now it's dialing.  That's their full phone number being broadcast!  See if we get an answering machine.

Amy's Answering Machine

"Hi, you've reached Amy.  I'm sorry I'm unavailable to take your call right now.  Please leave a message.  I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

We've pretty much gotten everything we can out of this place and made ourselves look suspicious at the same time, so we'd better get out of here.

Shot of them making harassing phone calls at an apartment complex.

And you wonder why people think today's "hackers" are mindless idiots?

On the way out of San Diego, our rental car broke.  The trunk wouldn't close.

We should get this tape off the trunk, too.

Holy f*ck!  Oh, my God!  Shit!

We're right underneath the flight path!

We had to clean all the crap out so we could exchange it, including the disgusting piece of gum that somehow got stuck to the door.

Good view of them damaging the rental car, including putting gum on it.

These assholes have no respect for other people's property or other people's rights.

You know what, I'll use their own key to scrape it off.

This is the most disgusting thing I've ever had to do in my life.  You know it's still soft.  Oh, God!  Want some gum?

This is a scary neighborhood.

We made it to Los Angeles in a brand-new rental car.

Our first stop, the University of Southern California where Kevin had been accused of storing software from cellular phone companies.

USC claimed that somehow caused over $1,000 in damage.

They go to University of Southern California to harass those people now.

How does putting up back issues of your stupid little magazine on the Internet cause $2600 Enterprises, Inc. to "loose" thousands of dollars?

I wanted to know what computer system gets damaged by having files stored on it.

Evil Corley & Brian Johnson at USC

"I'm Brian Johnson.  I'm the Associate Director of Customer Support.  Yeah, we're not allowed to comment on any of the security."

Well, at least we finally managed to find someone who'd say they weren't allowed to say anything.

That was progress, right?

The Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, where Kevin had been held for nearly three-and-a-half years.

It was his 35th birthday and we wanted to say "hi."

The closest we could come was the Mobil station across the street.

It turned out to be a popular place for all the people who couldn't visit their friends.

Evil Corley & Dirty Spic

DS: "I know he's looking at me, so I can wave 'hi.'  And he gives me a call and he says, 'It's cool, you went to see me.'  He's comfortable with that."

EC: "How often do you come by?"

DS: "Like, almost once a week.  When I drop off my sister that goes to see him."

EC: "How come you can't go in there and visit?"

DS: "It's too strict.  I wouldn't know why the reason they don't let us go in."

EC: "You're his brother?"

DS: "He's my brother-in-law.  Married to my sister."

EC: "So it's only immediate family?"

DS: "Yeah, immediate family.  So I can't see him.  He talks to me through the phone and letters.  I just come and say 'hi.'"

EC: "What's he in for?"

DS: "I don't know what the reason why he's in, but he's just in."

EC: "And you bring your friends with you?  Are they part of the family, too?"

DS: "Yeah, they know my brother-in-law.  We grew up together so..."

EC: "Have you heard of Kevin Mitnick, the person we're here for?"

DS: "No, I never heard of him."

EC: "He's a computer hacker.  You know what computer hackers are?"

DS: "Yeah, yeah."

EC: "He's been in there for three-and-a-half years, and he hasn't had a trial yet."

DS: "He should get a trial, you know?"

EC: "He's working on it, he's trying, but the wheels of justice move very slowly."

DS: "That's something true.  They're not the ones that..."

EC: "Sure."

DS: "There's so many people, I think.  It's overcrowded.  I wouldn't even know what to tell you, I've never been in that system.  He must've went in somebody's government...  He must've pissed somebody off.  Pissed somebody off in the government pretty good.  They probably laughed and said, 'You have to stay there a while.'  That's not fair but that's the way it is.

When the windows are only a couple of inches wide, it's hard to find the person you're looking for even if you know exactly what time to look.

And then, we heard it.

- Yeah, what was that?

I heard a pounding on the window.

One, Two, Three, Four, Five.

- He's shining a light or something.

- I can see him now.

Evil Corley & Kevin Mitnick via Cellular Phone

"Was that you?  That was you...  You were pounding on the glass, right?  We heard that across the street.  We were looking at the wrong window.  Then we heard this pounding noise.  Come back to the window and wave some more.  Can you do that?  We'll put a sticker up, we just don't want the sticker to come back to haunt you.  He wants to put a sticker..."

- "He wants a sticker?"

"A sticker would be cool..."

"We can see your hand.  I doubt you can stick your whole head through the window.  Splotch your face up against the window.  Now that we know it's the right one, we can at least zoom in on it.  All right, cool.  We'll see you in two minutes?  Okay, great.  See you then.  Bye."

Evil Corley is talking to someone on a cellular phone.  Is it Kevin Mitnick?  Evil Corley chastised John Markoff for not interviewing Kevin Mitnick, but nowhere in Freedom Downtime ($30) does Evil Corley interview Kevin Mitnick.

Surely someone who is "innocent" would want their story out there, no matter what some lawyer tells them.

He's going to be up there in two minutes.  That was definitely him.  l just wish we could go in there and see him, without having to do this.  But, Hell, I'll take it.

We found out that our filming the prison had caused such a stir that every single prisoner was locked down, confined to their cell for the rest of the day.

Filming the prison caused a stir?  Uh huh...  Sure Eric.  You do know that the Mobil gas station across the street is filled with video cameras?

And Kevin told us it was the best time he had had in years.

- Like this.  That's cool.  See?  Even the manager of the station said it was all right.

- This guy in the blue car just gave me six bucks for the defense fund.

No kidding.  Thanks!  That's great.

- That's amazing.

- Look where I put the sticker.  I got permission from the owner.

- It'll be gone tomorrow.

That's great.

- It'll be there for a while.

He let you do that?

- Yeah, I asked him.

Randolph's gonna get gas and he's gonna f*cking shit a brick.

Donald Randolph - Kevin Mitnick's Attorney

"He was never served with a warrant for his arrest for the supervised release violations during the period of his supervised release.  So by the time that he was done, and went on his way, there's no indication that he was aware that such a warrant existed."

You can't serve a warrant when he's running from the FBI and U.S. Marshals while using stolen personal identifications!

Normally, if your probation or parole gets revoked and they'll come out to arrest you.  The arrest warrant will be issued via the probation or parole office and sent to the local law enforcement agencies.  You'll see it when they arrest you.


One molests little boys.  One molests Twinkies.

Wait...  Isn't that illegal?  Did you contact the police?  Isn't that what a "good lawyer" is suppose to do?  Help uphold the law?  Aren't you suppose to notify the police when your client does illegal things?

The Kevin Mitnick Story  Beyond HOPE (1997) speech with Kevin Mitnick's attorney Donald Randolph.

Damn!  You know, Sprint really sucks.

We wanted the entire city of Los Angeles to know about Kevin.

And what better way than to put the message on the most famous billboard in town?

It took us hours to climb that thing.  We honestly didn't know there was a road that went straight up the back.

But we made it.

Funny thing, though.  We couldn't find anybody who saw our "Free Kevin" banner.

Later, we went to the most famous movie theater in town to try and spread the word from up close.

Evil Corley's Crew & People Outside of Mann's Theater

EC: "Here, Free Kevin!  Free Kevin Mitnick.  It won't bite you.  Speak English?  We're trying to get the message across to Miramax that it's wrong to release a movie that's supposed to be factual, that's based on real events.  People will see this movie and think this is a true story, when so much of it has been completely fabricated."

PE1: "I've heard about this guy."

EC: "Really?"

EC: "Here, help stop a movie about a computer hacker..."

ECC: "You got a problem?"

PE2: "I got a problem."

EGC: "Come back and tell me about it.  Pussy!"

Evil Corley & People Outside of Mann's Theater

EC: "It's hard to believe someone in this country could be in jail for three-and-a-half years, held in a maximum-security facility, no bail, no trial."

PE1: "I don't find that very hard to believe."

PE2: "I read a book, Takedown."

EC: "Takedown, that's right."

PE2: "I read like half of it.  He gets out of jail, he'll probably take over everything."

EC: "That's the problem.  People think that, but it's not true."

PE2: "Why, you don't think he could hack anything if he just gets online?"

EC: "No, he can't hack anything just by getting online."

PE2: "I mean, you gotta have a program and whatever.  Why are you recording this?"

EC: "Hey, read about Kevin Mitnick?  They're making a movie about this guy."

PE3: "He's the best guy ever!  I know him since I was, like day one."

PE4: "Yeah, me too, yo!"

EC: "He's never done anything wrong, he's never hurt anyone and he's being treated like that in this country."

PE5: "That is the American way.  Wake up."

"So they have a thing called a Social Security Death Index.  But for infants, people that are one, two, three years of age when they die, there is no record ... that's created.  So the key is, if you can find an infant that died in a different state than they where born in, you can become them, and that's what I did."

    --- Kevin Mitnick interview with Kevin Rose from thebroken, Video Release 03.  This asshole actually complains about being in prison.


"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."

    --- Quote from Wendy Grossman in her article Hackers to Shake Down Takedown in Wired on July 15, 1998.


"In one case, Mitnick allegedly gained access to a Bay Area man's records and used information in the file to try and change his health care provider so that he could benefit from the man's medical coverage.  He also used the information to take on the identity of the man's dead son in order to obtain a phony driver's license."

    --- Quote a from July 10, 1994 Los Angeles Times article.

Lewis De Payne - Mitnick Co-Defendant / Friend

"Kevin was denied bail.  Even a bail hearing.  So, if you recall, even Ted Kaczynski got a bail hearing.  His bail was turned down.  You're entitled to a bail hearing."

"On the other hand, Kevin is getting treatment that is outside the law.  And that's what makes it very difficult for him to mount a legal defense.  He's not being treated in a legal manner."

Kevin did have a bail hearing for his charges in California.

Also, if you're held on a probation or parole hold ("violation of supervised release") you won't have a bail hearing, as you were technically "out on bail" during the period of supervised release.  The arrest is basically your bail/bond being revoked.

"In Raleigh, N.C., today, Mitnick, his long hair tied back with a rubber band, appeared before a federal magistrate in leg shackles and waived his right to probable-cause and bond hearings.  Magistrate Wallace Dixon ordered him held without bond."

    --- Quote a from February 17, 1995 Seattle Times article, by Jack Broom and Thomas W. Haines.

Now here is says Mitnick "waived his right to a bond hearing" (and he was a known flight risk), but I don't fully understand all this legal stuff...

Roger D. Slates II - Lawyer

"I've never heard of anything even approaching this level of confinement prior to a trial."

Winn L. Schwartau - Author, Information Warfare

"Murderers get bail.  Armed robbers get bail."

"The fear of what he's going to do from a push-button telephone in the general population of a cell shows again a lack of technical understanding on the part of the prison and judicial system."

"And I think that's sad.  And he is right now the victim of that."

On our way up the coast, we dropped in on Sun.

According to a letter we got our hands on, they said Kevin's acquisition of their source code represented hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

Now they give the source code away for free.

Something wasn't right.

- So we're right here.  On the other side of the freeway, there's the other Sun.  And then further up is their big campus.  Which, basically, all of this blank area is actually Sun buildings and Sun streets.

We knew where we were, now we just needed someone to talk to.

Evil Corley & Sun Employee

EC: "What number do we call and who do we speak to?"

SUN: "1-800-USA4SUN.  They can direct you to whoever you need."

EC: "USA4SUN?"

SUN: "Can you remember or do you want me to write it down?"

The receptionist wouldn't let us talk to anyone unless we called that number.

But we slipped a few leaflets onto their coffee table.

I thought she was being kind of patronizing.

"Do you want me to write that down or can you remember it?"

I can remember it.  I can remember it, dear.  USA4SUN, right?

Was that it?  Or was it SUN4USA?  F*ck!

- USA4SUN.

You sure?

- Yeah.

Should I run in and ask her again?

"Thank you for calling Sun."

I have a rotary phone.  I'm not going to press any buttons.

I'm pressing zero.  I'm probably going to get her, too.  My call "may be monitored."  Another machine.  They want my eight-digit ID number!

This is bullshit, man.  See, now they've got me waiting for a customer service representative.

They are now at Sun Microsystems.

They all appear to be too stupid to understand how the voice mail system works.  Shocking, huh?

$2600 Magazine also has a voice mail system they use to avoid customers.  Wait!  Did Evil Corley forget to mention that?

It's not exactly what I had in mind, but let's see what happens.

My call is "very important to them."

He hung up!  He hung up on me!  Maybe he didn't hang up on me, but he hung up all the same.

F*ck!  All right.  All right, fine.

I think on their web page there's a direct public relations number, but we're not on their web page, we're in their parking lot.

- Yeah, that sucks.

Wait a minute.  You don't have your Ricochet modem?

- Not today.

You're not prepared, man!

Shit.  We can't access the web from here, we're outside Sun, and we can't get on the damn net to find out what their phone number is!

Alright, I'm gonna try this phone number one more time.

I'm gonna be a little patient here.

Assume maybe they made a little mistake.

Okay, now I am waiting for the corporate switchboard.

"Ahh...  Hi, Pete, my name is Emmanuel.  I'm trying to reach somebody in Public Relations.  I'm hoping somebody can contact me concerning the Kevin Mitnick case and how it involved Sun.  We're doing a documentary.  We came to the corporate headquarters hoping to get an appointment and they gave us a phone number and we're trying to do just that, so if you could get back to me..."

Your name is "Eric."

You're over 50+ years old, so you can stop with the whole fake "hacker" name thing.

They have like a fortress here.

- Stone wall.

They have that mighty guard there at the front that won't let anybody by, and then the voice mail guard here that won't let anybody actually call and speak to a person.

Maybe they'll call back, maybe they won't.

This is the redhot line.  If that rings, we'll know.

We have GPS, good.  GPS, but no modem.  Man, that sucks.

I was using it last night and it was gone in the morning which means...

Evil Corley & Sun Security

SUN: "Sorry gentlemen, no cameras in front of the building."

EC: "How about if we film in that direction?"

SUN: "Ahh, We can't have the cameras filming."

EC: "Okay, 'cause we were just filming us."

SUN: "No, I can understand that, but unfortunately..."

Wow, this was a new one.  We couldn't even film ourselves in Sun's parking lot.

Corporate paranoia was at an all-time high.

Try filming the teenaged boys Evil Corley gets drunk and tries to sleep with at NYC2600 and HOPE once!

And, needless to say, Pete never called us back.

Meanwhile, John Markoff had agreed to talk to us.

Maybe now, we'd finally get some answers.

We made it to San Francisco on the exact same day that psychologists from all over the world were gathering for a convention.

Maybe it was because so many people in the bay area were depressed.

They actually have counseling phones on the bridges because so many people are jumping off them.

But San Francisco was a friendly town where people felt safe leaving their trash unattended.

But more importantly, the psychologists wound up taking almost every hotel room in the entire city, even the old-fashioned ones.

We were beginning to get desperate.  Then, we found a hotel that was almost completely deserted.

We never did find out why.

Alex Kasperavicius - Friend of Kevin Mitnick/Consultant for Miramax

"Markoff does things like mentions certain stories.  He'll say, 'It's been said that...,' or 'Other people have said that...,' and he'll come up with these stories like he shut down judges' TRW ratings, shut off power.  It's bullshit."

Evil Corley does the same thing in the pages of $2600 Magazine and on Off The Hook, you stupid asshole.

Reba Vartanian - Kevin Mitnick's Grandmother

"I don't think John Markoff did it because he wanted to destroy Kevin, but I think he did it to keep Kevin's evil image."

"Maybe he believed some of the things himself.  Okay, isn't a newspaperman, supposed to investigate something before they publish it, before they put it in the newspaper as fact?"

"I know Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable always did."

We didn't know what we were walking into.

Would Markoff tell us things about Mitnick that would shock and horrify us?

Or would he realize how much his front-page stories and books had demonized Kevin, helping to put him in the lousy place he was still in?

This was our one chance to make a difference.  And, more than anything, we wanted to be fair.

So we came up with the "Markoff Meter."

We set a bar on his left and right side and resolved not to judge him badly until he said six bad or inaccurate things.

John Markoff

Now they are meeting with John Markoff, complete with a "Markoff Meter."

Evil Corley sure sets off my "Pedo Meter®!"  LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And if he said six good things well, then, the hacker world would just have to deal with it.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad...

Now there's an easy point for common courtesy.

I wanted to get right to the heart of the matter.

Like how they knew it was Kevin they were chasing in the first place?

Evil Corley & John Markoff - "Journalist"

JM: "When I called the Qualcomm guys, they had been talking to the FBI.  And the FBI believed that it was Kevin who had social engineered them."

EC: "Why?"

JM: "I don't know enough about what was going on inside the FBI investigation.  That's a good question. I don't know why.  But the FBI told the Qualcomm people that it was Kevin.  And, to my mind, as a reporter, it fit Kevin's M.O."

EC: "Which is what?"

JM: "Social engineering.  Really good social engineering."

EC: "But there are thousands of hackers out there social engineering."

JM: "That's true.  I'm not saying it's proof.  I'm simply saying the FBI believed it was Kevin."

EC: "Did they hear a voice or did they have a voice recording?"

JM: "Did they have a voice recording?  That's a good question.  What did they have?"

Qualcomm was one of the cellular phone companies Kevin Mitnick was trying to social engineer firmware/software from.  How did they know?  Qualcomm recorded his phone calls trying to reach various engineering departments.

"'The real damage was loss of productivity and hassles,' said Phil Karn, a senior engineer at Qualcomm Inc., a San Diego-based cellular phone manufacturer.  'I don't want to condone what Mitnick did, but he's really not public enemy No. 1.'"

--- Quote from Phil Karn (KA9Q) on March 18, 1999 Los Angeles Times article.

Lewis De Payne was also caught social engineering Nokia.  

Also, some good indications it was Kevin Mitnick they were after:

  1. grep -i itni mbox

  2. "he is the reason why my picture was the front page of the new york times"

  3. Mead Data Central's LEXIS/NEXIS search: mitnick w/30 kevin

Evil Corley also tries to blame Kevin Mitnick's crimes on "thousands of other hackers out there."  Ahh...  Stolen Qualcomm firmware was found in Kevin Mitnick's stash of goodies at The WELL.  And I'm pretty sure there are not "thousands of people" who sound just like Kevin Mitnick when trying to social engineer Qualcomm employees.

This we couldn't forgive.

Before you print front-page stories about people eluding the authorities, shouldn't you have some real conclusive evidence?

LOL!  There is a lot of evidence at Takedown.com.  Did Evil Corley forget to mention that?

Kevin Mitnick's The Fifth HOPE Speech  - Read the "Kevin: The Dark-Side Hacker" chapter in Cyberpunk, then listen to this.  Seems all those "lies" were not so far off!

Kevin Mitnick's The Last HOPE Speech  - Gives a few more technical details about his chase and capture.

60 Minutes Interview with Kevin Mitnick  - January 2000 and post-prison CBS interview with Kevin Mitnick.  Admits to invading people's privacy.

CNBC Interview with Kevin Mitnick  - Two part CNBC Special Report interview with Kevin Mitnick discussing his book The Art of Deception.  Mentions that he stole other people's personal identification.

Authors@Google: Kevin Mitnick  Discussing his history and his book Ghost in the Wires.

CSPAN: Kevin Mitnick Discusses "Ghost in the Wires"  On August 15, 2011.

Tsutomu Shimomura Interview  - With Charlie Rose, January 23, 1996.  (Additional Info)

Evil Corley & John Markoff - "Journalist"

EC: "What did Kevin do that was different?"

JM: "He had a reputation as being a very good social engineer.  I've heard some tapes, I've heard some people assert this.  If he in fact was the person who was at Qualcomm then he was a good social engineer."

Now that's better.  No need to be stingy with the compliments, after all.

One thing that's been following Kevin Mitnick since the first story Markoff wrote about him is this myth about breaking into NORAD.

When you say something like that enough times, people really start to believe it.

And in Kevin's case, it really made him into a villain.  So where did the NORAD stuff come from?

It's the "hacking NORAD" myth again - which $2600 Magazine mentioned five years before John Markoff did!  Whoops!

"Steven Rhoades said he and Mitnick broke into a North American Air Defense Command computer in Colorado Springs, CO in 1979.  The 1983 movie 'Wargames' is based upon a similar incident, in which a young hacker nearly starts World War III when he sends a message to a defense computer that is mistaken for a Soviet missile attack.  But Rhoades said they did not interfere with any defense operations.  'We just got in, looked around and got out,' he said."

    --- January 8, 1989 quote from John Johnson in his Los Angeles Times article.  Since Steven Rhoades may have been a minor at the time, it looks like the article was edited when re-distributed.  An "unedited" version is available in PLA #18.


"Under closer examination, many of the stories told to illustrate the danger Mitnick posed fail to pan out.  For example, in all her research, Hafner said she could find no evidence the NORAD story was anything but a myth.  'Kevin really takes the rap for a lot of stuff he didn't do,' she said."

    --- January 25, 1996 quote from Katie Hafner the Nando.net article A Myth Unmasked.

As you can see, John Markoff had NOTHING to do with starting this "NORAD" myth - which goes back as far as 1982.

Evil Corley & John Markoff - "Journalist"

JM: "The NORAD stuff... is stuff that I got from someone who was in legal trouble with Kevin early on.  So I have not been able to interview Kevin face-to-face.  I've heard he said that it's inaccurate but I haven't been able to ask him.  The story did come from a friend of his.  I know there are lots of stories and you gotta sort through them."

EC: "But what stories have stuck?"

JM: "I remember the Kristy McNichol thing.  That didn't stick.  NORAD didn't stick.  Security Pacific [Bank] I think is probably one that stuck, that probably should stick.  You know about that?"

EC: "The bank that he got a job at..."

JM: "That's right.  And then there was later a press release that suggested that the bank was in financial trouble, though they managed to keep it of the wire, it almost went on to the wire..."

EC: "But what links that to Kevin?"

JM: "The police investigators that we interviewed believed it was Kevin."

EC: "Based on what?"

JM: "Based on what...  Just coincidence of things.  Who else would do something like that?"

You've got to be kidding!

You used "who else" to pin a crime on the guy, on the front-page of the New York Times, without even using the word "allegedly" anywhere?

This was reported as fact, but it was never backed up.

Just like NORAD, just like Kristy McNichol, just like everything that made them want to catch Kevin so badly.

Let's look at the issue of solitary confinement.

It was never mentioned in the front-page article that Kevin had been locked in solitary for eight months and was desperate not to go back and that this, above all, was what made him run.

Mentions being in solitary confinement for eight months, but offers no proof.  Then he chastised John Markoff for not showing any proof for his claims!  Nice double-standard there!

Evil Corley & John Markoff - "Journalist"

JM: "Yeah, I mean, he didn't want to go back to jail."

EC: "Not just jail, solitary confinement.  Eight months."

JM: "Was he in solitary before?  This was his first time in solitary..."

EC: "1989."

JM: "He spent eight months in solitary in 1989?  I didn't realize...  Wait a minute...  He didn't spend eight months in prison.  He was only in prison for six months in '89."

You've written two books on the guy as well as countless articles.  You're seen as somewhat of an expert on Kevin Mitnick and you didn't know he was in solitary confinement?  Or even how long his sentence was?

For the record, Mitnick spent a year in prison in 1988, eight months of which was in solitary confinement, plus another six months in a halfway house.

Did you catch that?!?

Evil Corley tells a lie (Mitnick didn't spend a year in prison in 1988), yet he uses this false fact to chastise Markoff even more in the movie.

For the record (according to Littman), Mitnick was arrested in December 1988, did eight month in administrative segregation at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, then was sent to Lompoc Federal Prison (minimum security) for four months.  On release, he spent six months at the racist halfway house Beit T'Shuvah.

He was denied bail (and phone use) while at the Metropolitan Detention Center in order to "protect society."  

It's good thing with the psychologists in town, we could confirm locking someone like Kevin in solitary was a pretty f*cked-up thing to do.

Psychologists

"I think it's inhumane, and I think there are better ways to handle our problems.  Obviously if this person has been able to do some of the things, apparently, that they think he was doing with a computer.  He's very bright."

"That's a real talent that's being wasted.  And, to lock him up, especially in solitary confinement for eight months...  We wouldn't treat an animal that way And yet, this is a talented individual?  Excuse me.  It's not right.  Thank you."

Evil Corley & John Markoff - "Journalist"

JM: "Wait, he was in solitary the entire time he was at Lompoc?"

EC: "A large amount of the time.  Eight months."

JM: "Wow, I didn't realize that.  Yeah, that's pretty hard."

Okay.  Markoff gains a point for that show of humanity.

Did you catch that?!?

Evil Corley tells a another lie (Mitnick wasn't in administrative segregation at Lompoc, it would have been at MDC), yet he uses this false fact to chastise Markoff even more in the movie.

Now, here's something interesting.

When Kevin was on the run he communicated with an Israeli hacker known as "jsz" (Jonathan Zanderson), who's believed to be the mastermind behind all the hacking that Kevin was blamed for.

Yet Markoff never wrote a story about this person and didn't even follow through when "jsz" moved to New York.

In fact, none of the authorities seemed to care either, almost as if these crimes were really trivial.

Jonathan Zanderson has been investigated for hacks on numerous U.S. military systems which have been linked to Israeli foreign intelligence services.

Several U.S. military Internet sites were "attacked" months before Shimomura's system using a similar Robert T. Morris IP spoofing vulnerability.

Now that would be a great story, wouldn't it, John?

Evil Corley & John Markoff - "Journalist"

JM: "I thought a lot about that.  I just haven't had time to do the reporting.  I've got a day-to-day beat out here.  You're right.  It's probably a great story.  I would love to talk to 'jsz.'  I should come to New York."

EC: "That story was going on back then.  'jsz' was supposedly the mastermind behind everything.  And the conversations..."

JM: "I never knew what the relations were.  The only thing I could say that I knew, was that 'jsz' and Kevin were actively trading information and software.  That's what I knew.  I knew nothing about masterminding.  If you asked me to reconstruct just from what I knew, it was 'jsz' provided the tools and Kevin made the attack.  But I have no idea if that's true."

No idea?  Isn't this what the entire book, series of articles, and now the film are supposedly based on, what Kevin actually did?

I was amazed by what he didn't know, but there was more that he did know, and had never talked about before.

Evil Corley & John Markoff - "Journalist"

JM: "But one interesting thing that hasn't been made public.  You know, so much was made of the fact that the credit cards were never used.  They were used.  An American Express card, that was part of the Netcom collection, was used in Raleigh within two days after Kevin was arrested.  So who used it?"

EC: "How did you find this out?"

JM: "I've just known it for a long time."

EC: "You're saying the credit card was used in Raleigh and it was used after he was arrested?"

JM: "There are indications that there was someone Kevin was in contact with who knew this and may have been active in the Raleigh area.  All I'm saying is there's some evidence."

EC: "How come this wasn't in the book?"

JM: "How come it wasn't in the book?  Good question.  I don't know why we didn't put it in the book.  I really don't know."

This was really getting annoying.  He didn't follow up on what may have been the most interesting part of the story and he didn't mention this little fact about the credit cards until now?

One more remark like that, and it's all over for Markoff.

Evil Corley & A Family of Ugly Whos?

EC: "Look how many people are standing here and not one person took my brochure.  Look at all these people.  Not one of them took this.  Valuable coupons!"

JEW1: What are they doing now?  Oh, Kevin Mitnick!  He's the computer wizard.  The way that the Japanese wizard found him was very interesting.  Mitnick respected the Japanese wizard for tracking him.  On the other hand, since the whole computer business is stupid and ridiculous to begin with...  Why should Mitnick suffer for a ridiculous assault on culture, namely the computer.  So that's it."

EC: "What do you think of computers?"

JEW1: "I hate them."

EC: "Why?"

JEW1: "Because they're not like feeling skin, and they're not like walking in the forest.  And one can get lost deeply in them.  My son, of course, is in that world."

JEW2: "These people are computerphiles and he's a computerphobe."

JEW1: "Hackers are all right because they're anarchists, that's fine.  But the rest of it..."

JEW2: "This is bullshit."

JEW1: "It's all pornography!"

JEW2: "This is such bullshit!"

JEW1: "I like Chaos Computer Club, I like anarchy..."

JEW2: "You know Chaos Computer Club?"

JEW1: "No, but I like the whole idea."

JEW2: "He's never heard of it.  He's saying this because..."

JEW1: "No, no... it's great.  But Mitnick, it's ridiculous..."

Evil Corley & Shoppers

EC: "Look, a bag full of artificial intelligence books."

SH1: They're from the '80s but I still bought them.  Just to get back to my roots.

SH1: Well, basically it's like the government's making him look like, it's to create a hacker mythology so they can deprive other people of privacy and other stuff like that.  He hasn't done anything wrong.  He hasn't done any financial damage to anybody.  He's basically just like a scapegoat.  I think most of the kids that I hang out with are cool, geeky, hacker types.  They understand...  Then there's my mom and everybody else...  Why would they have any reason to believe anything other than he's a total scumbag who, you know, like WarGames, the hacking.

SH1: What sysadmin is gonna have dot slash in their path before /usr/local/bin?  It was kinda cool.  It's about using SUID and making a script called ls and keeping it in your home directory and creating a file with escape characters pretending to be a lamer, 'Hi, I need help deleting this.'  And then they go in there and do a ls.  But what sysadmin is gonna have dot slash in their path before /usr/local/bin?"

SH2: "That guy!  Didn't he break into massive computer systems?"

EC: "He's not accused of selling information, he's not accused of destroying the computers, he's just accused of copying some files.  Three-and-a-half years in prison for that.  How does that sound?"

SH2: "Yeah, cool, wow, all right, great.  Register to vote?"

EC: "You're an activist, too?"

"Bushey told the FBI that DEC had developed a copyrighted internal security software package.  Access to the package was limited to authorized DEC employees.  Bushey said the program, called the 'Security Software System' had cost more than $1 million to develop.  It had not been released to the public or the University of Southern California.  The Security Software System had been accessed without authorization four times in 1988.  Bushey estimated that reacting to those intrusions and others in the past 14 months had cost DEC over $4 million in computer time lost while machines were not working, employee time spent reacting to the security breaches, and time spent rebuilding certain DEC files."

    --- Quote from Jay Bloombecker's Spectacular Computer Crimes article.  This was eventually reduced to $160,000 in system "downtime" damages.


"I put this in here, for the record, in case this article gets longer.  Most Mitnick stories, including his own, tell of the penetration by Mitnick and his friends of what is called, reverentially, 'The Ark' at Digital Equipment Corporation.  Although rare at that time outside of DEC, inside there was a whole network of computers with addresses using up to six RAD-50 characters.  ARK:: was the address of the RSTS development system.  It was nothing special, just another PDP-11/70, and certainly not the sanctum sanctorum of Digital software that he makes it sound.  Most operating system people in DEC at the time thought downloading old RSTS sources was a hilarious waste of time.  I worked on a better OS on KERMIT:: and ALIEN::"

    --- Quote from "Ortolan88" on January 28, 2003 in the "Kevin Mitnick" discussion page on his Wikipedia entry.


"He cost Digital a bundle, both for RSTS/E (an early 16-bit minicomputer OS) as well as VMS.  In the latter case, he triggered a complete code review after gaining access to the main VMS development cluster which ended up costing Digital a fortune.

The thing that annoyed Digital is that his attacks against the company were mostly around social engineering, not against the OS itself.  It didn't quite kill the company but it caused delays to two versions of the operating system and the introduction of Alpha."

"Mitnick used his social engineering skills to get into the VMS Source cluster.  The risk of his having interfered with the code (unlikely as his skills were elsewhere) lead to a line by line analysis of VMS.  This delayed the introduction of newer versions and thus the introduction of Alpha support.

Apparently he had been involved in an attack on RSTS/E installations which involved the supply of patch tapes including compromised code to target installs so he did have a certain level of 'previous'.

There was a major exploit back in 4.5 (the attack mentioned in Cuckoo's Egg), but otherwise VMS was extremely secure and that was a strong selling point.  Mitnick didn't use an OS vulnerability, rather he tricked someone at Central Engineering to give him a login.  Nevertheless, people were less inclined to believe Digital assurances about VMS being a secure system."

    --- Quotes from "hughk" in a Slashdot comment about Kevin Mitnick.

Evil Corley & Various Berkeley Street Activists

SA1: "Imagine if somebody made a film about you, and they get this totally evil kind of guy to play you and take everything that you ever did and make you look like you're really terrible?  'Look, there he is cheating on a crossword puzzle, too!'  That guy!"

SA2: Many interesting items relating to Telegraph Street.  Street scene, one of the best places for street scene material!  Here on the street scene, we've got newspapers, we got novels, we got documentary calendars, nine calendars for nine years, man."

SA3: "I don't know man, some of those hackers, when I'm on my computer send me all this shit all at once."

EC: "Like what?"

SA3: "I don't know.  All these messages.  Makes my computer..."

EC: "Are you on AOL by any chance?"

SA3: "No.  Prodigy."

We've really been bending over backwards to help this guy and he's only one point away from disqualification.

Let's do an easy one, the film.

Everyone hates the film, right?

Evil Corley & John Markoff - "Journalist"

JM: "When I read the screenplay, I was mostly just disappointed because it seemed like a crummy screenplay."

There we go.  He's back in the running.

With one clip to go, the best Markoff could hope for was a tie.

So I gave him a chance to show some humanity.

I asked him to help us help Kevin and sign a petition to get him released from prison, and end the nightmare.

He didn't want to sign the petition, but he had a better idea.

Evil Corley & John Markoff - "Journalist"

JM: "If you could pass a message to Kevin and say if he'd be willing to sit down and talk to me before his trial.  I would love to do a piece.  And I think that's perfectly fair."

If nothing else, you gotta give the guy credit for trying.  More than a decade of writing about Kevin, and he still had yet to talk to him.

It was time for our last corporate visit.

Novell, who claimed Kevin cost them more than $75 million.

We went to their corporate headquarters in Provo, Utah.

Okay, now the road says "180 East."  All right, we want 122 East, 1700 South.

It's like some sort of locker combination.

O.K., here we are.

Evil Corley & Novell Employee

EC: "Is there somebody in charge of security maybe?"

NE: "The person in charge of security is...  He's just brand new..."

Wow!  Check that out.  This guy is so worried about us seeing his name tag, that he went through this acrobatic act to turn it over nice and casual-like.

But in the end, it was just like everywhere else.

Nobody was allowed to say anything.

But, at least, we tried.

Hey, pal, look down.  Whoops!

        

I love this segment!

Kevin Mitnick charges over $18,000 for one of his "security seminars" which teaches people how not to fall for "social engineering" gimmicks, and also how to protect your I.D. at all times.

Then when a person ACTUALLY IMPLEMENTS this security, Evil Corley and the Gay Pedo Posse get all pissed off!  Hilarious!

So the last corporate door had been closed on us.

And now, we had one last task, to head across the country and stop the film.

Now they are onto trying to shut down the filming of the Kevin Mitnick movie.  They should have shut down the filming of Freedom Downtime ($30) before they embarrass themselves even more!

We knew it wouldn't work.  We always knew it wouldn't work.

That's what hacking's been about from the beginning.  Doing things that you knew wouldn't work, just because you had to.

And trying to ignore the f*cked-up shit happening to your friends and trying not to feel bad when you couldn't change a thing.

As we drove from state-to-state, I thought of how bad it could get, how bad it had already gotten.

I remembered what they do to people who piss them off.

I remembered what they did to Bernie.

Mike Roadancer - President, Hacker's Defense Foundation

"The Bernie S. case, as far as I'm concerned got blown out of proportion by a lot of things.  It got blown out of proportion by the prosecution, who knew, what exactly he had done and their representation of it was almost to make him look like the guy who blew up the Murrah Federal Building.  To do that was an incredible leap, but they managed to pass that of."

"They made Bernie S. look like an absolute terrorist."

Edward E. Cummings - Hacker

"The new statute that my attorney had never heard of and neither had I, that, in fact, wasn't even in the law books yet makes it a federal felony to possess hardware or software for the modification of telecommunications instruments for the unauthorized access to telecommunications services."

"I wasn't accused or alleged to have done anything with software or ever cloned a cellular phone or anything of that nature.  Just the mere possession of these things now constituted a federal felony according to this new statute."

"The judge ordered me held without bail based on the fact that books, in fact, I think I had two books in my home on how fireworks, explosives are made.  That stuff has fascinated me.  I had about 2,000 books in my personal library."

Ed Cummings was in possession of hundreds of "Red Boxes."  He sold them specifically to be used as toll-fraud devices.  He was also warned once before to stop this activity.

Letter from Jail  by Ed Cummings

What little media attention the case got, made Bernie look like a dangerous maniac.

But he had never stolen anything, not even a phone call.

Everything used to make him look like a terrorist, was something he had legitimately obtained.

But, when the Secret Service wants you in prison, nobody asks them why - not even a judge.

Edward E. Cummings - Hacker

"'Your Honor, when we initially searched Mr. Cummings' house, federal agents discovered a substance they believed to be C4 plastic explosives.  While upon later analysis it turned out not to be C4 the fact that it might have been concerned us greatly.  And, based on that, we'd recommend for a stronger sentence.'"

"The judge didn't even blink at that sort of a thing."

From this article:  "The former landlord, Charles Rappa of Broomall, said he found eight to 10 sticks of dynamite in the house after Cummings moved out in October."

It was actually Ed Cummings' neighbor, NOT the Secret Service, that started the whole "explosives" idea.

Then the prosecutor made a startling revelation to Bernie's lawyer.

Edward E. Cummings - Hacker

"She told him she was under a lot of pressure to prosecute this case by the Secret Service.  And that, in fact, the real reason, and that's a quote, 'the real reason Ed is in jail was not because of crystals or software or anything like that.'"

"It was because of other things that they found in my house.  Namely, surveillance photographs of undercover Secret Service agents.  So I made these photos available at the $2600 meeting, and it apparently was a coincidence because I didn't call them but the local FOX television affiliate, FOX 29 in Philadelphia - their news division, showed up at the meeting."

So, Ed Cummings invaded a Secret Service member's personal privacy, then he cries about it when caught!

Imagine the outrage if someone where to invade his privacy!

FOX 29 Reporter & Edward E. Cummings

FOX29: "Most are between their mid-teens to late 20s.  They gather every Friday night at 30th Street Station for all to see.  It's called the $2600 meeting, named after a telephone frequency and meetings like these are advertised in a hi-tech magazine you can buy at a bookstore.  Some hackers call themselves 'fighters for the freedom of information.'  The U.S. Secret Service monitors some hackers.  But hackers say it should be the other way around."

EC: "In this photograph the Secret Service agent is picking his nose."

U.S. Secret Service

Edward E. Cummings - Hacker

"The Secret Service didn't find it humorous."

"Not only did they have some of their agents' covers blown, but they were picking their noses on a major market television news station.  So, we all thought that was amusing, until I was in federal prison and I found out that was the real reason I was locked up was because of that."

For a year-and-a-half, Bernie was bounced around maximum security prisons throughout Pennsylvania.

Edward E. Cummings - Hacker

"I think they got tired of me filing these appeals because I found myself in handcuffs and shackles and taken up to Lehigh County Prison, which had a reputation, amongst prisoners I had talked to over the past year, as probably one of the roughest prisons in Pennsylvania."

Within a day, Bernie was attacked.

Payback for dropping a garbage can lid on "connected" mafia person while in prison and hanging around people who sell other people's old BBS files...

Edward E. Cummings - Hacker

"He punched me in the mouth and I went down.  He was a big guy, probably weighed like 220 pounds, and I think it turned out later he was on drugs coming down off crack or something."

"Anyway, I went down and he started to kick me in the head and I put my arm up to block his kick, and it broke my arm also."

After bleeding for hours, Bernie was finally taken to the hospital, but the authorities refused to let him contact his relatives.

Edward E. Cummings - Hacker

The hospital wanted me to sign this waiver.
Whenever you go into surgery you have to sign this thing saying that you understand all the risks involved.
I refused to sign the paper.
I said, not until I get a hold of my uncle, or at least let somebody in my family know what's going on.
The prison officials went bananas that I wouldn't sign this waiver.
It was a liability for them that I wasn't getting medical treatment.
I was severely injured and they needed to operate on me right away.
It got all the way up to the warden at this place.
My uncle was a known person in the community.
He'd been the president of the city council for years.
They all knew who he was.
He wasn't someone who'd run down there and try to spring me out of the hospital.
Meanwhile, I was handcuffed and shackled to the hospital bed, which was ridiculous.
I didn't feel like going anywhere.
I was in bad shape.
With a guard sitting there with a gun making sure that I didn't break the handcuffs and run away.
I was denied antibiotics for two days.
I was denied any painkillers at all, not even aspirin, which I couldn't take because my teeth were completely wired shut and I was probably in the most excruciating pain that I've ever had, which was more than I could ever imagine having multiple fractures.
It was like being in an altered state of consciousness, this much pain.
They weren't bringing me food I could eat.
They brought solid food which I couldn't eat because my jaw was wired shut.
I was getting to the point where I was starting to feel like, 'I don't care anymore.'
I was really feeling like, 'I give up.'
I was losing my will to go ahead.
I was able to get a phone call out the next day, tell people where I was, what was going on.
And that was when a major telephone campaign and Internet crusade started gaining momentum.
We had state representatives getting called.
I mean, like major politicians got calls and they called saying, 'What's with this?  What's this generating all the publicity for?'
Finally, the prison and the judge realized they didn't need this publicity.
They wanted to get this thing over with and wash their hands of it.
So the judge signed an order to have me released on a medical furlough, which the guards had never even heard of before.
They said, 'What the Hell is that?  People die in here and we don't even let them out!'
So this was an unusual thing.
I'm convinced that all the publicity generated by $2600 Magazine, the Internet, their website, radio interviews.
I even forgot to mention that.
I'd been repeatedly interviewed on WBAI's Off The Hook show with Emmanuel Goldstein, and people were following this case from the beginning and it was generating a lot of attention that way as well.
I got letters, I got hundreds of letters.

We had gotten him out, but it sure didn't feel like a victory.

And the scars were permanent.

Edward E. Cummings - Hacker

"They had to put ahh...  The surgeons mounted a titanium bar in my arm.  I don't know if you can see it or not...  A nice scar from here to here where they put this titanium bar in, and seven stainless-steel screws."

"This is how much my arm opens now...  That's it.  That's my full range of motion in my left arm.  Unlike my good arm which straightens out."

"Anyway, that's what I got.  My jaw doesn't open as much as it used to.  If I'm trying to bite an apple, I can't get it in like I used to.  But, I live with it."

Talking about Bernie S. being attacked.  Well...  Don't drop garbage can lids on other people, you stupid, piece of shit!

Below are the Off The Hook episodes which contains the first news of the attack on Bernie S. and audio of Bernie talking to listeners even though his mouth is wired shut.

We crossed the entire country and were finally closing in on the Takedown set.

But there was a problem.

"It seems that the hurricane is making a beeline for the set, at this point in time.  In fact, it's estimated that it will reach and destroy the set by sometime tomorrow.  And, that's something that causes me concern because it's not like that's something we wanted to have happen.  I fear that one of the listeners, or one of the subscribers, or somebody, may have called upon almighty Allah or Christ or whatever to rain forth upon these people with all kinds of venom.  I'd like to stress at this point, that that's not what we meant to do.  That's not exactly how I want things to turn out."

"I fear that the Takedown people aren't taking this seriously.  If you look at the map, if you look at the news reports, you will see the eye of the hurricane, you will see the direction it's heading for, you will see a little dot that indicates Takedown being produced there.  That is where it's heading.  This is like the scene in Twister where the rival gangs of twister watchers are trying to warn each other, "This is the big one!"  Well, this is the big one.  They were looking at this thing and they saw another hurricane contained within this hurricane.  And they say they've never seen that before."

"And, if that's not enough for you, Hurricane Bonnie.  Bonnie is the name of Kevin Mitnick's ex-wife.  Now the metaphor just could not be more perfect for me."

Off The Hook - August 25, 1998

Of course, we didn't take our own advice and drove straight into the storm.

We thought we might be able to get a lot closer to the set if nobody was around.

We were right.

They seemed to have a real fixation on gun safety in this place.

You had to wonder what had happened.

Now they complain about gun safety - on a movie set that uses a lot of gun props!


Welp, those comments sure didn't age well!

Don't you just love it when "hackers" - who always brag about strong security - whine and moan when that security is actually IN PLACE?

We took a little tour of the restricted area past the unguarded guardhouse.

The storm passed.

And while we were exploring the next day, we made a discovery.

Alex Kasperavicius - Friend of Kevin Mitnick/Consultant for Miramax (Flashback)

"And they all want "Free Kevin" stickers.  The whole crew.  If you give me some, I will send it to them.  They will put them on their cars."

Was it really this easy?

Had we stumbled upon where the Takedown people were staying through our own bumper sticker?

Evil Corley & Hotel Receptionist

HR: "I have Mr. Wong in Number 9."

EC: "Oh, that's the one."

HR: "Russell Wong."

EC: "Yeah."

HR: "He's in Number 9."

EC: "Is he still here?"

HR: "I think he is."

The receptionist went out of her way to tell us where everyone was staying.

And while the guy playing Shimomura wasn't in, we found one of the producers who promised us an interview that coming Sunday.

The place was swarming with celebrities, like cast members from Dawson's Creek engaging in decadent behavior.

We wandered around town, taking in the carnage from Bonnie, seeing the desperate people.

We witnessed civilization brought to a standstill.

Roads were closed.  Power was out.  Trees were knocked down.

They film the aftermath of hurricane Bonnie.

They never offer to help any of the local people or help bring them food, water, shelter, etc.

What a bunch of assholes!  All they care about is making money!

But it didn't matter.  We were going to finally talk to the Takedown people!

There was nothing to do, the computer store was closed.

We had four days to kill, so we drove all the way to Raleigh to see the town where Kevin Mitnick was captured.

Those were the cellular towers where Markoff and Shimomura tracked Kevin's signal.

And this was the apartment complex it led them to.

And this, was Kevin's actual apartment.

Evil Corley & Apartment Owner

EC: "You have a computer yourself?"

AO: "Yeah."

EC: "Be careful."

AO: "I'll keep that in mind."

EC: "O.K."

We found some Takedown crew members back in Wilmington when the power was restored.

Takedown Crew Members

"You have to remember that, like the film is usually for a fourth-grade mentality."

"Skeet is definitely...  He's a great actor.  He's the most natural actor, so Kevin's lucky.  He's very charismatic."

"There's nothing you can do to Skeet Ulrich that makes him uncharismatic.  So that's kind of, I mean, from your side, it's kind of... he's lucky, you know?"

I promised to tell Kevin how lucky he was next time I talked to him.

But now it was time for our interview.

We had been in North Carolina for five days, but something was wrong.

        

Miramax had changed their mind and now they didn't want to talk to us.

So we staged an impromptu protest outside the studio.

And as we were leaving, destiny hit us again.  This time we wouldn't let them escape.  We drove next door and waited for them to leave.

- There he goes.

And off he goes into the wild blue yonder...

- This is the real Takedown!

More harassing of Universal Studios employees.

So, it's O.K. for Evil Corley to follow other people, but if someone where to follow him, it would be the end of the world and we'd never hear the end of it...

We had two cars on our side, we would outflank them, chase them, ambush them, whatever it took.

I wish I didn't have these God damn running lights!

- Close enough.  Go!

For six weeks we'd been trying to talk to these people, and we hadn't even gotten a phone call back.

So this is what it came down to.  A cat-and-mouse game in the streets of Wilmington.

They didn't know who they were dealing with.

He's making a U-turn.  He's making a U-turn, that motherf*cker!

- Oh, God!

No, he's getting gas.

Man, there's a boat in the way!

- And only eight minutes left on this tape.

What do we do now?  This is just great.

This is just so typical North Carolina-ish.

F*cking boat... blocking us on the street.

- He's not there.

Oh, man!

This guy's good.  This guy's real good.

- They took off that way.  I think they know we're behind them.

They made a U-turn and went into the gas station.

- Oh, really?  That's why.

Did they then go that way?

- They did go that way.

After they made the U-turn?

They left the gas station and went that way?

- They went that way.

When?  Right after the gas station?

- A few minutes ago.  I waited.  I thought maybe you'd come by.  So they're headed that way and I don't know where.

- So let's go.

Where are we gonna go?

- Forward!

Even if we go forward at maximum warp, we can't catch them because they're doing the same thing.

Let's face it guys, we lost.  They beat us.  They beat us.  They beat us...

Shakes?

- Yeah.

Shakes.

There's always the outside chance they'll get a shake too.

We had failed.

We never found Shimomura, we never got to talk to the Takedown people, and we never got past the lobby in any of the corporations we visited.

Worst of all, Kevin was still in prison.

1999 saw the "Free Kevin" movement reach a fever pitch.

The media wouldn't cover it, so the message went out over hacked web pages.

And for the first time, hackers marched in the streets in fifteen cities all over the world, even overseas in England and Russia.

It was an amazing spectacle and more people learned about Kevin's plight than ever before.

Even though Kevin Mitnick saw his fourth year behind bars come and go, we felt like we were getting somewhere.

Dumb Cop

"Excuse me?  What are you doing?"

And, in the end, Kevin did what he had to do to avoid spending the next 10 years behind bars.

He told the truth for once in his life.

CBS 2 Reporter

Good evening.  I'm Gretchen Carr.  Ann Martin is off tonight.
And I'm Michael Tuck.
Up front at 6:30, a guilty plea by notorious computer hacker Kevin David Mitnick.
Juan Fernandez joins us live from the Federal Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.
Well Mike, he was the first computer hacker to make it to the FBI's Most Wanted List.
And after a very lengthy battle with the federal government, the 35-year-old man from the San Fernando Valley comes clean.
His computer crimes apparently cost companies millions of dollars.
Although Kevin Mitnick never admitted to them until today, ending a four-year battle with the federal government.
This is a very serious crime.
The federal government takes this crime seriously.
We will prosecute hackers, particularly when they cause significant amounts of damage.
Mitnick now faces 46 months in jail.
He's already served eight months, and according to his attorney, with good behavior, Mitnick might only have to serve one more year.
Mitnick will pay for his crimes for the rest of his life, although his attorneys say he has no money to pay restitution to the companies that he hacked, that doesn't mean that they won't go after him later.

It was as if we hadn't said a word.

Mike Roadancer - President, Hacker's Defense Foundation

"I pray that they never wind up in the legal system.  I pray that nobody does.  But the thing is, that if they do, right now the way it stands, the cards are stacked against them."

Edward E. Cummings - Hacker

"It's not about fairness.  It's just about the way the legal game is played."

"It seems crazy to bring up the O. J. Simpson case because there's no comparison here, but here's a case where a defendant had basically an unlimited budget, and look what that legal team accomplished.  I'm not saying you need a lot of money to get off for something you did.  I'm saying it doesn't matter whether you did it or not."

"The case, the legal system, the justice system isn't about what you did or what you didn't do.  It's about either the government is going to win the case or you'll win the case.  That's all that matters in the case.  It isn't all that matters morally."

"I'm just saying in the court system, that's all that matters.  The prosecution will do whatever they can do, spend whatever money they can to win a case, and you have to do the same thing or you will lose."

Lewis De Payne - Mitnick Co-Defendant / Friend

"You know, this is no longer about what the law allows or doesn't allow.  This is about how do you make it as difficult as possible for the defendants to get them to roll over or cop a plea.  It has nothing to do with justice anymore."

Edward E. Cummings - Hacker

"God help you if you get stuck in that system, because it's very easy to get in and it's almost impossible to get out unscathed, because you're up against an adversary that has everything going for it, except maybe the truth."

"And, unfortunately, that doesn't count for much.  So, that's the way it is."

Mike Roadancer - President, Hacker's Defense Foundation

"If the legal community doesn't wake up shortly, we're gonna have more people locked up than we know what to do with.  A lot of them are going to be kids, unfortunately."

Tupac Shakur - "R U Stil Down? (Remember Me)"

Now up and at em it's on, I was raised to be strong.
And Mama told me be a Thug since the day I was born.
I came up, out the gutter never changed my style.
Got for real about my papers, cause the game was wild.
And the fame was a plot to try to change me.
And what's strange is nobody knew my name 'fore it came.

(Closing Credits)

Evil Corley & John Markoff - "Journalist"

JM: "I don't think it ended.  I mean, it turned into this huge controversy that went on until now..."

EC: "But there weren't any more stories in the New York Times about it?"

JM: "What would you think that we should have reported?  I mean...  Umm..."

(Closing Credits)

Slim Smith - "The Time Has Come"

There is no time to sit around and wait.
Don't you know the world, is of love and of hate?
Now is the time, to be strong, 'cause we can't go wrong:
Because the time has come...
The time has come, to be free, can't you see?

Kevin Mitnick

"I appreciate everybody taking the time to view this film which was a tremendous effort on the part of Emmanuel Goldstein and everyone on the $2600 staff.  And I want to offer my sincere appreciation and gratitude for the tremendous moral support that everyone has given me throughout this five year ordeal."


Mitnick/Woz Autograph Laptop    Mitnick/Woz Autograph Laptop

Mitnick/Woz Autograph Laptop    Mitnick/Woz Autograph Laptop



    ==    

Evil Corley has been milking the Kevin Mitnick cash cow for:

Return to $2600 Magazine Information



Knowledge is Power

GBPPR Projects