kevin mitnick
i find it interesting to look at the kevin mitnick case. it caught the world's attention back in 1995 - it was easy to sensationalise, had a hero and a villain. it was blown up to a sort of "super hacker vs. computer sleuth" story. if you believed what you saw in the media, you'd think mitnick was about to wipe out the world's banking systems and cancel christmas; stopped only by the heroic actions of shimomura.
but let's look at this a little more realistically. mitnick is not the ultimate hacker. he got caught for a start :) he was being arrogant (he was widely reported to have "put his voice onto the internet" as some kind of challenge), although no more arrogant than shimomura.
shimomura was pissed off because his files had been hacked (while he was on a skiing holiday, no less), which puts his skills into perspective too - his protection wasn't foolproof. so one did well to break in, and the other did well to catch him.
at the end of the day, we had a hacker who'd been caught by a computer professional helping the authorities. he was portrayed as public enemy number one; much was made of his geekiness (despite the fact that he'd lost weight and got contacts and a new wardrobe by that stage) and he was banged into jail. pretty soon people forgot all about him.
so why is kevin still making waves? because he's still in jail awaiting trial, having been coerced into waiving his right to a bail hearing. the prosecution plans to use 9.75 gigs (GIGs) of evidence against him, but it wasn't released for the defense to review for over three years. this is why he has become a symbol for those who oppose the government. many feel he is being made into an example - screw with the rules and we can ruin you.
however, i'm not going to champion his case here. go to the official page. i'm merely pointing out that the government, media and general public don't really know what to do when hackers are caught breaking into systems. generally they over-react; and in this case they demonised the hacker in order to make him an easy enemy, so their easy hero could be held up as a knight in shining armour.
postscript
Mitnick was finally released on January 21, 2000. The statement he read to the media that day makes for some interesting reading.
At least he has a sense of humour...!
portrayal
Compare CNN's pictures of Mitnick and Shimomura. Who's the hero here I wonder? While Shimomura's pic was current and makes him look like a kind of bad-arse good guy; the pic of Kevin is about as unflattering as you can get. i've seen only seen one photo that was worse than CNN's pic - it made him look like something that would eat your children. I didn't think to save the photo at the time.
So who's this? Yep, this is how Mitnick looks... or at least, he did a few years ago. Looks kinda normal, huh? It's interesting that the official site for mitnick is about the only place i've noticed this pic so far.
The canonised image from the whole event.
links
web
- CNN's page about Mitnick
- mitnick's malice, shimomura's chivalry (salon.com)
- The Kevin Mitnick/Tsutomu Shimomura affair
- KevinMitnick.com - home of the FREE KEVIN campaign.