Kevin David Mitnick was the first person ever to be convicted under a law against gaining access to an interstate computer for criminal purposes. Each and every time he was given a chance to get his life back on the right track, he got seduced back to the dark side of the computer world.

Kevin David Mitnick spent his adolescence in suburban Los Angeles during the late 1970s. This was about the same time the personal computer industry was exploding beyond its hobbyist roots. His parents had divorced, and as a result of coming from a lower-middle-class environment that lacked variety and him being a loner and an underachiever, he was seduced by the power he could gain by taking over the telephone network.

The underground culture of phone phreakers was one that had already flourished for over a decade and was now in the process of making the deadly transition from the analogue to the digital world. He realized at a young age that it was possible to use a personal computer and modem to commandeer a phone company's digital central office switch. This was done by dialing in remotely, and Kevin became proficient at doing so. Apart from having all the free calls he could ever want, he was able to gain access into the lives of other people. These included the rich and powerful, or his own enemies.

He:

• Obtained over 20,000 credit card numbers.
• Broke into a California motor vehicles database.
• Gained control of New York and California telephone switching hub via modem and eavesdrop on other peoples’ phone conversation.
• Scanned police bands for mentions of his whereabouts.

Mutating basic home telephones into quarter-demanding pay phones, and stashing data he filched from other networks in files of the California-based Well on-line service, Mitnick also possessed incredible social engineering skills to aid him in the stealing of software from DEC.

As long as he was on the run from the law, he broke into computers to intercept private electronic communications and absconded with personal and confidential materials. Much of this material included important trade secrets and source codes to key products in which several companies had invested. By breaking into systems and often altering information, corrupting system software, and eavesdropping on users, he often prevented or impeded legitimate users. He even ensured that he was always ahead of the law by making use of cloned cellular telephones and stolen cellular and Internet service to perform his various intrusions.

He was one of the most slippery fish the FBI ever attempted to catch. In reality, it is very easy for the FBI to serve warrants and get trap-and-trace information with help from the telephone companies. Unfortunately, few telephone company agents actually know how to interpret the data which they provide. The arrest is easily made if the criminal is staying at the address corresponding to the telephone number. But if the criminal has managed to electronically break into the telephone company's local switch and scrambled the routing tables, there is absolutely nothing that the telephone company agents or the authorities can do. With careless ease, Kevin foiled their best attempts to track him via the telephone network using traces and wiretaps. Each night, he would employ two computer terminals simultaneously - one was to carry out his intrusions into Digital's computers, the other served as a lookout for scanning the telephone company computers to see if his predators were getting close. At one particular point of time, a law enforcement team and telephone security agents thought they had finally managed to pin down the location of their elusive prey, only to find out that the prey had diverted the telephone lines so as to lead his pursuers not to his hideout in Calabasas, but to an apartment in Malibu, a few 1000 miles off. Eventually he was caught with the help of Tsutomu Shimomura.

Shortly before his arrest and in the state of North Carolina, Kevin Mitnick was charged with 23 counts of access device fraud for his criminal activities. He only agreed to plead guilty to one count and have his case consolidated in Los Angeles. In California, he was further charged with 25 counts of computer, wire, and access device fraud.

Mitnick was subsequently held without bail for over two years before being sentenced. This itself was a hitherto unheard off punishment for a cybercriminal, showing that the law was indeed starting to grow stern around this time. His trial and punishment became a huge issue among the hacker community. A "Free Kevin" campaign also started as a result.

Eventually, he was finally sentenced to 46 months and three years probation, to be served in addition to eight months for his North Carolina plea and 14 months for his probation violation. On January 21, 2000, he was released from prison and was eligible for early release after serving almost 60 months of his 68-month sentence.

His sentence ended on January 2002 and he was freed from prison. However, he was banned from using the Internet until the midnight of January 21, 2003. This was because the judges realized that his attitude towards computers was all too similar to that of drug addicts. After this term ended, the first website Mitnick visited was the weblog of his girlfriend.

The punishment indeed brought him to the right path. The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security, a book written by Mitnick, was published in October 2002. Subject of a two-hour documentary entitled Freedom Downtime, Mitnick is now working in consulting and is CEO of the security company Defensive Thinking. This goes to show that most hackers do learn that the “kick” one gets by helping society is far more pleasant than that derived from unlawful hacking.

Reference

The Kevin Mitnick/Tsutomu Shimomura affair
http://www.gulker.com/ra/hack

Kevin Mitnick - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick

TAKEDOWN: The book on Mitnick's capture
http://www.www.takedown.com/bio/mitnick.html

America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw
http://www.charliesources.net/Inside%20Hackers/Mitnick.htm