Originally posted by sriram
If you are interested in another viewpoint, you should read "Takedown" by Tsutomu Shimomura, the researcher who tracked down Mitnick across the US and lead the FBI to his capture. It is available at the National Library (Stamford) and is well worth reading.
Shimomura's book provides a more rational insight into the whole Mitnick Saga. Rather than portraying Mitnick as a much maligned champion of the downtrodden who was unjustly punished, as wannabe hackers would like it, the book describes the whole episode in a much more sober fashion.
For example, among other things, Mitnick broke into many huge companies including Qualcomm, Motorola, Oki and Sun, and stole software, source code and documents worth millions of dollars. This is plain old (new?) fashioned theft, nothing else.
According to the 1991 US Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the federal government treats the unauthorized posession of information without the intent to profit from the information as a crime. The 1994 US computer abuse amendments act says that unintentional damage can be punished with a 1 year imprisonment, and intentional willful damage is prosecuted on a case by case basis.
Mitnick was fined a paltry sum of a few thousand dollars, and jailed for 5 years.
Originally posted by sriram
Whatever. The fact is that Mitnick is brilliant, but a criminal. He used his knowledge to break into companies networks to steal software, intellectual property and source code worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. He had been doing this over and over again, not "just hack some sites". He was arrested many times for the same thing, and was on probation when he resumed his hack attacks. It was an obsessive compulsion.
So, are you saying it's OK if a cracker hacks your bank account and steals all your money? Or breaks into your company's networks and is free to do whatever he pleases, including stealing your top secret information about your next major product (which is what Mitnick did)?
Markoff and Shimomura may have been opportunists, but that doesn't make Mitnick the great hero he is portrayed to be... something which many people want to believe.
And hey, this was a very high profile case, so someone is bound to take advantage for their own publicity. Human nature.
Originally posted by sriram
Whatever. The fact is that Mitnick is brilliant, but a criminal. He used his knowledge to break into companies networks to steal software, intellectual property and source code worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. He had been doing this over and over again, not "just hack some sites". He was arrested many times for the same thing, and was on probation when he resumed his hack attacks. It was an obsessive compulsion.
So, are you saying it's OK if a cracker hacks your bank account and steals all your money? Or breaks into your company's networks and is free to do whatever he pleases, including stealing your top secret information about your next major product (which is what Mitnick did)?
Markoff and Shimomura may have been opportunists, but that doesn't make Mitnick the great hero he is portrayed to be... something which many people want to believe.
And hey, this was a very high profile case, so someone is bound to take advantage for their own publicity. Human nature.
Originally posted by Revo
Altho he is no hero, but the fact markoff commented abt him in the papers was no doubt unethical (if what mitnick said was true)
I think its not abt whos the hero here....but rather to me how unscrpulous some can get....