I sometimes wonder if Kevin Mitnick was really all that… In a recent interview with CNN, he clears a few myths abt the Mitnick Mania..
Source
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/10/07/kevin.mitnick.cnna/index.html
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(CNN) – To many, the name Kevin Mitnick is synonymous with hacking, the cinematic sort where a snot-nosed kid thumbs his nose at authority. But, Mitnick says, the characterization is a bit overdone and the legend untrue, if not libelous. **
It is true, he says, that he broke into corporate computer systems and stole source code to satisfy his curiosity, but he denies the stories that he hacked into NORAD – North American Aerospace Defense Command – or that he wiretapped the FBI.
After a well-publicized pursuit that made him notorious, the FBI arrested Mitnick in 1995. He served five years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of wire and computer fraud. He was released in 2000 and today runs a computer security firm. In a telephone interview with CNN’s Manav Tanneeru, Mitnick talks about his past, the state of online security today, and how he handles what his name has come to mean.
CNN: There is a certain myth of Kevin Mitnick, but you seem to disavow a lot of it. Why exactly did you become so famous and what specifically was reported that was inaccurate?
MITNICK: [The claims] that I wiretapped the FBI or something like that were something out of a movie like “War Games” or “Enemy of the State” or something. There were fictional events that were tied to real events, like when I took code from Motorola and Nokia when I was a hacker to look at the source code. I took a copy, which is essentially stealing, to look at the information. That was true, that was the truth … in the story, but there were a lot of libelous statements. …
I’m the one that got myself into trouble, but because the reporting in the [New York] Times portrayed me as this very dangerous character, the government stepped up the prosecution of the case. If that story never went out, I don’t think, at the end of the day, I would have been prosecuted, but I wouldn’t have been held in solitary confinement for a year for the fear that I could launch nuclear missiles by whispering through a pay phone.