RIP Kev, you were quite a legend!
Kevin Mitnick has died
371–380 of 666 posts
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#372Mitnick was a hacker hero of mine in my youth. I think I’ve understood his role as jester prior to conviction less as I’ve grown older, but there’s something about the boyhood charm of being so divorced from the potential consequences of one’s actions that is almost unique. Mitnick had so many stories that entranced the people around him. I heard one second hand of Mitnick dealing with a bank who had early voice veri…
there is a bank in Italy currently that uses this voice recognition mechanism which with current AI tech is fakeable within 20 min. Nothing much changed since back then I guess
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#373To be candid; fuck this narrative. Nobody "Beats" cancer based on sheer will. Same scenario as those that did not "Fight hard enough". It's a disease. It does not care about your wants, and needs.
And conversely, nobody loses to cancer. It's a draw at best, considering that the cancer dies with the host.
That's not true in the sense that the cancer doesn't have objectives per se, therefore it doesn't have anything to lose in the sense that matters.
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#374Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would there be a modern version of this? I haven't read it and I'm interested, but mostly my parents are getting old, and with AI on the corner, I fear a bit the next level scams.
I don't think it's ever gone away, and stands to get even worse now. Good to have a safe word with your family in-case they ever get an important call from you or the reverse
This is especially important now with easy and convincing voice generation
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#376I will by no means say that I followed or knew him. But the name was familiar and I suddenly remembered who he was and that I had his book on my wishlist for christmas. Sorry to hear about the loss.
I do like some of his approaches to life. There are some similarities between him and Richard Feynman.
Who comes to mind if I would like to follow some still living people that has this rebellious, "joire de vivre" way of life?
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#377To be candid; fuck this narrative. Nobody "Beats" cancer based on sheer will. Same scenario as those that did not "Fight hard enough". It's a disease. It does not care about your wants, and needs.
I agree, this is a common narrative, that does a disservice for people that actually are consumed by the disease in the expected timeframe as if they weren't willing to fight it with sheer will. I knew a guy who was diagnosed with stomach cancer at 27 years old. Never had a health problem in his life, he didn't even know how insurance worked yet. It was late stage and he was given 6 months to live. He was recently en…
> He was diligent with everything the doctors told him
I know I am going to be hated for this comment, but... Given my own experience with the medical system, I can't resist and state the (for me) obvious: Maybe that was the reason for him to pass so early...
(To put my comment in context, I was abused for a medical experiment by a high ranking doctor at the age of 7, and am 100% blind since then.)
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would he have known the CEO's bank account number? Did the CEO write him a check at some point? Or maybe a bank's CEO traditionally gets account number 1…
He used the CEO’s voice to access AN account, I don’t think it was the CEO’s specifically. But just an account, verified by the CEO’s voice, to his.
I doubt the bank’s authentication system is built to allow the CEO’s voice to authenticate a transfer out of any account…
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
Manipulating people is more interesting in some ways than exploiting a bit of badly written software because while I write terrible code all the time, I could fix it too but there's no patching our stupid stupid brains. We can try to be more careful, and avoid falling for things others have already, but the flaws are still there just waiting for the moment our guard is down.
Some human exploits can be patched, at least partially. 2FA with hardware authentication helps prevent people from leaking their own passwords and such. Phishing detectors help. Etc. I'm sad to admit my wife is better at this than me. Any time anyone she doesn't know tries to talk to her, she's quick to escape. I tend to try to politely decline, she just books it
It is called a workaround not a patch.
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#380When Kevin first found out he had Cancer, the doctors gave him "weeks". But you know Kevin -- he refused to accept his fate and found the top doctors in the world, tried experimental procedures and was able to get himself all the way into remission just 11 months later. It was incredibly inspiring, we all thought he had yet again beaten the system. It's tragic how the last 10 weeks played out, he fought all the way u…
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