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Kevin Mitnick has died

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Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#521

Post by breezeTrowel »

eduction wrote: post #473
josh2600 wrote: post #48

Mitnick 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…

He has the CEO’s number and successfully calls him, and through some miracle gets through directly to ask this trivial question — as opposed to getting the number from the assistant who answers his phone - sure ok but then under what pretense does he then ask him to repeat his phone number? “Please repeat the phone number I just dialed.” The phone number contains all the digits needed to recreate the bank account num…

He was pretty famous when he started doing security consulting so it doesn't seem like a stretch to me.

Bank account numbers are written on the bottom of checks along with the routing code. If you have a check from them, you have their checking account number.

Phone numbers are ten digits long. So a number like (213)485-7690 contains all digits from 0 to 9. Caller ID spoofing is trivial even back then. For example, you could ANI fail to a calling card system which would drop you to an operator. Then you just tell them the number you're "calling from" and that number would show up as your Caller ID and ANI.

Using voice authentication is pretty stupid but, iirc, at least one US bank still does something similar. That said, I imagine part of the authentication was probably caller ID based. This was/is also why voicemail systems don't prompt you for a PIN when you call them from your own phone - they use caller ID for authentication.

Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#522

Post by outericky »

thesuitonym wrote: post #496
eduction wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has the CEO’s number and successfully calls him, and through some miracle gets through directly to ask this trivial question — as opposed to getting the number from the assistant who answers his phone - sure ok but then under what pretense does he then ask him to repeat his phone number? “Please repeat the phone number I just dialed.” The phone number contains all the digits needed to recreate the bank account num…

He was already meeting with the CEO in some capacity, so it's very clear he had access to the CEO, maybe as a security consultant. Then getting him to read the number is easy, "Hey, I just got a new cell, but I might have given you my old card, can you read the number back to me?" Getting a phone number with all the necessary digits is a bit of a stretch, but not impossible. And I would suspect, because this is the w…

213-954-8607

Random number, legit area code. Unless you are looking for all 10 digits, pretty easy social hack

Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#523

Post by outericky »

Closi wrote: post #483
eduction wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has the CEO’s number and successfully calls him, and through some miracle gets through directly to ask this trivial question — as opposed to getting the number from the assistant who answers his phone - sure ok but then under what pretense does he then ask him to repeat his phone number? “Please repeat the phone number I just dialed.” The phone number contains all the digits needed to recreate the bank account num…

> He somehow has the bank account number? Being able to login if you have the bank account number is still a pretty big flaw. If you are a bank, your security threat model should assume that a hacker has access to somebody's account number and basic personal details. Particularly for a high profile/value account, you can see how it might be possible to get soundclips of them saying the numbers 1 to 9 (see: https://ww…

basically anyone that has gotten a check from me has my checking account number...

Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#524

Post by dorfsmay »

jeremy_carroll wrote: post #318

To 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.

To make it worse, and to paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, it's your own cells, your own body killing you.

Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#525

Post by larrywright »

DonHopkins wrote: post #364
larrywright wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His ego came through a bit in the book, but honestly that's a fairly common trait for young guys. I am also quite aware that the book only presents one side of the story and that Mitnick had quite a different perspective. I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle. My enjoyment of the book was much more about the process they used to track him down, and the detailed description of them building tools to aid in t…

"A bit"? You think so? At the time, Tsutomu was enough of an adult to know not to be such an asshole, but that didn't stop him one bit. Fuck the "boys will be boys" defense, and the people who still try to defend reprehensible behavior (and ultimately their own) by trotting out that old sexist canard.

I’m not defending the behavior, just saying that it didn’t detract from the parts of the book that I enjoyed.

I did find the inclusion of so many details of his romantic life a bit odd. It’s not that they were graphic or anything, there was just a lot of it and it didn’t have anything to do with the subject of the book.

Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#526

Post by samstave »

2devnull wrote: post #518
samstave wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I come from a long line of clinical/medical folks in my family - and me on the tech side of medicine... That said the following is me talking out my ass, but I have followed a very few number of pancreatic cases - jobs being one... and there is one anecdotal that I would hope people closer to such cases can chime into ; how much wine did these people drink (jobs was a prolific wine drinker) Im wondering if sulfates f…

If they were a major player it wouldn’t be so subtle, it would be an industry wide problem. Alcohol causes pancreatic cancer for sure, but sulfites specifically? I’d beed a lot of evidence to believe that.

Sure, but that shouldnt preclude looking into it...

As you stated "*I need a lot of evidence*" - which is exactly what I am asking for. "Moar evidance"

And sulfates may not be the right metric...

So if we can fully identify dietary commonalities of pancreatic cancer patients, then we can get a little farther down this path to understanding...

What would be the most amazing use of "AI" would be to have a biological model of a pure human body (as far as nutrients and blah blah are concerned) - then cycle through feeding that biology various substances and seeing how it propogates through the system)

Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#527

Post by vintagedave »

lynx23 wrote: post #413
vintagedave wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have been downvoted, but I'm not sure that's reasonable. While doctors do generally do their best, sometimes medical care is not ideal. Your point though seems to be rooted in what happened to you as a child. I'm sorry to hear it. Could you share something about what happened please?

I expected nothing else but downvotes. It is pretty representative for the times that peopel can not stand viewpoints which do not align with their own. And no, I am not going to post my personal medical history on HN in detail. My short description of the incident is already personal enough. Besides, what would that help? Everyone picks their own convenient opinion these days, all that can come out of this is that p…

> And no, I am not going to post my personal medical history on HN

I understand. I hope my request to learn more came across as polite to you. The reason for asking was to understand more about the motivations and beliefs / experiences behind your comment.

> Everyone picks their own convenient opinion these days, all that can come out of this is that people publicly will doubt my personal experience, which is not useful for anyone.

I like to think HN is a forum where this is less likely, or where poor responses are flagged or downvoted, but of course I've seen it here too, and I understand your caution.

Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#528

Post by cpncrunch »

jeremy_carroll wrote: post #318

To 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.

One of the few known modifiable risk factors is sun exposure, which reduces risk by 30-40%:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24075798/

Whether it would be too late to do anything after getting the diagnosis is another question. Studies that look at sun exposure over time and mortality (e.g. Lindqvist's studies) show that it takes decades of sun exposure to lower the mortality risk by this amount.

Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#529

Post by paul7986 »

He was expecting his first child at 59/60 which is awesome especially those 10 to 15 years younger or so who like to still also, yet he dies before his child was born. Heartbreaking!

RIP

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