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Kevin Mitnick has died

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Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#571

Post by _whiteCaps_ »

mcv wrote: post #415
ChuckMcM wrote: post #193

I was not aware he was ill. Always sad to hear people that are taken by cancer. I didn't know Kevin, but am friends with Tsutomu Shimomura who worked with authorities to get him arrested. Tsutomu worked with me a bit when I was at Sun trying to get a cryptographically secure subsystem into the base system specification. It was fun to listen to his side of this story. The 80's was a really weird time for computer enth…

> I was not aware he was ill. Always sad to hear people that are taken by cancer. It was pancreatic cancer, which is the deadliest cancer. It kills very quickly and as far as I know, it's impossible to cure. It killed my mom: 3 months between diagnosis and death. She didn't want treatment because it couldn't save her; it would only postpone the inevitable and she didn't want to spend the rest of her days in hospitals…

My mom's situation was almost exactly the same. Our family has a history of cancer and it turned out she had the harmful BRCA2 variant.

Were you offered any kind of genetic testing?

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/geneti...

Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#572

Post by r00f »

I got into IT because of him mainly. When I was 12, where I was growing up I was the only one who knew what a computer is. I remember reading his story somewhere, then I got to my mom's computer at her office and read all I could find about his story.

I wrote "Free Kevin Mitnick!" with a black marker on my tshirt and was walking around my town proudly wearing it. Nobody understood anything about it but it made me feel like involved into some secret society.

Next year I convinced parents to pay for me learning QBasic (the only computer course in my town back then), and 3 years later I got into university on an Information Security specialization. Some of my friends say that I was the reason why they got into IT. Well, I guess we all owe that to Kevin.

I talked to him in person once at a conference and was happy like a little puppy, but being socially awkward as I am I didn't tell him that he is my childhood hero. I hope now when he has trandcended to the cloud, he has a bird's eye view on our realm and can see all the positive impact that he had had on my life and lives of people I've influenced...

The very brightest memories

Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#573

Post by TremendousJudge »

autoexec wrote: post #252
throwaway88008 wrote: post #90

The post mentions Dutchman Stu Sjouwerman as a close friend. Kevin was partnered with Stu in the security company KnowBe4. Stu is a dedicated Scientologist, and has donated millions and millions of dollars to that corrupt organization. I know because I served in the Scientology Sea Org and knew Stu when he was on “OTVII”. This was before KnowBe4, but he was still something of a big donator. He really hit it big with…

They seem to hook a lot of clever people. I always assumed it was some kind of weird tax dodge, but maybe Scientology doesn't get enough credit for their social engineering skills

Just because somebody is somehow "clever" doesn't make them immune to scams -- they just need to be a specific type. Scientology targets a person's sense of self-importance and empowers the feeling that they are somehow special and mentally gifted. Something that many "clever" people have.

Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#574

Post by sclarisse »

internetter wrote: post #564
thfuran wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then you've given out your bank account number, so the secrecy is bunk.

The US bank security system confuses me. To accept money, I need to give out my routing number and account number. Using those numbers, someone could theoretically withdraw money... Maybe... The whole system is built upon obscurity. Why do some stores need a pin on my debit card, and some do not? Why do online stores need my name and address, but IRL ones do not? How did that one online store charge me without my CVV…

> Why do some stores need a pin on my debit card, and some do not?

Oh that’s easy enough. If they need a PIN it’s actually being run as a debit card over the debit card network. Otherwise it’s being run as a “check card” over the credit card network (with higher fees and better consumer protections). It’s just backed with money instead of a line of credit.

> Why do online stores need my name and address, but IRL ones do not?

IRL stores have access to the actual card (with your name) and having this artifact present makes it much less likely that you are a fraudulent fraudster committing fraud, so the processors are willing to take it.

> How can restaurants swipe my card now and charge me later?

the good news is if the store ever defrauds you, everyone knows where to find the store! Unlike fraudsters making purchases.

Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#576

Post by unethical_ban »

splitbrain wrote: post #342
unethical_ban wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in my Amazon list and now I know why. I'm 34 and learned about phreaking well after it was a thing but it inspired me. Now I'm a cybersecurity consultant (glorified sysadmin) making a nice salary but without any of the joy that was present in my 20s rebelling against my F100 company's IT policy. Installing Dokuwiki on a shadow server just to get shit done. Helping write a custom request system to get shit done.…

Labelling the installation of DokuWiki as rebellion just made my day :-D

Confluence was a piece of crap 10 years ago.

Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#577

Post by layer8 »

dghughes wrote: post #249
wnissen wrote: post #31

He certainly was an interesting person. It was always amazing the degree to which law enforcement prosecuted his hacking and cracking, when it seems like much more impactful crimes involving computers go uninvestigated. Plenty of people are hounded by threats of violence into leaving their jobs and homes, that seems far more impactful than Mitnick's crimes. And FYI, while he died unexpectedly young, a 57-year-old man…

I think it's pretty amazing to be 57 and expecting a child. I'd be thrilled. I'm 54 no kids and I wish I could have great relationship with a woman that is so good we had a child. Seeing how sick he was and sterility is a possibility from cancer drugs I think Kevin would be thrilled about the child as anyone would be.

The question is about whether the child will be thrilled to have a father who died before they were born.

Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#578

Post by joshmanders »

r00f wrote: post #572

I got into IT because of him mainly. When I was 12, where I was growing up I was the only one who knew what a computer is. I remember reading his story somewhere, then I got to my mom's computer at her office and read all I could find about his story. I wrote "Free Kevin Mitnick!" with a black marker on my tshirt and was walking around my town proudly wearing it. Nobody understood anything about it but it made me fee…

The movie Hackers and Kevin's story were two pinnacles of me getting into computers in 1997.

Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#579

Post by dang »

wittenbunk wrote: post #403
PostOnce wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the commenters expressing this bullshit sentiment will provide their children with 1% of the education, health, freedom, security, etc that Mitnick will have left for his child. We struggle our whole lives to provide, it looks like he already assured that for his family, even into perpetuity if managed well. It's not like he gave himself cancer on purpose and chose to leave a child with nothing out of spite.…

Right who needs a father figure when you have cash....

Please make your substantive points without snark. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Re: Kevin Mitnick has died

#580

Post by dang »

PostOnce wrote: post #265
wnissen wrote: post #31

He certainly was an interesting person. It was always amazing the degree to which law enforcement prosecuted his hacking and cracking, when it seems like much more impactful crimes involving computers go uninvestigated. Plenty of people are hounded by threats of violence into leaving their jobs and homes, that seems far more impactful than Mitnick's crimes. And FYI, while he died unexpectedly young, a 57-year-old man…

None of the commenters expressing this bullshit sentiment will provide their children with 1% of the education, health, freedom, security, etc that Mitnick will have left for his child. We struggle our whole lives to provide, it looks like he already assured that for his family, even into perpetuity if managed well. It's not like he gave himself cancer on purpose and chose to leave a child with nothing out of spite.…

Please make your substantive points without calling names. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
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