Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

thedrive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 173 posts

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#71

Post by tmach32 »

nunley wrote: post #32

I'm going to defend Kevin here because I see a lot of comments from people I am sure have no valid reason to be hating on him. Kevin was particularly annoying because he never failed to penetrate a target. The reason that's annoying is it just takes one slip, one weak point, one inattentive admin and it's over. People will stay mad about that. I get it. But those who say he had no talent are just ignorant. His goal w…

Yeah, I am shocked a little, because he wasn't a monster or something. Critique is valid, but speaking with obvious resentment and disrespect about someone who died is pretty gross. Again, unless they're, like, a _monster_.

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#72

Post by deepsun »

topham wrote: post #11
mcfunley wrote: post #6

I worked at a company that had hired Mitnick as a security consultant. His report for a client that turned out to have been rife with SQL injection at the time was largely movie plot physical security stuff. Not wrong exactly, but not the center mass of the threat model they needed either. He seemed to lack systems thinking, producing a report that focused on calling out specific employees as dumb or incompetent. Cou…

The hero worship of him makes me physically ill, always has. He did cost people their jobs though, so I guess he's a good person.

It's like we don't have any messiah's today that are mediocre professionals at best.

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#74

Post by Barrin92 »

nunley wrote: post #55
Barrin92 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But those who say he had no talent are just ignorant. I don't think anyone says he had no talent, what rubs people the wrong way is that the thing he had talent for is the same thing that the people have who try to scam call your grandmother out of her pension money. You can be the world's greatest burglar, you're still a burglar. The whole cringy "social engineering" thing turned media persona and consulting busine…

That's just nonsense. First of all, social engineering was a small part of his work, and it's OK that you don't know that. But your totally blatant ignorance of what his career covered is exactly what I'm talking about. Look, I know that people form their opinions in a bubble. All I am saying here is you should expand your bubble. You know nothing about Kev. Again, that's OK, but it also means you should try to under…

His (or other peoples) treatment in the US prison system is another matter and often cruel, but no he didn't conduct himself like a good person in regards to his 'hacking'. He committed wire fraud, he impersonated people, he exfiltrated sensitive credit card information from thousands of people.

That's not just curious, that's not something we all did when we were young, those were legitimate crimes and they still are for good reason. He had a big part in popularizing the image that a hacker, rather than someone who writes software for the public good, is someone who tricks other people and steals personal data.

And no I wouldn't be proud if I ran phishing scams and stole IP from random companies, I wouldn't monetize that, I'd say I'm sorry which from reading his books at least I don't think he ever was.

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#75

Post by Gibbon1 »

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #68
DonHopkins wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Wow. Get help.

When I think back to when I was 10 and every boy I knew idolized Norris and I instinctively hated his guts I feel better about myself.

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#76

Post by kmoser »

> He put himself on the proverbial map in 1979 by dialing into a software company’s server and copying its forthcoming operating system release in its entirety. Imagine convincing a Microsoft server to cough over an early copy of Windows 12 using little more than a phone number.

Windows 12 was in development back in 1979? I think that timeline is a bit off.

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#77

Post by rixed »

bawolff wrote: post #51
mcfunley wrote: post #6

I worked at a company that had hired Mitnick as a security consultant. His report for a client that turned out to have been rife with SQL injection at the time was largely movie plot physical security stuff. Not wrong exactly, but not the center mass of the threat model they needed either. He seemed to lack systems thinking, producing a report that focused on calling out specific employees as dumb or incompetent. Cou…

Isn't he famous for social engineering/physical security type things? If you hire an expert in X, you are probably going to get X.

Isn't he famous for getting caught?

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#78

Post by teo_zero »

rixed wrote: post #77
bawolff wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't he famous for social engineering/physical security type things? If you hire an expert in X, you are probably going to get X.

Isn't he famous for getting caught?

Getting caught didn't make him a superstar. Telling his techniques in books and public speeches did.

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#79

Post by NitpickLawyer »

kmoser wrote: post #76

> He put himself on the proverbial map in 1979 by dialing into a software company’s server and copying its forthcoming operating system release in its entirety. Imagine convincing a Microsoft server to cough over an early copy of Windows 12 using little more than a phone number. Windows 12 was in development back in 1979? I think that timeline is a bit off.

The first phrase is what he did. The second phrase asks you to imagine how silly that sounds in today's world. (i.e. imagine that all it took back then was a phone number)

Kevin was from a different time. Back then security wasn't even an afterthought. He was exploring the shiny new thing of digital worlds, with an attacker mindset, and that was new at the time (and quite unique to a small set of humans back then).

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#80

Post by wjnc »

skeaker wrote: post #25
mcfunley wrote: post #6

I worked at a company that had hired Mitnick as a security consultant. His report for a client that turned out to have been rife with SQL injection at the time was largely movie plot physical security stuff. Not wrong exactly, but not the center mass of the threat model they needed either. He seemed to lack systems thinking, producing a report that focused on calling out specific employees as dumb or incompetent. Cou…

In all fairness, a genuine attacker WILL be abrasive and abusive. They WILL single out employees that are gullible and exploit them. It's not pretty because a genuine attack is not pretty. Of course a simulated attack will be indecent and discourteous in nature, that is how attacks are.

Yeah, this is a part about itsec I don’t understand in my firm. They run social engineering tests, but never notify management when individuals fail, only in general terms. While being psyopped needs to be activelly discussed among coworkers imho.
Post reply on HN