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

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

#41

Post by murderfs »

esikich wrote: post #37
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…

"He didn't breach us the way we wanted him to do it so it was dumb." Idk man, sounds like you locked your doors but left the windows open. That's the point of these things.

"a client that turned out to have been rife with SQL injection" sounds more like they left the doors open, but the report focused on the lack of security bars on the windows.

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

#42

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#43

Post by mcfunley »

esikich wrote: post #37
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…

"He didn't breach us the way we wanted him to do it so it was dumb." Idk man, sounds like you locked your doors but left the windows open. That's the point of these things.

The point is really after working through remediations, there were pretty massive issues remaining that weren’t hard to find and were relatively vastly easier to exploit if the attacker is a Russian teen and not Bruce Lee. And the budget for such things was blown. Priorities, etc

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

#44

Post by devmor »

kstrauser wrote: post #4
kkaske wrote: post #2

I'm old enough to remember all the "Free Kevin" gifs scattered around the internet. This helps to fill in some of the details. It's a really nice story showing the humanity that can be found in situations when you look close.

At DEF CON and related events now, you commonly see stickers saying "PUT KEVIN BACK".

From what I can tell, defcon is largely law enforcement and companies that sell to them these days, so I'm not surprised at all to hear that.

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

#45

Post by kstrauser »

devmor wrote: post #44
kstrauser wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At DEF CON and related events now, you commonly see stickers saying "PUT KEVIN BACK".

From what I can tell, defcon is largely law enforcement and companies that sell to them these days, so I'm not surprised at all to hear that.

I keep hearing that cynical, and wrong, dismissal but have zero idea where it comes from. Yes, there are cops. Some .govs even have booths in the info areas. The stated idea is that it's a good thing when cops and hackers can hang out and discuss ideas and opinions outside of interrogation rooms, and I agree with that.

That's miles away from "largely law enforcement" though. I talked to an FBI agent at PyCon but people aren't claiming it's a LEO convention.

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

#46

Post by lnxg33k1 »

firefax wrote: post #26
colechristensen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He got all of the "Free Kevin" attention because of how long he was left in jail before trial and then being stuck in solitary confinement after sentencing for months. If he had been treated fairly by the justice system he wouldn't have gotten nearly as much attention. He was also autistic, a lot of the behavior can be explained through that lens.

>He got all of the "Free Kevin" attention because of how long he was left in jail before trial and then being stuck in solitary confinement after sentencing for months. That was uncalled for on the part of DOJ. >He was also autistic, a lot of the behavior can be explained through that lens. I'm autistic. Maybe I should go commit a bunch of felonies to increase my chances of a good job and stature in the hacker commun…

It's good that somewhere the quality of work is rewarded more than the quantity

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

#47

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#48

Post by uberex »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #17
TurdF3rguson wrote: post #9

I heard he can launch nukes by whistling into a pay phone.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but that sounds more like Chuck Norris. Wait ... no fists involved. My mistake.

With Chuck Norris, the nukes whistle at him, just to keep on his good side.

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

#50

Post by olalonde »

I did not realize Mitnick had passed away, very sad. I first learned about him as a kid through the book Takedown, and his exploits definitely fueled my early fascination with computers and hacking. It's heartwarming to see how he later befriended Shawn Nunley, though it's unfortunate that he and Shimomura apparently never buried the hatchet. He undoubtedly influenced an entire generation of hackers, RIP.
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