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Kevin Mitnick Hacked California Law in 1983

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Re: Kevin Mitnick Hacked California Law in 1983

#61

Alternative rank speculation: Kevin's parole officer liked him and knew that his superiors in an overworked system wouldn't bat an eye at his wrong interpretation of the law. So he played along, and his superiors didn't ask any questions. One less kid to keep up with (and a nonviolent one at that). If on the other hand Kevin's parole officer had been a dick, he would have told Kevin he wasn't allowed to do this. And…

If the description in the article is correct (I don’t know much about US law), it seems like a pretty solid argument and technicality. If the jurisdiction of the Youth Authority expires, there doesn’t seem to be much they can do.

The gamble is whether the regular prosecutor could charged him afterwards for something given what he did, and whether they would bother.

Re: Kevin Mitnick Hacked California Law in 1983

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2600 was amazing along with early phrack. @Efnet around that time was a lot of fun and learning.

2600 is alive through I don’t know how well lol. One of my favorite tshirts is the one they made with blue box schematics on the front and various Free Kevin news snippets on the back.

2600 is alive and well. I've been reading it for around 10 years and the quality has remained exceptional. It's very community oriented, welcoming new authors while also maintaining very high-quality regular columns. I find myself consistently surprised with what they get away with publishing. A lot of people arrested for hacking get limited access to the internet, so writing articles for a print zine like 2600 is the only way to get their stories out there. lots of really interesting tales of ingenious hacks, both in and out of jail. It's a great example of why we should fight to preserve the first amendment rights of prisoners which so often are being infringed these days. The classified section is also actually worth reading through, there's always some interesting new gadgets or devices and services.

The hacker perspective, that's what it's all about.

Re: Kevin Mitnick Hacked California Law in 1983

#63

Alternative rank speculation: Kevin's parole officer liked him and knew that his superiors in an overworked system wouldn't bat an eye at his wrong interpretation of the law. So he played along, and his superiors didn't ask any questions. One less kid to keep up with (and a nonviolent one at that). If on the other hand Kevin's parole officer had been a dick, he would have told Kevin he wasn't allowed to do this. And…

[deleted]

Re: Kevin Mitnick Hacked California Law in 1983

#64

Alternative rank speculation: Kevin's parole officer liked him and knew that his superiors in an overworked system wouldn't bat an eye at his wrong interpretation of the law. So he played along, and his superiors didn't ask any questions. One less kid to keep up with (and a nonviolent one at that). If on the other hand Kevin's parole officer had been a dick, he would have told Kevin he wasn't allowed to do this. And…

Juvenile courts (in CA) only have exclusive jurisdiction over crimes committed while a defendant was under 18 (except for those enumerated crimes for which juvies can be tried as adults), and maintain that jurisdiction for all proceedings related to that crime until the defendant turns 21, at which point the juvenile court proceedings terminate by law.

Adult courts have jurisdiction over defendants for crimes committed as an adult (generally 18, though as young as 16 for specific crimes).

The arrest warrant was issued when Mitnick was 21 and on parole, or in other words, for a violation committed as an adult. While the arrest warrant was issued by the juvie court, it could have been issued by the adult court, as both courts would have had jurisdiction over the crime for which the arrest warranted was issued.

So the lawyer was right, because the statute of limitations for the adult court was tolled while Mitnick fled the jurisdiction. And the parole officer was also right, because the juvie court which issued the warrant would have lost jurisdiction over Mitnick once he turned 21.

Juvie court is way nicer than adult court. Mitnick "hacked" the system and only got away with it because prosecutors decided to focus their efforts on more serious crimes. But he could easily have ended up in prison for a few years.

Re: Kevin Mitnick Hacked California Law in 1983

#65
post #19

As someone with a software development background, I always found legal language very interesting. It is like a very verbose, programming language. All sorts of words and phrases have very specific meanings that, when arranged in a certain order, produce specific, reproducible outcomes. Sections of contracts and laws reference other sections by name and reference, and the whole document (or set of documents) gets int…

I have felt this way as well and wonder why we can't encode laws into some sort of machine code and study it, test it, iterate it, debug it, and optimize it like we do with computer programs.

> encode laws into some sort of machine code

Don't need to encode it in some sort of machine code. Just need a git repo with the law so we can submit a PR to the CA assembly and get this fixed.

Re: Kevin Mitnick Hacked California Law in 1983

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as hacker cons go, Defcon is not CCC Defcon is basically run by a gang that values loyalty and dedication above most things.. which has historically low standards of ethics for their goons and attendees (albeit has improved somewhat over the years)

>Defcon is basically run by a gang No, Derby was run by a gang. (The 303 could probably be RICO'd) I cannot confirm or deny that Defcon is where the event occured, especially since it was technically just an event at a casino, as many things occuring on the same days as Defcon occur. >a gang that values loyalty and dedication above most things.. which has historically low standards of ethics for their goons and atten…

CCC was a lot of fun. At the time there was a special package for people from the US for hostel+admission so that no one would be stuck with airfare and no ticket. Had a great time, ended up talking the night away at the hostel bar with the keynote speaker and didn't realize who it was. (not creepy, just fun hacker talk)

Re: Kevin Mitnick Hacked California Law in 1983

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you have a link or reference to the paper or talk, please?

Possibly could be this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EshxZVMURt4 https://popl18.sigplan.org/details/POPL-2018-papers/3/Formal... The city is Los Angeles, though the content doesn't seem to match precisely what was mentioned. I found this via a Google search for `conference convert legal phrases into code "theorem" bug`, which returned the following paper: https://hal.inria.fr/hal-03159939v2/document I then checked…

Yes, it's the POPL talk. Thanks for digging it up for me. I had a nice conversation with her after her talk about her work.

Re: Kevin Mitnick Hacked California Law in 1983

#68
post #58

See also: the Yellowstone Zone of Death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_Death_(Yellowstone)

> Belderrain cited Kalt's paper "The Perfect Crime" to explain why he believed it was illegal to have his trial with a jury from a state other than where the crime was committed. The court dismissed this argument.

There's a lot of argument going on about what side of the line this is on, but in the end it seems like courts can just say "we don't care" and do whatever they want?

Re: Kevin Mitnick Hacked California Law in 1983

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2600 was amazing along with early phrack. @Efnet around that time was a lot of fun and learning.

Is IRC still a thing and if so what's a good one to join? (I always avoided it for... uh... "opsec" but realizing I might be missing out on some things...)

IRC is still a thing. There's a certain kind of IRC user who will never allow themselves to use Discord or Slack...

Re: Kevin Mitnick Hacked California Law in 1983

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as hacker cons go, Defcon is not CCC Defcon is basically run by a gang that values loyalty and dedication above most things.. which has historically low standards of ethics for their goons and attendees (albeit has improved somewhat over the years)

>Defcon is basically run by a gang No, Derby was run by a gang. (The 303 could probably be RICO'd) I cannot confirm or deny that Defcon is where the event occured, especially since it was technically just an event at a casino, as many things occuring on the same days as Defcon occur. >a gang that values loyalty and dedication above most things.. which has historically low standards of ethics for their goons and atten…

>I don't want to kiss ass to war criminals.

Context?

>I never felt welcome at Defcon, it was like being in high school at the pool table

They are like any clique but taken to the extreme. To me what's interesting is seeing how people change over time as they get older. What is old is new again, until you get married and have kids. A lot of white knights in the community as well who hide dirty secrets and make big noise about other people to deflect attention from themselves.

I've had someone legit tell me they didn't want to associate with me implying that it was bad for business despite the fact they helped me personally financially. The message between the lines was that somehow, they thought I was going to cause issues with attendance in their classes or association. Meanwhile, they are probably the most prominent member of the community. Absolutely ridiculous grandstanding.

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