dang / mods: if anyone passing deserves the HN black banner, I think Mitnick deserves the banner.
I second in backing this request. 1+ pls give black banner.
Kevin Mitnick has died
71–80 of 666 posts
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#72Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#73He 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…
> a 57-year-old man in the US has only a 50% chance of living to see their child reach 23 years of age Perhaps a clearer way to put it: a 57-year-old man in the US has a 50% chance of living to 80, which doesn't seem quite as shocking of a statement.
yo if people like looked at an actuarial table they'd have a better idea what that means
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#74Mitnick 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…
How would he have known the CEO's bank account number? Did the CEO write him a check at some point? Or maybe a bank's CEO traditionally gets account number 1…
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#75Storytime:
He randomly came over for dinner while cruising around LA with a friend of a friend, aaages ago... asked if I had a disposable tablecloth, luckily yes. Orders like 10 entrees/appetizers/desserts for delivery for just the 3 of us.
Over a few hours picking at food, drinking case of beer etc., the entire table was covered in tech gibberish, diagrams, code etc. Really wish I saved that, but at the time I was like "who IS this guy?" and it was a disgusting mess. I do recall appreciating that level of openness and bonding, and have never had such an experience with anyone else like that in the industry since then.
RIP
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#76[flagged]
I don't normally get inflammatory but you are a consummate moron.
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#77Like the Gerber baby, the symbol people recognized didn't necessarily have that much to do with the actual person. RIP dude.
I didn't know him personally, do you have any stories you can share?
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#78Wow. He was only 59. I've always loved his lockpicking business card: https://www.mitnicksecurity.com/kevin-mitnicks-famous-lockpi... While I assume this is real, part of me does feel like a combination of how young he is and who is is leads me to be slightly skeptical. Assuming it's real, hopefully he would have appreciated the skepticism.
damn i missed this! do you know if its possible to still get one of those???
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#79Like the Gerber baby, the symbol people recognized didn't necessarily have that much to do with the actual person. RIP dude.
The....Gerber Baby? Is there a story there? She seems pretty normal and pleasant from her Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Turner_Cook
It doesn’t matter who the Gerber Baby really is. Society has chosen to associate the Gerber Baby with certain attributes regardless of who the person behind the photo really is, and so it is with Kevin Mitnick. Mitnick, the real person, excelled at social engineering more than any other trait and was arguably subjected to malicious prosecution. But in his later years, there’s a lot of documentation online indicating that he didn’t live up to the myth that grew around him and he was not a pleasant person [1].
People here are mostly reminiscing about Mitnick--the myth, not the man.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/cybersecurity/comments/uk6wgd/why_d...
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#80I can't say enough about how influential Kevin has been in every decade, continually staying at the head of the snake of hacking. I am so lucky not just for how he inspired me in my youth, but how he relit the fire of security paranoia in the last decade when I was fortunate to work for an organization he hacked (by contract).
All software engineers are now more vulnerable with Kevin gone. Stay paranoid friends, now more than ever.