What in the world. That's really young to go. I really did not expect this guy, being just one generation away, to have died.
Kevin Mitnick has died
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Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#82Reading how he did social engineering was a huge influence on me... basically, taught me how to interact with normies.
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#83dang / mods: if anyone passing deserves the HN black banner, I think Mitnick deserves the banner.
100% agreed.
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#84Serious question: why revere Mitnick, but not someone like SBF? Mitnick is admired for his technical skill and social engineering prowess, but the same argument could be made that SBF is also exceptional in this regard on an even larger scale. Both are (alleged) criminals. Genuinely curious what makes Mitnick morally good in the eyes of HN. Was it his redemption arc as a “white hat”?
The term "hacker" describes someone skilled at tricking systems into doing what they can't. Mitnick was not only one of the first popular hackers he also had many famous exploits. His arrest was a major rallying cry for the hacker community at large (now known as the overly corporate "infosec community"). There's no redemption arc. You do not need to do what society considers "good" to be considered righteous.
There's no such thing as objective moral and ethical good. To me, Mitnick is a hero deserving of the highest praise. He inspired myself and many others to get started in this world. It may be difficult to understand if you didn't come into computers in the late 80s/90s.
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#85Pardon my tasteless skepticism, but are we sure this isn't a social engineering trick of his yet?
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#86Oh man, oh man. This is heart-breaking. Even though I never met Kevin IRL, he was always something of a.. well, maybe not a "role model" exactly, but certainly an inspiring character in many regards. Some of my earliest forays into the world of phone phreaking and related activities were inspired by the stories I read about Mitnick and his crew out in LA, in Markoff and Haffner's book Cyberpunk . For a while me and s…
Everything Markoff ever wrote was untrue. https://youtu.be/3zgLHEqIlJg?t=528
Yep. I'm familiar with the issues around the veracity of that book. That isn't really the point. Back in 1995 that was pretty much all we had to go on, and Mitnick still became a hero to a bunch of us.
In the subsequent years I've read all of Kevin's books, as well as pretty much all the other books written about his life, and watched the various movies and documentaries that dealt with his story. It seems like Markoff was kind of a dick and frankly contributed to some of Kevin's problems. Sad. :-(
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#87He 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…
Doesn't that statistic depend heavily on how old the child is to begin with?
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Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#88[flagged]
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#89He 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.
How many men are having their first child at 57? I’ll be well under 57 when my oldest child is 23.
Re: Kevin Mitnick has died
#90The 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 KnowBe4 and became one of the few whales still funneling massive amounts to the church.
I found out about the connection between Stu and Kevin while I was working as a developer for a tech company. One day we started getting those security tips and tricks emails, white labeled so they looked like they came from our own AppSec team. At the end of the emails it ended with the line “the price of freedom is constant alertness, constant willingness to fight back”. A direct quote from L Ron Hubbard and one Scientologists (and former Scientologists like me) know well. After digging deeper I found out they were coming from KnowBe4 and saw Kevin listed on the site as being a partner.
Business relationship aside, after reading Ghost, you get the sense that Kevin would not and could not stop hacking. Maybe he matured and that urge dulled but I always wondered if he ever did some covert snooping into what Stu was up to with Scientology. The Sea Org computer and communication systems are ancient (they still use pagers for some things!). It would have been a blast for someone like him to compromise their systems. And they are right there in Clearwater down the road from KnowBe4 headquarters…
Posting with throwaway because I ain’t tryna win a covert Scientology harassment and stalking op and have my family disown me which happens to virtually every former member who speaks out publicly.