zlacker

>>thirty+(OP)
I was not aware he was ill. Always sad to hear people that are taken by cancer.

I didn't know Kevin, but am friends with Tsutomu Shimomura who worked with authorities to get him arrested. Tsutomu worked with me a bit when I was at Sun trying to get a cryptographically secure subsystem into the base system specification. It was fun to listen to his side of this story.

The 80's was a really weird time for computer enthusiasts, and it was the period of time when what was then considered the "hacker" community schismed into what today we might call "white hat" vs "black hat" hackers.

As a person who considered themselves to be part of that community I was personally offended by how the story of Kevin painted everyone who thought of themselves as a "hacker" as a criminal. It made for good story telling to make these folks "pirate" or perhaps more accurately "privateer" types in their swashbuckling ways of sticking it to the man. People would say, "Exposing security holes is like solving puzzles (which is fun) and important because if I don't do it, well somebody 'bad' will." And while I'm here, why not make it hurt for them a little bit to incentivize them to fix this problem quickly!"

I didn't disagree with the importance of pointing out security problems, but the flamboyant way it was done scared the crap out of people who were both clueless and in a position to do stupid things. As a result we got the CFAA and the DMCA which are both some of the most ridiculous pieces of legislation after the so called "patriot" act.

The damage that did to curious people growing up lost the US a significant fraction of their upcoming "innovation" talent. While not diminishing the folks who leaned in to the illegality of it.

>>ChuckM+Jd
I really enjoyed the book Takedown, about Shimomura's pursuit of Mitnick - I must have read it three or four times. I always wondered what happened to Shimomura, since he just seemed to drop out of sight after that book came out.

>>larryw+Ng
Shimomura was an egotistical asshole at the time. However, he was younger then and can hopefully acknowledge he was still learning about himself and wasn’t all-wise yet.

I hope Shimomura can realize that Mitnick made him a better version of himself, both personally and professionally.

>>iJohnD+gi
His ego came through a bit in the book, but honestly that's a fairly common trait for young guys. I am also quite aware that the book only presents one side of the story and that Mitnick had quite a different perspective. I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle. My enjoyment of the book was much more about the process they used to track him down, and the detailed description of them building tools to aid in the process, rather than the people involved.

>>larryw+Qn
"A bit"? You think so? At the time, Tsutomu was enough of an adult to know not to be such an asshole, but that didn't stop him one bit.

Fuck the "boys will be boys" defense, and the people who still try to defend reprehensible behavior (and ultimately their own) by trotting out that old sexist canard.

>>DonHop+dH
I’m not defending the behavior, just saying that it didn’t detract from the parts of the book that I enjoyed.

I did find the inclusion of so many details of his romantic life a bit odd. It’s not that they were graphic or anything, there was just a lot of it and it didn’t have anything to do with the subject of the book.