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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+(OP)
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>>larryw+(OP)
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+t1
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.

>>sshd+g1
Blockchain

>>iJohnD+t1
Meh. It 'ain't braggin' if it's true. Worked with Tsutomo on some projects. Dude has an extremely keen analytical mind. Mitnick on the other hand had an excellent grasp of human intellectual frailty. I was always surprised people expected Tsutomo to be some amazingly empathetic mensch and Mitnick to be some uber mentat wizzard.

Each was quite good within their speciality, and kinda crappy in the other's. And that's totally okay.

>>larryw+(OP)
He started at company called Neofocal which had some really cool LED products. He also has had some health issues of his own to deal with. I last talked with him about 5 years ago in 2018.

>>iJohnD+t1
I've known him since the time of the events in his book, and can confirm. He was (and still is) an insufferable jerk. Not only does he self aggrandize himself in his book and web site, he pointlessly denigrates and takes down and insults the intelligence of his own colleagues in order to make himself look better (but the net effect was the opposite that he intended). And his book was a work of fiction. Nobody in their right mind would still want to work with him, especially after what happened with his LED company. I know somebody who made the mistake of working with him, and the costly lawsuits and recriminations between them have been dragging on for years, but Tsutomu's clearly the one who was at fault.

>>larryw+37
"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.

>>ChuckM+1q
It's mired in lawsuits due to him being a jerk, so nobody's ever using any of those really cool LED products.

It's not that he dropped out of sight, it's that nobody wanted to work with him after reading his book.

>>larryw+(OP)
Alas the book (and the movie) were trash, rather like Shimomura. Anyone who knew Kevin, knew that Takedown was egotistical BS.

If you really want to know about "the pursuit of Mitnick," watch Freedom Downtime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Downtime

https://archive.org/details/FreedomDowntime-TheStoryOfKevinM...

>>DonHop+qq
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.