“Mitnick, the Mumia Abu-Jamal of the hacker world who inspired a “Free Kevin” movement, was imprisoned for four and a half years, beginning in February 1995, before he was finally sentenced to 46 months in 1999, with some credit for time already served. Part of that time he was held in solitary confinement and without bail because the government feared he had the ability to detonate a nuclear weapon simply by whistling a tone through a phone. He was released in 2000.”
Man, this guy first inspired me to start doing er… “security research” when I was back at uni. My first ever linux box, my first forays into the murky underbelly of C sockets and how the intarwebs are routed, all because of him. Or was it because of Winnuke… oh well. The Wired article says he’s releasing a book!
“Kevin Mitnick: It’s pretty much my autobiography, the story of my years as a hacker and a fugitive told from my point of view–starting out from my younger years in telephone phreaking when I was 11-years-old, to my arrest, to my post-arrest career as a security professional. There’s going to be a lot of information revealed about hacks I pulled off. The statute of limitations has lifted on a lot of that stuff, so now I can talk about it publicly.”
Looks like an interesting read. This guy is a genuine hacking legend.
