About : standard furniture high point nc
Title : standard furniture high point nc
standard furniture high point nc
all we can do is try to publicize the facts. not what the government is saying,but the facts. and not simply parrot or regurgitate... what the government's saying,because that's largely bullshit. lt was the dead of winter. l don't remember it ever being so cold. and we were on a mission. a bunch of us had volunteeredto drive our good friend to his new home... the schuylkill federal prisonin the middle of pennsylvania.
he called himself phiber optik. you'd have to look hard to find someonewho didn't think he was brilliant. before we left, we had a night of fun... in the streets of philadelphia,in the middle of an ice storm. phiber learned by exploring. he was never too busy to explain... howthings worked to anyone interested. l think that's what pissed ofthe authorities the most. they never tried to prove thatphiber optik hacked into any computers.
they got him for conspiracy... for talking on a tapped phone line... about howto hack certain sites. there were people who broke into systems... and fucked things up,and they never even got arrested. the feds didn't care. they wanted to shut down the teachers,the people who didn't knowto keep secrets. there's bernie s. he's another guy who loves to explain...
howtechnology worksto anyone who's interested. he didn't know it, but hellwas just around the corner waiting for him. we made one last stopbefore we dropped phiber off. lt was a town called frackville. we thought it was funny becauseof a hacker newsletter called phrack. we thought it'd make a good picturefor the hacker community. but bernie had the ballsto get a frackville cop... to pose with phiber. these guys had no cluewhat was going on...
but they quickly got into the spirit. lt was the last time we laughed that night. we drove to the prison. lt felt like it was 20 degrees below zero. we didn't knowthey'd throw him in the hole... for the entire weekend.some kind of prison welcoming ceremony. and like the gullible idiots we were... we figured we'd have a chanceto say goodbye. we didn't.
they grabbed him. and we had to run out of thereto keep them from taking our camera. phiber came home 10 months later, a hero. everyone knewsending someone like that to prison... was a big mistake. after it was over, we were pretty sureit wouldn't happen again. were we ever wrong. bad boys gone to jail look at you, boy, you've come of age
and now you're going aroundsaying you're a bad boy you say that you'll never go to jail 'cause you're so bad and you cannot fail oh bad boyoh rude boy oh bad boygots to believe me oh bad boyhere is how you fail gots to believe me one time you went to town just to fool around you met a girl who was wearing a frown
you going around, boasting, feeling bad now you're sitting in jail don't you feel so sad this is like the crudest formof communication l've ever had to do. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. l just saw something. was that you? well, we can see your hand. l doubt you can stick your whole headthrough the window splotch your face up against the window
we'll know it's the right one,we can at least zoom in on it. kevin mitnick, the world's most dangerouscomputer hacker. my regret about cyberpunkis talking about kevin... and how he was always eatingand how he was overweight. people have really gotten on my caseabout that. some guy came up to meat anaustin book thing and said: ''why did you go on and onabout kevin's weight?'' and he was right. l did that to the pointwhere it just wasn't tasteful.
where it was sort of... just beating an issuethat didn't need to be beaten. for a periodafter he was arrested, incarcerated... and released into a halfway house... l couldn't find a single article... that talked about himwithout mentioning his weight. and the real fascination with kevin's body... and its relationship to technology.. is one of the thingsthat absolutely hooked me.
l found a number of articles in time,newsweek, and the new york times... written by people like markoffand joshua quittner and so on. and they would saykevin was in a halfway house... where he no longer touched a computer,and lost 100 pounds. as if those two things were connected. 1988, usa today... put his picture on the front page... morphed or superimposedwith the image of darth vader. and l thought this isa remarkable combination of two things...
and it's really picking up on the ideaof the dark side hacker. lf ever there was someonewho fit that description, it was kevin. the mention of his name was enoughto incur the wrath of the authorities. over the years, his reputation grewand so did the falsehoods. ln numerous articles, kevin was said to havebroken into norad... harassed actress kristy mcnichol... and turned his friends'home phones into payphones. his beginning was on ham radio. and on ham radio,it's a close-knit community.
a couple of dozen people at the moston a particular repeater or channel. and, you know,they would get into challenges. and, of course,mitnick would be the underdog. ''let's challenge him, let's do this and that.'' when he met their challenges,they'd start crying and screaming... as if they were innocentvictims of kevin's. this has been the case throughout. and then peoplewould start unfairly using... other contacts that they had.
ln one case there was a lieutenantor commander in the lapd.... one ham radio operatorwho was a friend of his... got him to write a letter saying kevinwas interfering with lapd communications. and all sorts of crazy things in his past. cyberpunk was published in 1991... by katie hafnerand then-husband john markof... and relied almost entirelyon the words of people... who kevin had had a falling out with... as well as those who didn't know him at all.
hafner and markoff never talked to kevin,because he wanted to be paid for his time. but it didn't take much to dispel the rumors. norad denied any break-ins... kristy mcnichol had no ideashe was being harassed... and no evidence ever surfacedof any payphone conversions. but none of this ever got printed. kevin's name was enough to convict him,regardless of the actual evidence. and then there was security pacific. after being hired,kevin had once again been terminated...
because of the stories that followed him. and this resulted inyet another mitnick myth being born. there was a newswire article coming outthat stated... that security pacifichad lost billions of dollars or something... in bad loans... which would have affected their stock price. that was actually tracked downto some error... that someone madein entering the information. lt had nothing to do with it not being true...
but it was an error that someone madein entering the information. lmmediately, because there wereemployees at security pacific... that knew kevin mitnick,including one ham radio operator... immediately that was attributed to,''kevin mitnick did this.'' and that's howthat rumor spread. l'd seen this all before. hackers were always getting blamedfor things they didn't do. ln many casesfor things that weren't even possible. lt was obvioussomebody had to set the record straight...
somebody who would command respect. hackers break into governmentand business computers... stealing and destroying information... raiding bank accounts,running up credit card charges... extorting money by threatsto unleash computer viruses. whoa, hold on a second. what was this guy reading?the weekly world news? hackers don't steal and extort,they play with all kinds of things. like those simplex lockson the fedex boxes.
ln typical corporate brainpower... fedex uses the same combinationon every drop box in the country. lt's fun to stick somethingreally big in there... that couldn't possibly fit in the chutejust to fuck with the guy and he got some cheap beer out of it too. lf you go somewhereyou're not supposed to be... and bring something back to show people... that always struck meas being a whole lot like a panty raid. and you know, panty raids are really...
in the grandest tradition of this country try to make your way in there... get the stuff, and get back out with itwithout getting your head cut of. what we're doing here is we're talking... on mcdonald's external speakerfor their drive-thru. and what we're doing to do that... is we have a modified ham radio... meaning it transmits on frequenciesother than the ones it was intended to. ln this case,it's standard business band frequencies.
154.6 megahertz seems to bethe standard mcdonald's frequency l'll take your order. the blonde, would you pleasekneel down for a second? could one of you take off your tops?we'll give you the food for free. you bastards, you better stop being smart. -here comes the manager.-really? while corporateamericawould always be the playground of hackers... it was mostly about fun and exploration,not damage or profit. but try telling that to corporateamerica.
kevin mitnick had already paida heavy price for his curiosity. he had served a year-and-a-half in 1988... for logging into dec computerswithout authorization. by simply lookingat the vms operating system... dec claimed he causedmillions of dollars in damage... and was sentenced as if he had causedthat amount of physical damage. he was held without bail and was putin solitary confinement for eight months... because they thought he could domore damage from the prison payphone. after his sentence, kevin servedthree years of supervised release...
reporting to authorities every month... and being restricted in where he could goand what he could do. he only had days to gowhen federal authorities decided... he had violated the termsof his supervised release... by associating with lewis depayne... and accessing someone's voice mailwithout permission. lt was nothing. but it was enough. knowing howthe mediaand the court system...
would crucify him over any offense... because he could start world war lllfrom a payphone... kevin decided to just walk away. l was devastated. we were never far away from each other. and how was he living on his own... without his family to share things with? lt was horrible. what kind of a life is this?
he is not streetwise. he's a home person. kevin managed to avoid attention. then, on july 4, 1994, everything changed. a front page story in the newyork times... turned kevin mitnick into a household wordall over again. the evil-looking picture... the mythical storiesabout breaking into norad computers... and controlling all the telephonesin california...
even the security pacific news release talewas retold as fact. nobody could figure out howthe storymade it onto the front page ofthe times... since there was nothing new in the story but the author was no stranger.john markoff... who was quickly becoming a mitnick expertwithout ever having met him. we looked at the storyas an amusement back then. we were planning the first hackers onplanet earth conference thataugust. the story had gotten so big thatwe all walked around with mitnick masks. they came here to the hotel pennsylvaniaby the hundreds.
these usually anonymous creaturesof the cyberworld... better known as hackers,were holding a convention. throughout that weekend,kevin called in several times to say hi. we all wished he could be there. but we knew why he was running. one of the things markoffhadn't mentioned in his article... was the eight monthsof solitary confinement. the guy was in solitary confinementfor eight months. think about it.
l mean, that would definitely change a man. you would run.you wouldn't want that. lt was eight months, not for anything he did,but because the judge was scared. and if you get someonewho is that unaware... of actually what he can doand thinks he can destroy the world. lf you have someonewho has enough power... to put you in solitary confinementyou will run. lt makes perfect sense to me. l think it's part hype...
part hysteria, part lack of understanding... and part fear. solitary confinement means no books... no pencil, no paper, no company. nothing to do... but stare at these small four walls. he would get out one hour a day.. and that's it. you know, he might whistle upsome missile launch codes.
that's a big problemwith hackers nowadays. they get a little pissed offand they launch some nukes by whistling. the fear factor is just insane. once or twice or maybe more,l can't even remember... they didn't even bring him downto the visitors' room. they took my daughter and l... upstairs to a floor... that wasn't occupied at that time. we were the only ones there and the guard.
they were hovering over him... as though he was an absolute monster what could he possibly do, you know? could he make... a computer out of the telephone? l don't know what they were afraid of! first of all, he had no desire to. secondly, it wouldn't haveaccomplished anything. thirdly, he couldn't do it.
kevin managed to elude the authoritiesinto the next year. then, on february 15, 1995... they found him in raleigh, north carolina. the fbl's most-wanted computer hackeris behind bars. kevin mitnick was jailed without bondin raleigh, north carolina... where he was arrested this week. he's accused of breaking intocorporate computers nationwide. private computer experts sayso many other hackers are at work... that privacy is virtually impossible.
the fbl had managed to track kevin... with the help of a mysteriouscomputer expert, tsutomu shimomura... who, along with some friendshad managed to track... kevin's cellular phone signalto the apartment he was staying in. one of shimomura's friends who was therewhile the signal was being traced... was none other than john markoff... who wrote an even biggerfront page story this time. sure enough, l opened the door,the next day... to the hotel room,and there was the times outside the door.
and l picked it up and l just thought,''oh, my god.'' this article had a new list of thingsthat kevin had supposedly done... including breaking intoshimomura's ultra-secure computer... leaving nasty voice mail messages... and stealing 20,000 credit card numbers... something that was mentionedin the first paragraph on the front page. but 13 paragraphs later, on page d17... it was revealed that he had never usedany of them. they were credit card numbersthat had been left lying around...
by lnternet service provider netcomfor almost a year. netcom credit card file,everybody had that file. lf you didn't have that file, you were a loser. hundreds of people had that,they swapped it around like bubble gum. and then they claim that he's the onewho did it, he's the one that had it... when that was floating around for monthsbefore he theoretically had it. everybody and his sister'sgot a million credit card numbers. what's the big deal?lt's a meaningless thing to have. what l want to know...
is did he threaten anybody in any way? did he claim he was going to dosome particular set of harm? are there any notebooksthat showed he had plans... to conspire to commit any particular thing... other than humiliatingtsutomu shimomura... which any idiot who's ever met shimomuracould have told him... this was not the guy to mess with. l met shimomura once. the first time l met shimomurawas in front of congress.
and l was testifyingto a congressional subcommittee... and there's this guy... in sandals and, like, ragged-ass cutofs. and the rest of us are done up in ties... it's me and theattorney generalfrom new jersey. and we're sitting there, giving our best''yes, we're in front of congress'' thing. and shimomura is there in this surfer gear. and he pulls thisat&t cell phone... pulls it out of the shrink-wrap,finger-hacks it...
and starts monitoring phone calls... going up and down capitol hill... while an fbl agentis standing at his shoulder listening to him. l'm like, ''this fucker's got ballsthe size of durian fruit.'' you know, this is unbelievable.this is the heaviest guy l've ever seen. l mean, he's hacking, right? he was finger-hacking this phonein front of congress... with two fbl agentsand john gage from sun microsystems... in the room with him.and l was like,''wow,'' you know.
l mean, l was impressed. lnside of a week, shimomura and markoffhad signed a book deal... estimated to be worth $750,000. lt would be another 19 monthsbefore kevin would even be indicted. the book, entitledtakedown,was finished by the end of the year. when l read it, l was aghast. lt was tsutomu'seating and skateboarding habits. l'd been to a lot of the restaurantshe'd been to... but l didn't need a hacker bookto tell me about them.
takedown. well.... l don't what l want to say abouttakedown. takedown was not well received. 1996 came and went as did 1997. kevin remained in prisonwithout even a bail hearing... and no prospect of a trial anytime soon. a25-count indictmentaccused him of nothing more serious... than lying on the telephoneabout who he was... and copying software which henever tried to sell or even distribute.
nothing about hackinginto shimomura's machine... or having 20,000 credit card numbers... nothing that would have appearedin a john markoff story. north carolina had also charged himwith making free cellular phone calls. kevin was given a two-year sentence... more than he would have gottenfor manslaughter. but the federal charges still remained. they even put himin solitary confinement again... because the authorities were convincedhe'd build a transmitter out of a walkman...
sneak into the warden's officeand monitor his conversations. the mainstream media made light of it... claiming mitnick was put in solitaryfor having too many cans of tuna. what everyone seemed to forgetwas years were going by... and this guy had yet to be tried. and then, things got a whole lot worse. june 1998. a movie version of takedownwas announced. skeet ulrich, who played a killer in scream...
was set to play kevin mitnick. and russell wongfrom the joy luck club... would be tsutomu shimomura. lt didn't seem to matter to anyone... that the real-life kevinwas still rotting in prison without a trial. according to the scriptwe got our hands on... he had been found guiltyand sentenced already. the magic of hollywood. they even broughtkevin and tsutomu closer.
ln real life, they'd only metfor a few seconds in a courtroom. ln the hollywood versionthey met in a dark alleyway... where kevin would proceedto bash tsutomu on the head... with a garbage can lid. we had to tell the worldthat this was a big mistake. the truth needed to be told. and we could either do it ourselves,or use the media. that's right, the media,democracy's biggest allies... committed to informing the publicno matter the cost.
the true conscience of america. -stop pushing!-get out of the way, brad. watch yourselves! come on, guys. don't yell at me, everyone's in front of me. tell them to come back. he's coming to the mike! would you guys get down? watch the mikes!
let's get out of the way. come on. we decided to do it ourselves. we found skeet ulrich's apartmentin new york in a phone book... and paid a visitto try and get him the real story but he had moved. l know, because the doorman let melook at every single name in the book. so the next stop was miramax filmson the west side. we figured they'd appreciate a chanceto correct the mistakes in the screenplay.
and we knew we'd be warmly receivedbecause this was miramax. the company had distributedmichael moore's latest film... you know, the guywho films in everybody's lobby. hi, we're looking for miramax? -what's your name?-emmanuel goldstein. who you here to see? sorry, you can't film in here. -you can't film here?-no, it's a landmark. sorry, you can't....
so there's no way you can call upstairs.... you have to call them, they will call me. this wasn't going well. how could a movie companytell us to stop filming? all we wanted to do was talk to somebody. what a letdown. his light is on, so he's capturing everything. so please go outsidebefore he has to call the police. all right, we don't want that,so we'll go outside....
we called the office and waitedto hear from them, but we never did. lt was like they were scared of us.maybe they agreed with bill clinton... that hackers were as one-dimensionalas they were in the script. how could we get themto see the other side? that night, newyork cityintroduced unlimited ride metrocards. we decided to find outhow long it would take for our cards to reset... so we could let people in for free. this is what the hacker worldwas really all about. why didn't they see this?
why did it always have to be something evilto the people who didn't get it? we had only one option. ''for off the hook,l recently heard the show... ''where you got the copy of a scriptfor takedown. ''l found it really amusinghowthe scriptwriters can take the truth... ''and not twist it or fabricate it,but just plain lie about what happened.'' l've heard about kevin's story,and thanks to off the hook... l heard about this meeting,and l decided to come... and see how l can help.
lt wasn't from me, it's from somebody else,l knew who that is. -ls there a good catchiness?-yeah. ''from supermax to miramax: ''three-and-a-halfyears with no trial.'' and then you can make another one,''from miramax to supermax: ''and no trial.'' when they see two ''free kevin'' stickers... when they see 10, 20, 100,they're gonna say, ''who the hell is kevin?'' they'll keep saying ituntil somebody answers them. one or two people that know more about itare one or two people more on our side.
those two people get two peoplewho get two people.that's how it is. we're gonna be in their faceevery step of the way. lf it comes to showing this thingon the screen, in theaters... we're going to be there, too. l mean, what we're doing nowisn't going to be finished... until kevin has his trial, until kevin is out. ''guilty by hollywood''or something like that. -that's a good one.-l like that. yeah, l did look at the script, and....
l don't know. lt's a shame and it definitelyshouldn't be something out there... for someonewho knows very little about kevin... to then see this movieand have ideas in their head that are untrue. we had tried talking to themand they wouldn't listen. now, by having a demonstration outsidetheir offices, they would have to listen. but we were hackers.what did we know about demonstrations? just that they can turn into riots... especially when the mayorbans demonstrations outside city hall...
and the cops shoot people a lot more. we needed guidance,someone with experience. we looked all over town for an activist. maybe one of those gray-haired hippiesfrom the '60s. we found one. sort of. what's it like demonstrating here?do you get harassed? they hate our guts becausethey don't want the truth to come out. why do you think there isn't more activism? because people don't care, they're scared...
they're afraid they'll get into trouble.l can understand it. but we still have to take a stand,afraid or not. we have to at least give it a try,we have to give it a shot. -has this cop been giving you any trouble?-no, he hasn't bothered me. and we have a presidentthat wants to suck their brains out. that bothers a lot of people, but.... anybody that's decent gets botheredwhen a little child is tortured to death. or when a presidentis sucking their brains out. yeah.
he wasn't exactly what we had in mind. l got a real earful aboutthe evils of homosexuals and communists. but in the end,he told us the one thing we needed to hear when you demonstrate,make sure you're in the right. and that's the one thing we were sure of:we were right. the day arrived.we had no idea what to expect. we just stood there for a while,not knowing what to do. our converted phone company vangot more attention than us. my name is noah kenickstein,l'm an attorney.
-for miramax?-no. for you all! l didn't even know. -l'm a lawyer. l'm representing you all.-okay. great. so, no one's getting arrested, right? -l didn't plan on it.-good. the national lawyers guildsent someone to protect us... and that was the turning point. things began to come together.even members of the media showed up. lt seemed like everyone except miramaxwas taking this seriously.
we learned that when you stand outsidea film studio's offices with picket signs... people notice. these folks are gonnaput on a little demonstration here. they're gonna be marching around.l thought l would tell you. -you could tell the....-l'll tell the precinct. tell the precinct, and tell them l'm a lawyerlt's nice and calm. no problems at all. but they're having a little....they'll be marching around. -l've got it.-l wanted to tell you that.
l appreciate thatvery much.could you tell me approximately how many? l would say there's gonna be....50 people, patty? 50 to 60, maximum 50. -what area are you doing it in?-ln front of miramax films. they're demonstrating about a moviethat they're making. thanks a lot, l appreciate you stopping me. everybody's nice and calm. -l'll tell them that.thanks for the advice.-okay, no problem. no, they're not gonna come on purpose.
people are, you know.... you're talking about suits. they don't give a fuck.you got to go hand it to them. don't harass the people who walk by some people have crisesgoing on in their lives. they can't be bothered with our problems. do you have a permit?who's in charge out here? do you all have a permit? as long as you don't blockthe front of the entrance.
you stay to the side, please.thank you. they can walk in front.the cops have been-- as long as you don't block the entrance,l don't have no problem. they have a firstamendment right. don't block the entrance.that's all l'm saying. lt's ringing. l got put in voice mail,guess they got too many calls. this one's reaching voice mail.l'll leave a message. hi, this is the protest outside.are you guys there? lf you get this, come outside.we're right down here.
l see someone. all right. maybe you'll pick up the phoneor come downstairs later. you calling the publicity department? no, the main number.l got a hold of them yesterday... and l asked for directions to the protest... and they told me they couldn't get mefrom where l was at to here. l said, ''okay, l'll call you back tomorrowwhen l'm out front.'' -l see them, they've got their heads out.-there's one. they're not answering the phones.
waving banners that said ''free kevin''... and holding ''stop miramax'' posters... the small butvocal crowd of protesters... stood outside miramax pictures'new york offices yesterday. at issue: this script, entitledtakedown... the story of the nation's most notoriouscomputer hacker, kevin mitnick. mitnick is currently being held in prisonwithout bail... awaiting trial on computer crimes. lt's a script these kevin mitnick supporterssay is libelous...
and would hurt mitnick's chancesof getting a fair trial. lt might influence the jury lt might change a lot of thingsin a negative way. he's trying so hard to at leastget a trial and then this comes up... where he's constantly being defamed. you never know who you might seewhen you're standing outside a film studio. kevin bacon had no interest whatsoever. but radio personality lazlow did. with the proliferation of the news...
tv news journalism like primetime live... and these showsthat completely distort the facts... and shows like 60 minutesbeing forced to go in the same direction... people don't knowthe facts about the case. they don't knowthe facts about hackers. l'd say that hackers... are the communists of the 1990s... where, basically, if anybody says ''hacker''... all of a sudden you've got this demon 666 acrossyour head.
nobody actually understands any of it. what l do in my part, on the radio... with my syndicated show,is try to get people to open their brains... because l talk to a lot of old people,because l'm on a lot of news talk stations. when l can, l put emmanuel or bernie s.,or anybody else on there... to talk about the state of what's going on,because nobody else will cover it. the people who cover itin the mainstream media... do so for profit,like the guy that wrote the book. the demonstrators say they have senta copy of this illicitly obtained script...
to kevin mitnick in jail,and that he absolutely hates it. miramax's parent, disney,may not like it either. the controversy comes on the heels... of the dumping of $43 millionin disney stock... by the texas board of education. the board's complaint: miramax filmshave too much sex and violence. miramax distorts the facts! was that harvey weinstein,president of miramax? he walked right by us.
he didn't even geta ''stop miramax'' brochure? of course we had a brochure for harvey. okay, l'll talk to you later. bye. -what did they say?-l don't know. there she is.that's the one who answered the phone. she hung up on me yesterday l got through. they waved. did you see them wave? they said if you use a bullhorn...
or obstruct people's walkways,you have to have a permit. lf you continue to use that,l'm gonna have to call the cops. l think that three years is a long timeto be held without actually having a trial. and l think that what miramax is doing... is going to jeopardize his rightto have a free and honest trial. so that's why l'm out here protesting. thank you. they all were aware of the thingin front of the building in newyork city. they talked about it on the set,asked me about it.
they said ''did you talk to emmanuel?that's great.'' they were waving. they think it's fantastic. and they all want free kevin stickers.the whole crew. lf you give me some, l will send it to them.they will put them on their cars. hello, sir.do you know who kevin mitnick is? no, l do not. computer hacker who's been in jailfor three-and-a-half years without a trial. miramax has decidedto make a movie about him. the script is false.lt makes him out to be a violent racist...
which he is not. l want to know what you think about it. when are they doing the film? -they start shooting in a few weeks.-kevin mitnick is great. -how do l find out the truth?-they should take him out of prison. -hold on, l want to talk to you.-what's that? my main thing is the only reasonhe ended up running afoul of the law... is because people don't haveaccess to communications. all you got is big corporations like miramaxwith access to communications.
firstamendment! yeah! this is inamerica. -he was in jail three years without a trial?-he's still in jail. l saw something about thison cnbc on friday. this happens a lot, though. you always have unauthorized biographiesand stuff like that. where it's like, you have an autobiography... you have an authorized biography. -this is sort of like an unauthorized---this is going to be big.
-he hasn't had a trial yet?-hasn't had a trial yet. not only that, in the movie,they already wrote that he had a trial. -you ever hear of kevin mitnick?-no. who's that? well, if you're walking away, l really can't.... how did you guys get a hold of the script? okay. all right. you're a lawyer.lsn't it illegal if they're gonna slander him? can't they try and stop themon legal grounds? that's not right.they have to put a waiver--
l think they should hold the filmuntil after he's had a fair trial. l mean, it happens.lt happened, unfortunately you know, l don't think it should be.... obviously, it's probably not legalto have a lawsuit against miramax. l think they should have to waituntil he's had a fair trial. and also they shouldn't use his real name. lf they want to change the facts,they should change the name. -make it a fictional story.-three-and-a-half years is a long time. think about what you've donefor the last three-and-a-half years.
and imagine being in jailwhile all that stuf was happening. for just that. just for copying software. l've copied software. -what did he do? he hacked.-he hacked. l would like to know your opinion... on the slandering in this film. miramax sucks. so, like, free kevin! l can't talk shit about a moviel haven't seen or read the script of. but the one relevant thing that l could say..
is it seems to me there isa witch-hunt sort of hysterical mentality.. vis-a-vis hacking, you know. people are very quick to fly off the handleand condemn as terrorists... people who are, you know,exploring a newtechnology landscape... in a way that they don't understand. -definitely.-that's as far as l can go not having seen it. not only did we find a receptive bunchat local theaters... they even started to do our work for us. new york was great.but it was only the start.
we had to travel to get to the right people.so we put together a camera crew... and made sure none of us had anythingplanned for the next several weeks. we charted out a course,and headed to the airport. that's where we got our economy-sizedrental car with unlimited mileage. the plan was to goto wilmington, north carolina... where filming for takedownwas about to begin. on the way, we figured we'd make a detourand stop at defcon... the annual hacker convention in las vegas. lf we were going to do that,we should stop in san diego...
to say hi to tsutomu shimomura... and maybe convince himto stop using kevin mitnick as a cash cow. and if we did that,it would be rude not to visit john markof... to ask him to inject some accuracyinto his stories about kevin. since we were suddenly adding10,000 miles to this rental car... we might as well visitsome of the corporations... who were claiming kevin mitnickcost them millions of dollars in damages... just to see what the hell they were talking about. there's something about pennsylvania.l call it the prison state.
that's because they seem to have prisonseverywhere you look. and almost everyone l know who's goneto prison seems to wind up in pennsylvania. weird. besides, every time l get pulled overby a cop... l seem to find myself in the prison state.l knew l'd better be careful. let's not get off on the wrong foot,pennsylvania's great. home of such landmarks as the liberty bell,lndependence hall... that little surveillance cameraabove lndependence hall... and the house where thomas jeffersonsigned the declaration of lndependence...
just down the block from theafro-americanmuseum and its new neighbor. a maximum-security federal prisonright in the middle of philadelphia. howtimes change. they say it's illegal to take picturesof any prison... even those under construction,even those right in the middle of a city we couldn't find a law anywherethat backed this up... but try taking a picture of a prison... without getting threatenedby some prison guard or cop. here, look at this part.
maybe there are subtle detailsthat will lead to a prison uprising some day l think fully half of the peoplein federal prison, if not more... shouldn't be there. lt's notviolent criminals. drug crimes. somebody getsa mandatory 10 years... for selling $800 worth of lsd. that's not right either.that's the way the federal system works. lt's just not right. l knowthe state of californiahas more prisoners than southafrica.
lncarceration is a big business.l think that's part of the reason. there is less and less toleranceon the part of the public... for people who have transgressed the rules. we have a huge prison population.this gets into other questions. putting a computer hacker inwith sex offenders and murderers... is probably the worst thingyou can possibly do... to somebody who has... not murdered, is not a violent criminal! somebody who's a technological....who's gone over the edge.
then, again,we have to define what we mean. we need a new classification systemfor technological law. ln one of my booksl talked about setting up a court system... especially for technologywhere the people that were prosecuting... and the judgesand the people involved in the cases... would have some technological basis... to evaluate and try the casein a reasonable manner... and to come up withan alternative sentencing system... that reflected more the nature of the crime.
lf you're exposed to people like thatfor too long, you change with them. you become one of them. next thing you know you'll be locked awayagain for doing what they do. one night... ...l was in my cell in a minimum-securityfacility, bucks county prison. two guards stormed in... and flipped my bed upside down... and locked me in handcufs and startedrummaging through my storage locker.. demanding to knowwhere my computer was.
l'm like, ''l don't have a computer here.what are you talking about?'' they were squeezing the toothpasteout of my tube... ostensibly looking for a computeror whatever they were looking for. lt was bizarre! but pennsylvania was more than prisons,it was a place of learning. and theage expo was wherethousands of senior citizens learned... that corporateamericareally cared about them. the guy representing bellatlanticwas the most sincere of all. how could you not trust a fox?
freddie the phone-fraud fox was passingcorporate numbers to the seniors: over $4 billion in phone fraud every year. freddie said most of that wasbecause of evil computer hackers. and l met him. freddie knew words like ''digit''would only confuse older people. lt made more sense to say things like''ten-number number.'' lt means they will have to dialthe area code... along with their seven-digit numbereach time they place a call... within and between 215, 610...
and the new 267 for 215... and the 484 for 610 area code. you give them out in blocks of 10,000 and peoplethat get these blocks of 10,000... end up using 300 numbersand all the others are tied up wasted. easy listeningnever mind the world outside easy listeningfamine, war, and genocide easy listeningforget the loony on the loose easy listeningrising crime and child abuse lgnore the poisoned atmosphere
open up another beer the media feeds you every daywhat to think and say we went back... ...to a familiar place. everything was just as we left it... only it was about 90 degrees warmer. but you could still feel the chillafter four-and-a-half years. lt was surprisinghow nobody tried to stop us from filming. so we filmed everything.the medium-security facility...
the minimum-security prison camp... the sign that lets minimum-securityprisoners know when they've escaped... and unicor, the slave-labor office... where prisoners make furniturefor the government for pennies a day. we almost made it out. lt was the first time we had ever gottenpulled over by prison cops. how could we not drop inon our friends at cert... the computer emergency response team? they tell the worldwhen there's a threat to computer networks.
they'd back us up and tell the world... that kevin mitnickposed no threat at all to norad... kristy mcnichol, or theamerican way of life. we thought computer peopleworked odd hours... but these guysapparently took saturdays off. we asked the security guard to come downand let us leave a pamphlet or two. something must get triggeredwhenever you say mitnick's name. we were meeting far too many copsin so brief a period of time. but at least pennsylvaniawas living up to its name.
we explained why we were therebut got the message we expected. you're not welcome. we're used to that. ln the event that you shouldmaybe happen to come again... if you are not welcome... and l find out that you are not welcome... you will be exactly where kevin is... and then you'd be defeating your purpose. l'm here to do the joband my job right now is...
-to get you out of here.-l understand that. l know a lot of people who are in prisonwho probably shouldn't be there. but that's our judicial system. you know what l mean? sometimes it works and sometimes it don't. believe me, l've seen it not workin the favor of my people many times. l'm gonna parlay the rest of this... my tedious job is to run you for wantsand warrants and all that kind of stuff... if you would expedite your leaving.
we'll get out of here,we'll head for the border right away 19 radio. the gentleman has been givena standard warning. l'll give you his name and stuf. before we left,we decided to check the mood of the street. he told me not to mess with her. she did everybody she could in the weeds... and then she moved to the projects. lt's not kevin's fault.
free kevin. kevin has nothing to do with it. the broad quit me'cause l was an alcoholic... and l wasn't making no money. l was broke, that's why she quit me. the reason l don't have a girlfriendis l don't have no money. oh, wow. he seems like a nice guy.why would you want to do anything to him? you think his girlfriend's gonna quit himor something? lt was time to go.
we was peeling potatoes back in world war two and we was playing that rock and rollafter school for you know who hidden from the public lt was behind the scenes there was a relicthey called the purple hair with kevin mitnick locked away... the phone companies of the worldfelt safe from intruders. but the fact remained,many people were exploring all the time...
online and off. allied signalaerospace... sprint pcs up there... lnformix,southwestern bell mobile systems.... you're scaring me. lt's like this flat area where there's no treesor anything, just industry oklahoma, the state that created hanson. people kept telling us our sound guylooked like one of the hanson brothers. since we were going throughtheir hometown, tulsa...
we figured we'd goto one of tulsa's bustling malls... and turn the free kevin campaigninto a hanson campaign. we could use the publicity.. and if we could confuse some tulsansin the process... all the better. and it sure wasn't hard to do that. once we'd confused people at the mall,we headed over to oral roberts university... in the hopes that the religious rightwould climb on board. when the vice president of the university,a former federal agent...
came down the stairs with a golf club,we took the hint. there wasn't a golf course for miles. hellflower, satan's power you grow more beautiful by the hour you feed our heartsand you free our minds with the essence of the soulsthat you devour shrinking violet makes the scene ln the formal garden of the queen bloody mary, so contrary
they had a hard time getting into my place. l had the bedroom door closed,so l didn't hear the pounding on the door they were pounding on the doorout there for a good 10 minutes. they actually started callingon the cellular phone... and leaving messageson my answering machine. ''this is the fbl.we're at your door. open up.'' l wasn't there when they searched my home.my mom had to get me from school. my dad was the only one home.they thought... that he was me.
they were looking for somebodythat was an adult. when they found out that l was like, 13... they didn't know what to do. l think when they walk inand want to take things... they should be told to go to hell... take what they want, we'll see you in court,don't even talk to me. the problem, of course, is thathackers don't have the resources to do this. they want to try to get off cheap... so they cooperate and they plea bargain...
and they end up pleading guiltyto something they didn't do. and that sets the record badfor them going forward. l think if people had the resources,or if there were an organization... dedicated to helping people,to providing the resources.... you know, something that's much morethan just a dummy front... such as the eff. an organization that's actually truly willingto help in those matters... that we'd see a lot more progressalong those lines. the government, for once...
would have to start conformingto the same laws... that they're supposedly enforcing. we were detained for two hoursin the parking lot. there were 13 police officersand l think five or six police cars. l told them what was going on... but they seemed to thinkthere was more going on than there was. without my consentthey took my box of crystals... even though they admittedthey didn't know what they were. they took anything and everythingthat had magnetic media on it...
or had an electrical plug on it. they took other unrelated itemssuch as a woman's purse. l'm not quite sure howthat fitsinto the scope of their investigation. every business card l had. they took everythingjust to make life difficult on me. they told me they're not tryingto chastise me... and then one of them said... he used to play with baseball cardswhen he was a kid. they would be searching my wardrobe.
l'd be standing there with the guyhe's asking questions... and he's going through every pocketin my wardrobe. then it suddenly dawned on me... l don't have to stand there.so l walked out of the room. he stopped searching the wardrobeand walked out with me. lt was very obvious. their tactics weren't meantto actually accomplish something. searching every pocketof every shirt in my closet... that tactic wasn't meant to do anythingexcept intimidate me.
they showed up at my friend's house... where a 3-year-old and a 5-year-oldhad just been put to bed. they came storming into the housewith guns drawn... ran up the steps... and said,''freeze! secret service! don't move!'' l was sitting at the keyboard of a computer,so l looked extremely dangerous. l was thrown to the floor, handcuffed,and hogtied, and all that... and dragged out. l told my.. friend ellen fisher, who was there,to call my lawyer, which she did.
they kept telling me to shut up. l was taken back to the police stationin havertown, pennsylvania... and locked in a cell for about three hourswhile my car was searched. then a secret service agentinterviewed me... or interrogated me, wanted to knowwhat l was doing with the crystals. and l said l was making themavailable to people. he tried to get me to say l wascommitting fraud with them which l was not. he gotvery irate that l wasn't telling himwhat he wanted to hear. eventually they locked meback in the cell again.
they refused to let me call my lawyer. ln fact, my rights weren't read to me. there were many instancesin which l told them... l wanted to consult with my attorney... and they said, ''that's not a good idea.''they wouldn't let me get an attorney so finally, when... they all shifted from my apartmentto searching my office, actually at work... l got to drive down in my own car. l called an attorney...
and by the time they were at my work,so was an attorney. the agent in charge, ken mcguire,in particular... gave me a very nastyand disappointed look... at the factthat l was willing to protect my rights. lt's really amazing. he really gave me one of these: ''you shouldn't have done that'' looks.''now you're really in for it.'' nasa people told my parents l was cocky... because l told themto choose harder passwords.
l had cops tell me pretty well straight out: ''we really didn't want to harm junior.. ''so we took his computerand gave it to the boys... ''over in traffic management,and it was just really groovy.'' wait a minute. you're like,''you took this kid's equipment?'' they were like,''lt was his dad's, but he was using it. ''dad should have known better.'' so this is $4,000 worth of equipmentfull of heaven only knows what content... and you just pocketed it, basically?
now you're going to charge him?they said, ''lf we charge him... ''we've got to bring him upunder 14 different interstate laws... ''he's gonna be a felon and be ruined.'' ''we explained this to them and they said,'take the machine, please.''' but that's not legal. that's nothing like legality lt's blackmail, basically. lt's like with anyone else.simply because you have a badge... doesn't give you the right to be an asshole.
unless you'd like me to be an assholeback to you. l don't care who you are. you will obtain the respect from methat you earn. period. l may have hacked nasa, but who doesn't? they say they clocked usat just under 100 miles per hour... on the lnterstate in new mexico. and the cop wouldn't let us gountil l gave him my social security number. to make matters worse, he told uswe were still 11 hours away from vegas. things seemed pretty bleak.
but, then, a miracle happened. all right! he said 11 hoursand we made it in two and a half. these highway patrol peopledon't know what they're talking about. all right, las vegas, let's do it! twilight city gonna set my soullt's gonna set my soul on fire got a whole lot of moneythat's ready to burn so get those stakes up high there's a thousand pretty womenwaiting out there
they're all waiting, they're devil-may-care and l'm just the devilwith love to spare, so viva las vegas how l wish that there were morethan the 24 hours in the day even if l ran out of speed, boy we're looking for the defcon conference. we're supposed to be filming here. defcon conference? lt's like computer hackers....
not that l know of. were they gonna start inside the computerand work their way out? lt's about a thousand computer hackerscoming here. l've never heard of it. they must've done a good jobkeeping this quiet. they even got me going. plaza hotel, las vegas? new mexico. lt was a mistake anybody could have made...
except nobody else seems to have made it. at least if we were in new mexico... we could stop by losalamos national labs,home of well-guarded nuclear secrets... and one of the many placesshimomura had mysterious connections to. lf we could get the word to the people here,we just might turn some heads. ln those few placeswhere we actually did get in... we always seemed to stay a bit too longlooking at the things... we weren't supposed to be looking at. this guy was mean,and told us to get the hell out.
as we left, we noticedmore of these weird guys in fatigues... all around the building. that's when we got lost on a dark roadwith no name in new mexico... with a bunch of military zealotssurrounding us. we got the message. twilight city gonna set my soul lt's gonna set my soul on fire got a whole lotta money that's ready to burn when l started,l never intended it to last this long.
l thought it was going to be a partyand that's it.a one-time deal. when we left, everybody said,''are you going to do it again?'' and l said, ''l guess l could do this again.'' since then, more people get involved,more people say: ''we could probably have some music.'' next thing you know,we've got a live laser light system... with lcd wall projectors and djs coming infrom the united kingdom to spin. lt has taken on this life of its own. we are the ghetto hackers.
low-class, low-budget, high-octane. -dead!-cow! when l say rock, you say ass! -rock!-ass! thank you very much. good night. l have in my hand proof positive... that ntis not the solutionto your computing problems. l have captured earlier today on film... the blue screen of death...
at las vegas' ownmgm grand hotel and casino! thousands showed up. even though the free kevin stickersturned into toys... at least everybody here knew his name. you have to go to www.kevinmitnick.com.look it up for yourself. ''and it doesn't matterwhat he says about us.'' ''what matters is us. ''what matters is....'' we were hot on the trail.
l don't want to get into shimomura. l think he has a very large ego. he's a very bright person and very smart... but l think his social skills are lacking. for years, shimomura had been eluding me. l couldn't even get on the same tv shows. he'd pop up over on cnn... while l was stuck overon a broadcast network. while he was getting all cozywith tom brokaw...
l was being interrogated by mike wallace. 2600: the hacker quarterly? tsutomu wasn't even answering my e-mail. but nowthere would be no escape. the san diego supercomputer center,the place where he worked. we were closing in. you notice how quiet it is? like when a deeris about to be killed by a lion? -you're here to see him?-yes.
-you're looking for tsutomu?-yes. -l haven't seen him in three months.-really? do you know where he is? he's not here. let me check with.... did you make arrangementsto meet him here? they weren'tvery firmbut he knew we were coming. -you can try his office.-did you have an appointment with him? -lt was very informal.-l'm sorry.
you can try the extension,but l haven't seen him. do l know him? just from interacting on.... but l'm not.... l can't.... definitely should have called first, l guess. lt's just he likes surprises so much. this sheet of paperthat we wanted him to have. he'll know what it's about. he wanteda couple of these stickers as well. he wanted these?
l just wanted to make sure he got them.great. thanks so much for your help. lt wasn't much better than the receptionwe got at miramax. but we left our calling card in a placewhere we knew he'd see it. l think it's absurd when l find outthat shimomura, in addition... is giving instructions to skeet ulrich... on howto act more like kevin. here's someone instructing himhowto act more like kevin... and it's a person that met kevin only once... in court, under circumstances of duress.
from there how he can ascertainhow kevin acts, l don't know. when l step on this curbwe're officially on his property. sorry to bother you.we're looking for somebody next door. we're not sure if we havethe right neighborhood. -tsutomu shimomura.-he moved. he's long gone. how long ago did he move? -seven, eight months?-really? do you have any idea where he went? no, he was renting,and the people who own it moved back in.
he's in the national news.are you aware of that? -he's what?-there's a movie that they're making. -you can see, l'm on the phone.-l'm sorry. -they're making a movie about him.-they're making a movie? -lt's all about---l read his book. they're making a bighollywood blockbuster about it. they may film around herebecause this is one of the places he lived. -so l could be a star?-you could be a star. l've been waiting to be discoveredfor a long time.
he could be anywhere. man, that's scary. we had one last address to tryinside a gated community. but this was getting frustrating. we have another lead here. we're certainly seeing a lotof the nicer places of this neighborhood. ''out of order, please use other door.'' you know, if that was a computer,we'd be facing 50 years in jail. they think we'rethe publisher's clearinghouse.
lt was like he was a step ahead of us. japanese? long hair? for some reason,people think it's a good idea... to have a full directoryof every tenant in an apartment complex... available to anyone in the world. but it gave usthe definitive proof we needed: shimomura wasn't here either. lt's a pretty cool system, though. let's try a couple of other things.
we're going to enterthe room number this time. now it's dialing. that's their whole phone numberbeing broadcast! see if we get an answering machine. you've reached amy.l'm sorry l'm unavailable to take your call. please leave a message.l'll get back to you as soon.... we've gotten everythingwe can out of this place... and made ourselves look suspicious atthe same time so we'd better get out of here. on the way out of san diego,our rental car broke.
the trunk wouldn't close. we should get this tape of the trunk, too. holy fuck! oh, my god! shit! we're right underneath the flight path! we had to clean everything outso we could exchange it... including the disgusting piece of gumthat somehow got stuck to the door. you know what,l'll use their own key to scrape it off. okay, l'm down. this is the most disgusting thingl've ever had to do in my life.
you know it's still soft. oh, god! want some gum? this is a scary neighborhood. we made it to losangelesin a brand-new rental car. our first stop,the university of southern california... where kevin had been accused of storingsoftware from cellular phone companies. usc claimed that somehow causedover $1,000 in damage. l wanted to know what computer systemgets damaged... by having files stored on it!
l'm brian johnson. l'mtheassociate director of customer support. yeah, we're not allowedto comment on any of the security. at least we finallymanaged to find someone... who'd say they weren't allowedto say anything. that was progress, right? the metropolitan detention centerin los angeles... where kevin had been heldfor three-and-a-half years. lt was his 35th birthdayand we wanted to say hi. the closest we could comewas the mobil station across the street.
lt was a popular place for all the peoplewho couldn'tvisit their friends. l know he's looking at me, so l can wave hi. and he gives me a calland he says, ''lt's cool, you went to see me.'' -he's comfortable with that.-how often do you come by? like, almost once a week. when l drop off my sisterthat goes to see him. -how come you can't go in there and visit?-lt's too strict. l wouldn't know why the reasonthey don't let us go in. -you're his brother?-he's my brother-in-law.
married to my sister. -so it's only immediate family?-yeah, immediate family. so l can't see him. he talks to methrough the phone and letters. -l just come and say hi.-what's he in for? l don't know what the reason why he's in,but he's just in. and you bring your friends with you?are they part of the family, too? yeah, they know my brother-in-law we grew up together so.... have you heard of kevin mitnick,the person we're here for?
-l never heard of him.-he's a computer hacker. -you know what computer hackers are?-yeah. he's been in therefor three-and-a-half years... -and he hasn't had a trial yet.-he should get a trial, you know? he's working on it, he's trying,but the wheels of justice move very slowly. that's something true. they're not the ones that-- sure. there's so many people, l think.lt's overcrowded.
l wouldn't even know what to tell you,l've never been in that system. he must've went insomebody's government-- he must've pissed somebody off. pissed somebody offin the government pretty good. they probably laughed and said,''you have to stay there a while.'' that's not fair but that's the way it is. when the windowsare only a couple of inches wide... it's hard to findthe person you're looking for... even if you know exactly what time to look.
and then we heard it. yeah, what was that? l heard a pounding on the window 1,2,3,4,5. he's shining a light or something. l can see him now. was that you?that was you. you were pounding on the glass, right?we heard that across the street. we were looking at the wrong window.then we heard this pounding noise.
come back to the windowand wave some more. can you do that? we'll put a sticker up, we just don't wantthe sticker to come back to haunt you. he wants us to put a sticker. -he wants a sticker?-a sticker would be cool. we can see your hand. l doubt you can stickyour whole head through the window nowthat we know it's the right one,we can zoom in on it. all right, cool.we'll see you in two minutes?
okay, great. see you then. bye. he's going to be up there in two minutes.that was definitely him. l wish we could go in thereand see him without having to do this. but, hell, l'll take it. we found out that our filmingthe prison had caused such a stir.. that every single prisonerwas locked down... confined to their cell for the rest of the day and kevin told usit was the best time he had had in years. like this.
that's cool. even the manager of the stationsaid it was all right. this guy in the blue carjust gave me $6 for the defense fund. no kidding.thanks!that's great.that's amazing. look where l put the sticker.l got permission from the owner. lt'll be gone tomorrow. -that's great.-lt'll be there for a while. -he let you do that?-yeah, l asked him. randolph's gonna get gasand he's gonna fucking shit a brick.
he was never served... with a warrant for his arrest... for the supervised release violationsduring the period of his supervised release. so by the time that he was doneand went on his way... there's no indication that he was awarethat such a warrant existed. damn! you know, sprint really sucks. we wanted the entire cityof los angeles to know about kevin. and what better waythan to put the message... on the most famous billboard in town?
lt took us hours to climb that thing. we honestly didn't knowthere was a roadthat went straight up the back. but we made it. funny thing, though. we couldn't find anybodywho saw our free kevin banner. later, we wentto the most famous movie theater in town... to try and spread the word from up close. here, free kevin! free kevin mitnick. lt won't bite you. speak english?
we're trying to get the messageacross to miramax... that it's wrong to releasea movie that's supposed to be factual... that's based on real events.... people will see this movieand think this is a true story... when so much of ithas been completely fabricated. -l've heard about this guy.-really? here, help stop a movieabout a computer hacker? -you got a problem?-l got a problem. come back and tell me about it.
pussy! lt's hard to believesomeone in this country... could be in jail for three-and-a-half years,held in a maximum-security facility... no bail, no trial. l don't find thatvery hard to believe. -l read a book, takedown.-takedown, that's right. l read like half of it. he gets out of jail,he'll probably take over everything. that's the problem.people think that, but it's not true.
you don't think he could hack anythingif he just gets online? he can't hack anythingjust by getting online. l mean, you gotta havea program and whatever.... why are you recording this? hey, read about kevin mitnick?they're making a movie about this guy. he's the best guy ever!l know him since l was, like day one. yeah, me too, yo! he's never done anything wrong,he's never hurt anyone... and he's being treatedlike that in this country.
that is theamerican way. wake up. kevin was denied bail. even a bail hearing. lf you recall,even ted kaczynski got a bail hearing. his bail was turned down.you're entitled to a bail hearing. on the other hand, kevin... is getting treatment that is outside the law and that's what makes itvery difficultfor him to mount a legal defense. he's not being treated in a legal manner l've never heard of anythingeven approaching this level of...
...confinement prior to a trial. murderers get bail. armed robbers get bail. the fear of what he's going to do... from a push-button telephonein the general population of a cell... shows again a lack of technicalunderstanding on the part of the prison... and judicial system.and l think that's sad. and he is right nowthe victim of that. on our way up the coast,we dropped in on sun.
according to a letter we got our hands on... they said kevin's acquisitionof their source code... represented hundreds of millionsof dollars in damage. nowthey givethe source code away for free. something wasn't right. so we're right here. on the other side of the freewaythere's the other sun. and then further up is their big campus. basically, all of this blank area...
is actually sun buildings and sun streets. we knew where we were,now we just needed someone to talk to. what number do we calland who do we speak to? 1-800-usa4sun. they can direct you to whoever you need. usa4sun? can you rememberor do you want me to write it down? the receptionist wouldn't let us talkto anyone unless we called. but we slipped a few leafletsonto their coffee table.
l thought she was being kind of patronizing. ''do you want me to write that downor can you remember it?'' l can remember it. usa4sun, right? -was that it? or was it sun4usa? fuck!-yeah. you sure? should l run in and ask her again? ''thank you for calling sun.'' l have a rotary phone.l'm not going to press any buttons.
l'm pressing zero. l'm probably going to get her,too. my call ''may be monitored.'' another machine. they want my eight-digit ld number! this is bullshit, man. they've got me waitingfor a customer service representative. lt's not exactly what l had in mind. but let's see what happens.
my call is ''very important to them.'' he hung up! he hung up on me! maybe he didn't hang up on mebut he hung up all the same. fuck!all right. l think on their web pagethere's a direct public relations number but we're not on their web page,we're in their parking lot. wait a minute.you don't have your ricochet modem? -not today.-you're not prepared!
shit. we can't access the web from here... we're outside sunand we can't get on the net... to find out what their phone number is! l'm gonna try this number one more time. l'm gonna be a little patient here.assume maybe they made a little mistake. okay, now l am waitingfor the corporate switchboard. hi, pete, my name is emmanuel. l'm trying to reach somebodyin public relations. l'm hoping somebody can contact meconcerning the kevin mitnick case...
and how it involved sun.we're doing a documentary. we came to the corporate headquartershoping to get an appointment... and they gave us a phone numberand we're trying to do just that... so if you could get back to me.... they have a fortress here. they have that mighty guard thereat the front that won't let anybody by and then the voice mail guard here... that won't let anybody actually calland speak to a person. maybe they'll call back, maybe they won't.
this is the red hotline.lf that rings, we'll know we have gps, good. gps but no modem. man, that sucks. l was using it last night and it was gonein the morning which means.... sorry, no cameras in front of the building. how about if we film in that direction? we can't have the cameras filming. okay, 'cause we were just filming us. no, l can understand that,but unfortunately...
wow, this was a new one. we couldn't even film ourselvesin sun's parking lot. corporate paranoia was at an all-time high. and, needless to say,pete never called us back. meanwhile, john markoffhad agreed to talk to us. maybe now we'd finally get some answers. we made it to san franciscoon the exact same day... that psychologists from around the worldgathered for a convention. maybe because so many peoplein that area were depressed.
they have counseling phoneson the bridges... because so many peopleare jumping off them. but san francisco was a friendly town... where people felt safeleaving their trash unattended. but more importantly... the psychologists wound up takingalmost every hotel room in the entire city... even the old-fashioned ones. we were beginning to get desperate. then we found a hotelthat was almost completely deserted.
we never did find out why. markoff mentions certain stories. he'll say, ''lt's been said that....''or ''other people have said that....'' and he'll come up with these storieslike he shut down judges'trw ratings... shut off power.... lt's bullshit. l don't think john markoffdid it because he wanted to destroy kevin. but l think he did itto keep kevin's evil image. maybe he believedsome of the things himself. okay, isn't a newspaperman...
supposed to investigate somethingbefore they publish it... before they put it in the newspaper as fact? l know spencer tracyand clark gable always did. we didn't know what we were walking into.would markoff tell us things about mitnick... that would shock and horrify us?or would he realize... how much his front-page storiesand books had demonized kevin... helping to put him in the lousy placehe was still in? this was our one chanceto make a difference. and, more than anything,we wanted to be fair.
so we came up with the markoff meter.we set a bar on his left and right side... and resolved not to judge him badlyuntil he said six bad or inaccurate things. and if he said six good things... well, then, the hacker worldwould just have to deal with it. maybe this wouldn't be so bad. nowthere's an easy pointfor common courtesy. l wanted to get to the heart of the matter like howthey knew it was kevinthey were chasing in the first place? when l called the qualcomm guys,they had been talking to the fbl.
and the fbl believed that it was kevinwho had social engineered them. why? l don't know enoughabout what was going on... inside the fbl investigation. that's a good question. l don't know why but the fbl told the qualcomm peoplethat it was kevin. and, to my mind, as a reporter,it fit kevin's m.o. -which is what?-social engineering. really good social engineering.
but there are thousandsof hackers out there-- that's true. l'm not saying it's proof. l'm simply sayingthe fbl believed it was kevin. did they hear a voiceor did they have a voice recording? did they have a voice recording?that's a good question. what did they have? this we couldn't forgive. before you print front-page storiesabout people eluding the authorities... shouldn't you havesome real conclusive evidence?
what did kevin do that was diferent? he had a reputationas being a very good social engineer. l've heard some tapes,l've heard some people assert this. lf he in fact was the personwho was at qualcomm... then he was a good social engineer. nowthat's better. no need to be stingywith the compliments, after all. one thing that's been followingkevin mitnick... since the first story markoff wrote about himis this myth about breaking into norad. when you say something like thatenough times, people start to believe it.
and in kevin's case,it really made him into a villain. so where did the norad stuff come from? the norad stuff... is stuff that l got from someone... who was in legal troublewith kevin early on. so l have not been able to interview kevinface to face. l've heard he said that it's inaccuratebut l haven't been able to ask him. the story did come from a friend of his. l knowthere are lots of storiesand you gotta sort through them.
but what stories have stuck? l remember the kristy mcnichol thing.that didn't stick. norad didn't stick. security pacific l think is probably onethat stuck, that probably should stick. -you know about that?-the bank that he got a job at-- that's right.and then there was a press release... that suggested that the bankwas in financial trouble... though they managed to keep it of the wire,it almost went on. but what links that to kevin? the police investigators that we interviewedbelieved it was kevin.
based on what? based on what.... just coincidence of things.who else would do something like that? you've got to be kidding! you used ''who else''to pin a crime on the guy... on the front page of the newyork times... without even usingthe word ''allegedly'' anywhere? this was reported as factbut it was never backed up. just like norad, just like kristy mcnichol...
just like everything that made themwant to catch kevin so badly. let's look at the issueof solitary confinement. lt wasn't mentionedin the front-page article... that kevin was in solitary for 8 monthsand was desperate not to go back... and that this above allwas what made him run. l mean, he didn't want to go back to jail. not just jail, solitary confinement.eight months. was he in solitary before?this was his first time. 1989.
he spent 8 months in solitary in 1989?l didn't realize. wait. he didn't spend 8 months in prison.he was only in prison for six months in '89. you've written two books on the guyas well as countless articles. you're somewhat of an experton kevin mitnick... and you didn't knowhe was in solitary confinement? or even how long his sentence was? for the record, mitnick spent a yearin prison in 1988... eight months of whichwas in solitary confinement... plus another six months in a halfway house.
with the psychologists in townwe could confirm... locking kevin in solitarywas a fucked-up thing to do. l think it's inhumane, and l think there arebetter ways to handle our problems. obviously if this person has been ableto do some of the things... that they think he was doingwith a computer, he's very bright. that's a real talent that's being wasted. and, to lock him up, especiallyin solitary confinement for 8 months.... we wouldn't treat an animal that way and yet, this is a talented individual?excuse me.
-lt's not right.thank you.-thanks very much. wait, he was in solitarythe entire time he was at lompoc? a large amount of the time. eight months. yeah, that's pretty hard. okay. markoff gains a pointfor that show of humanity. now, here's something interesting.when kevin was on the run... he communicated with an lsraeli hackerknown as jsz... who's believed to be the mastermind behindthe hacking that kevin was blamed for. yet markoff never wrote a story about him...
and didn't even followthroughwhen jsz moved to new york. ln fact, none of the authoritiesseemed to care either... almost as if these crimes were really trivial. nowthat would be a great story,wouldn't it, john? l thought a lot about that. l just haven't had time to do the reporting.l've got a day-to-day beat out here. you're right. lt's probably a great storyl would love to talk to jsz. -l should come to new york---that story was going on back then. jsz was supposedly the mastermindbehind everything.
l never knew what the relations were. the only thing l could say that l knew.. was that jsz and kevin... were actively tradinginformation and software. that's what l knew.l knew nothing about masterminding. lf you asked meto reconstruct just from what l knew.. it was jsz provided the toolsand kevin made the attack. but l have no idea if that's true. no idea?
lsn't this what the book, series of articles,and nowthe film are supposedly based on... what kevin actually did? l was amazed by what he didn't know but there was more that he did knowand had never talked about before. but one interesting thingthat hasn't been made public. you know, so much was made of the factthat the credit cards were never used. they were used. an american express card,part of the netcom collection... was used in raleigh within two daysafter kevin was arrested.
so who used it? -how did you find this out?-l've just known it for a long time. you're saying the credit cardwas used in raleigh... and it was used after he was arrested? there are indications that there wassomeone kevin was in contact with... who knewthis and may have beenactive in the raleigh area. all l'm saying is there's some evidence. how come this wasn't in the book? how come it wasn't in the book.good question.
l don't know whywe didn't put it in the book. this was really getting annoying. he didn't follow up onthe most interesting part of the story.. and he didn't mention the factabout the credit cards until now? one more remark like thatand it's all over for markoff. look how many people are standing hereand not one person took my brochure. look at all these people.not one of them took this. valuable coupons! what are they doing now?
oh, kevin mitnick!he's the computer wizard. the way that the japanese wizardfound him was very interesting. mitnick respected the japanese wizardfor tracking him. on the other hand... since the whole computer businessis stupid and ridiculous to begin with... why should mitnick sufferfor a ridiculous assault on the culture... namely the computer. so that's it. -what do you think of computers?-l hate them. because they're not like feeling skin,and they're not like walking in the forest.
and one can get lost deeply in them. my son, of course, is in that world. these people are computerphilesand he's a computerphobe. hackers are all rightbecause they're anarchists, that's fine. but the rest of it.... -this is bullshit.-lt's pornography! this is such bullshit! l like chaos computer club, l like anarchy. -you know chaos computer club? -no, but l like thewhole idea.
he's never heard of it.he's saying this because-- no, it's great. but mitnick, it's ridiculous. look, an activist. look, a bag of artificial intelligence. they're from the '80s but l still bought them.just to get back to my roots. lt's like the government'smaking him look like.... lt's to create a hacker mythology sothey can deprive other people of privacy... and other stuff like that. he hasn't done anything wrong. he hasn'tdone any financial damage to anybody
he's basically just like a scapegoat. l think most of the kids that l hang out withare cool, geeky, hacker types. they understand.then there's my mom and everybody else. why would they have any reasonto believe anything... other than he's a total scumbag who.... you know, like wargames, the hacking. that guy! didn't he break intomassive computer systems? he's not accused of selling information,of destroying computers... he's just accused of copying files.
three-and-a-half years in prison for that.how does that sound? yeah, cool, wow, all right, great. register to vote? you're an activist, too? lmagine if somebody made a filmabout you... and they get this totally evil kind of guyto play you... and take everything that you ever did andmake you look like you're really terrible? look, there he is cheatingon a crossword puzzle, too!that guy! many interesting itemsrelating to telegraph street. street scene, one of the best placesfor street scene material!
here on the street scene... we've got newspapers, we got novels... we got documentary calendars,nine calendars for nine years, man. what sysadmin is gonna have dot slashin their path before usr/local/bin? lt was cool. lt's about using suldand making a script called ls... and keeping it in your home directoryand creating a file with escape characters... pretending to be a lamer,''l need help deleting this.'' and then they go and do an ls.... but what sysadmin is gonna have dot slashin their path before usr/local/bin?
l don't know man, some of those hackers... when l'm on my computersend me all this shit all at once. -like what?-l don't know. all these messages. makes my computer-- -are you onaol by any chance?-no. prodigy. we've been bending over backwardsto help this guy.. and he's only one point awayfrom disqualification. let's do an easy one, the film. everyone hates the film, right?
when l read the screenplay... l was mostly just disappointed becauseit seemed like a crummy screenplay. there we go. he's back in the running. with one clip to go,the best markoff could hope for was a tie. so l gave him a chanceto show some humanity. l asked him to help us help kevinand sign a petition... to get him released from prisonand end the nightmare. he didn't want to sign the petitionbut he had a better idea. lf you could pass a message to kevin...
and say if he'd be willing to sit downand talk to me before his trial... l would love to do a piece.and l think that's perfectly fair. lf nothing else,you gotta give the guy credit for trying. more than a decade of writing about kevinand he still had yet to talk to him. lt was time for our last corporate visit. novell, who claimed kevincost them more than $75 million. we went to their corporate headquartersin provo, utah. okay, nowthe road says ''180 east.'' all right, we want 122 east, 1700 south.
lt's like some locker combination. okay, here we are. ls there somebodyin charge of security maybe? the person in charge of security is.... he's just brand-new check that out.this guy is so worriedabout us seeing his nametag... that he went through this acrobatic actto turn it over nice and casual-like. but in the end,it was just like everywhere else. nobody was allowed to say anything.
but, at least, we tried. hey, pal, look down. whoops! so the last corporate doorhad been closed on us. and now we had one last task... to head across the countryand stop the film. we knew it wouldn't work.we always knew it wouldn't work. that's what hacking's been aboutfrom the beginning. doing things that you knew wouldn't work,just because you had to. and trying to ignore the shithappening to your friends...
and trying not to feel badwhen you couldn't change a thing. as we drove from state to state... l thought of how bad it could get,how bad it had already gotten. l remembered what they doto people who piss them off. l remembered what they did to bernie. the bernie s. case,as far as l'm concerned... got blown out of proportionby a lot of things. lt got blown out of proportionby the prosecution... who knew what exactly he had doneand their representation of it...
was almost to make him look like the guywho blew up the murrah federal building. to do that was an incredible leap.but they managed to pass that of. they made bernie s.look like an absolute terrorist. the new statute that my attorneyhad never heard of and neither had l... that, in fact,wasn't even in the law books yet... makes it a federal felony to possess... hardware or software... for the modificationof telecommunications instruments... for the unauthorized accessto telecommunications services.
l wasn't accused or allegedto have done anything with software... or ever cloned a cellular phoneor anything of that nature. just the mere possession of these things... now constituted a federal felonyaccording to this new statute. the judge ordered me held without bail... based on the fact that books... in fact, l think l had two books in my home... on howfireworks, explosives are made.that stuff has fascinated me. l had about 2,000 booksin my personal library.
what little media attention the case gotmade bernie look like a dangerous maniac. he had never stolen anything,not even a phone call. everything used to make him looklike a terrorist, he had legitimately obtained. when the secret service wants youin prison, nobody asks them why not even a judge. ''your honor, when we initially searchedmr. cummings' house... ''federal agents discovered a substance... ''they believed to be c4 plastic explosives. ''while upon later analysis...
''it turned out not to be c4... ''the fact that it might have beenconcerned us greatly. ''and, based on that,we'd recommend for a stronger sentence.'' the judge didn't even blinkat that sort of a thing. then the prosecutor madea startling revelation to bernie's lawyer. she told himshe was under a lot of pressure... to prosecute this caseby the secret service... and that, in fact, the real reason,and that's a quote: ''the real reason'' ed is in jail...
was not because of crystals or softwareor anything like that. lt was because of other thingsthat they found in my house. namely: surveillance photographsof undercover secret service agents. so l made these photos availableat the 2600 meeting... and it apparently was a coincidencebecause l didn't call them... but the local fox television affiliate... fox 29 in philadelphia, their news division,showed up at the meeting. most are between their mid-teens to late 20s.
they gather every friday nightat 30th street station for all to see. lt's called the 2600 meeting,named after a telephone frequency... and meetings like these are advertised... in a hi-tech magazineyou can buy at a bookstore. some hackers call themselves ''fightersfor the freedom of information.'' the us secret servicemonitors some hackers. but hackers sayit should be the other way around. ln this photograph the secret service agentis picking his nose. the secret service didn't find it humorous.
not only did they havesome of their agents' covers blown... but they were picking their noseson a major market television news station. we all thought that was amusing... until l was in federal prison... and l found out that the real reasonl was locked up was because of that. for a year-and-a-half... bernie was bounced around maximumsecurity prisons throughout pennsylvania. l think they got tiredof me filing these appeals... because l found myself in handcufsand shackles and taken up to...
lehigh county prisonwhich had a reputation... amongst prisoners l had talked toover the past year... as probably one of the roughest prisonsin pennsylvania. within a day, bernie was attacked. he punched me in the mouthand l went down. he was a big guy,probably weighed like 220 pounds... and l think it turned out laterhe was on drugs... coming down off crack or something. l went down and he startedto kick me in the head...
and l put my arm up to block his kickand it broke my arm also. after bleeding for hours,bernie was finally taken to the hospital... but the authorities refusedto let him contact his relatives. the hospital wanted me to sign this waiver. whenever you go into surgeryyou have to sign this thing saying... that you understand all the risks involved.l refused to sign the paper. l said, not until l get a hold of my uncle... or at least let somebody in my familyknow what's going on. the prison officials went bananasthat l wouldn't sign this waiver.
lt was a liability for themthat l wasn't getting medical treatment. l was severely injured andthey needed to operate on me right away. lt got all the way up tothe warden at this place. my uncle was a known personin the community. he'd been the president of the city council.they knew who he was. he wasn't someone who'd run down thereand try to spring me out of the hospital. meanwhile, l was handcuffed and shackled... to the hospital bed, which was ridiculous.l didn't feel like going anywhere. l was in bad shape.
with a guard sitting there with a gun... making sure that l didn't breakthe handcuffs and run away. l was denied antibiotics for two days. l was denied any painkillers at all... not even aspirin which l couldn't takebecause my teeth were wired shut... and l was probably inthe most excruciating pain... that l've ever had,which was more than l could ever imagine... having multiple fractures. lt was like being in an altered stateof consciousness, this much pain.
they weren't bringing me food l could eat. they brought solid food whichl couldn't eat because my jaw was wired shut! l was getting to the point where.... l was starting to feel like,''l don't care anymore.'' l was really feeling like, ''l give up.'' l was losing my will to go ahead. l was able to get a phone call outthe next day... tell people where l was, what was going on. and that was whena major telephone campaign...
and lnternet crusade started... gaining momentum. we had state representatives getting called.l mean, like major politicians got calls... and they called saying, ''what's with this?what's this generating all the publicity for?'' finally, the prison and the judge realizedthey didn't need this publicity they wanted to get this thing over withand wash their hands of it. so the judge... signed an order to have me releasedon a medical furlough... which the guards hadnever even heard of before. they said, ''what is that? people die here.we don't even let them out!''
so this was an unusual thing.l'm convinced... that all the publicitygenerated by 2600 magazine... the lnternet, their website... radio interviews,l even forgot to mention that. l'd been repeatedly interviewedon wbal's off the hook show... with emmanuel goldstein... and people were following this casefrom the beginning... and it was generating a lot of attentionthat way as well. l got letters, l got hundreds of letters.
we had gotten him outbut it sure didn't feel like a victory and the scars were permanent. they had to put a.... the surgeons mounted... a titanium bar in my arm. l don't know if you can see it or not. a nice scar from here to herewhere they put this titanium bar in... and seven stainless-steel screws.this is how much my arm opens now. that's it. that's my full range of motionin my left arm.
unlike my good arm which straightens out.anyway, that's what l got. my jaw doesn't open as much as it used to. lf l'm trying to bite an apple,l can't get it in like l used to. but l live with it. we crossed the entire country andwere finally closing in on the takedown set. but there was a problem. lt seems that the hurricane... is making a beeline for the setat this point in time. ln fact, it's estimated that it will reachand destroy the set by sometime tomorrow.
and, that's somethingthat causes me concern... because it's not like that's somethingwe wanted to have happen. l fear that one of the listenersor one of the subscribers or somebody... may have called upon almightyallah... or christ or whatever... to rain forth upon these peoplewith all kinds of venom. l'd like to stress at this pointthat that's not what we meant to do. that's not exactly howl want things to turn out. l fear that the takedown peoplearen't taking this seriously.
lf you look at the map,if you look at the news reports... you will see the eye of the hurricane,you will see the direction it's heading for... you will see a little dot that indicatestakedown being produced there. that is where it's heading.this is like the scene in twister... where the rival gangs of twister watchersare trying to warn each other: ''this is the big one!''well, this is the big one. they were looking at this thing... and they saw another hurricanecontained within this hurricane. and they say they've never seen that before.
and, if that's not enough for you,hurricane bonnie. bonnie is the nameof kevin mitnick's ex-wife. nowthe metaphor just could notbe more perfect for me. of course, we didn't take our own adviceand drove straight into the storm. we thought we might be able to geta lot closer to the set if nobody was around. we were right. they seemed to have a real fixationon gun safety in this place. you had to wonder what had happened. we took a little tour of the restricted areapast the unguarded guardhouse.
the storm passed. and while we were exploring the next day... we made a discovery. was it really this easy? had we discovered wherethe takedown people were... through our own bumper sticker? -l have mr. wong in number 9.-russell wong. yeah. he's in number 9. -ls he still here?-l think he is.
the receptionist went out of her wayto tell us where everyone was staying. and while the guy playingshimomura wasn't in... we found the producer who promised usan interviewthat coming sunday. the place was swarming with celebrities... like cast members from dawson's creekengaging in decadent behavior. we wandered around town,taking in the carnage from bonnie... seeing the desperate people. we witnessed civilizationbrought to a standstill. roads were closed...
power was out... trees were knocked down. but it didn't matter. we were going to finally talkto the takedown people! there was nothing to do,the computer store was closed. we had four days to killso we drove all the way to raleigh... to see the town where kevin mitnickwas captured. the cellular towers where markoffand shimomura tracked kevin's signal. and this was the apartment complexit led them to.
and this was kevin's actual apartment. -you have a computer yourself?-yeah. be careful. l'll keep that in mind. we foundtakedown crew members inwilmington where the power was restored. you have to remember thatfilm is usually for fourth-grade mentalities. skeet is definitely.... he's a great actor. he's the most natural actor,so kevin's lucky. he's very charismatic.
there's nothing you can do to skeet ulrichthat makes him uncharismatic. so that's kind of, l mean,from your side, it's kind of... he's lucky, you know? l promised to tell kevin how lucky he wasnext time l talked to him. but now it was time for our interview. we had been in north carolina for five days. but something was wrong. miramax had changed their mindand nowthey didn't want to talk to us. so we staged an impromptu protestoutside the studio.
and as we were leaving,destiny hit us again. this time we wouldn't let them escape. we drove next doorand waited for them to leave. there he goes. yeah. and off he goes into the wild blue yonder this is the realtakedown! we had two cars on our side... we would outflank them, chase them,ambush them, whatever it took. -l wish l didn't have these running lights.-close enough. go.
for six weekswe'd been trying to talk to these people... and we hadn't even gottena phone call back. so this is what it came down to: a cat-and-mouse gamein the streets of wilmington. they didn't knowwho they were dealing with. he's making a u-turn. he's making a u-turn, that motherfucker -oh, god.-no, he's getting gas. -man, there's a boat in the way.-and only eight minutes left on this tape.
what do we do now?this is just great. this is just so typical north carolina-ish. fucking boat blocking us on the street. -he's not there.-oh, man! this guy's good.this guy's real good. they took off that way.l think they know we're behind them. they made a u-turnand went into the gas station. really? that's why. -did they then go that way?-they did go that way.
after they made the u-turn? they left the gas station and went that way? -they went that way.-when? after the gas station? a few minutes ago. l waited. l thought maybe you'd come by so they're headed that wayand l don't know where. so let's go. -where are we gonna go?-forward. even if we go forward at maximum warp...
we can't catch thembecause they're doing the same thing. let's face it guys, we lost.they beat us. -shakes?-yeah. shakes. there's always the outside chancethey'll get a shake too. we had failed. we never found shimomura... we never got to talkto the takedown people... and we never got past the lobbyin any of the corporations we visited.
worst of all, kevin was still in prison. 1999 sawthe free kevin movementreach a fever pitch. the media wouldn't cover it,so the message went on hacked web pages. and for the first time... hackers marched in the streetsin 15 cities all over the world... even overseas in england and russia. lt was an amazing spectacle... and more people learnedabout kevin's plight than ever before. even though kevin mitnick sawhis fourth year behind bars come and go...
we felt like we were getting somewhere. excuse me? what are you doing? and in the end,kevin did what he had to do... to avoid spendingthe next 10 years behind bars. you're watching southern california'scbs 2 news at 6:30. good evening. l'm gretchen carr.ann martin is off tonight. and l'm michael tuck. up front at 6:30... a guilty plea by notorious computer hackerkevin david mitnick. juan fernandez joins us live...
from the federal courthousein downtown losangeles. he was the first computer hacker... to make it to the fbl's most wanted list. and after a long battlewith the federal government... the 35-year-old manfrom the san fernando valley comes clean. his computer crimes apparentlycost companies millions of dollars... although kevin mitnicknever admitted to them until today.. ending a four-year battlewith the federal government. this is a very serious crime.
the federal governmenttakes this crime seriously. we will prosecute hackers... particularly when they causesignificant amounts of damage. mitnick nowfaces 46 months in jail. he's already served eight months,and according to his attorney... with good behavior, mitnickmight only have to serve one more year. mitnick will pay for his crimesfor the rest of his life. although his attorneys sayhe has no money... to pay restitutionto the companies that he hacked...
that doesn't meanthat they won't go after him later. lt was as if we hadn't said a word. l pray that they never wind upin the legal system. l pray that nobody does. but the thing is that if they do... right nowthe way it stands,the cards are stacked against them. lt's not about fairness. lt's just about the waythe legal game is played. lt's crazy to bring upthe o.j. simpson case...
because there's no comparison here... but here's a case where a defendanthad basically an unlimited budget... and look what that legal team accomplished. l'm not saying you need a lot of moneyto get off for something you did. l'm saying it doesn't matterwhether you did it or not. the case, the legal system... the justice system isn't about what you didor what you didn't do. lt's about either the governmentis going to win the case... or you'll win the case.
that's all that matters in the case.lt isn't all that matters morally l'm just saying in the court system,that's all that matters. the prosecution will dowhatever they can do... spend whatever money they canto win a case... and you have to do the same thingor you will lose. you know, this is no longerabout what the law allows or doesn't allow this is about how do you make itas difficult as possible for the defendants... to get them to roll over or cop a plea. lt has nothing to do with justice anymore.
god help youif you get stuck in that system... because it's very easy to get in... and it's almost impossibleto get out unscathed... because you're up against an adversary... that has everything going for itexcept maybe the truth. and, unfortunately,that doesn't count for much. so, that's the way it is. lf the legal communitydoesn't wake up shortly... we're gonna have more people locked up...
than we know what to do with. a lot of them are going to be kids.unfortunately. l don't think it ended. lt turned into this huge controversythat went on until now but there weren't any more storiesin the new york times about it. what would you thinkthat we should have reported? l mean.... l appreciate everybody taking the timeto viewthis film... which was a tremendous efforton the part of emmanuel goldstein... and everyone on the 2600 staff.
and l want to offer... my sincere appreciation and gratitude... for the tremendous moral supportthat everyone has given me... throughout this five year ordeal. subtitles by softltler