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Who is Kevin Mitnick?  
PEOPLE 

Tags: Kevin Mitnick, hacker, computer, internet, criminal, prison, Defense

Kevin Mitnick is a controversial computer cracker and convicted criminal in the United States. Here is an extremely interesting summary of his life:

	Kevin Mitnick began social engineering or perhaps discovered his first engineerable situation at the age of 12. He realized he could bypass the punchcard system used for the Los Angeles bus system: by buying his own punch, he could get free bus rides anywhere in the greater LA area.
	In high school, he was introduced to phone phreaking, the activity of manipulating telephones to evade long distance charges.
	Social engineering became his primary method of obtaining information, whether it be user names and passwords, modem phone numbers or any number of other pieces of data.
	Mitnick broke into his first computer network in 1979, when a friend gave him the phone number for the Ark, the computer system at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) used for developing their RSTS/E operating system software. He broke into DEC's systems and stole DEC's software, for which he was later convicted. This was the first of a series of run-ins with the law.
	Kevin Mitnick would change his identity by exploiting how the identification system worked in the United States. He would obtain the birth certificates of recently deceased newborns and very young children (around the ages of 1 to 3 years old), as the government had no distinct record of their death since they never worked nor were involved in society. Furthermore, the certificates would have to be from someone who was, for example, born in Washington and died in California, as it was more difficult to trace back to the original source.
	He changed his identity about three or four times, any time he changed jobs. He claimed to have learned most of this information through a book titled Paper Trail written by Barbara Snow Gilbert.
	Mitnick was arrested after the FBI obtained a search warrant, searched his house, and found his wallet with numerous fake IDs. He was caught in an accident by having the fake identification still in his possession. Once out of jail, he was able to evade the FBI and police for a relatively long time.
	Mitnick served five years in prison, of which four and a half years were pre-trial, and eight months were in solitary confinement. He was released on January 21, 2000.
	During his supervised release, which ended on January 21, 2003, he was initially restricted from using any communications technology other than a landline telephone. Mitnick fought this decision in court, and the judge ruled in his favor, allowing him to access the Internet.
	Mitnick now works as a computer security consultant running a company called Defensive Thinking.
	On August 20, 2006, Kevin Mitnick's site was defaced by Pakistani hackers with offensive messages against him. The domain names defensivethinking.com, mitsec.com, kevinmitnick.com and mitnicksecurity.com displayed the vandalism for hours before the affected files were replaced.
	Mitnick commented:" The Web hosting provider that hosts my sites was hacked, fortunately, I don't keep any confidential data on my Web site, so it wasn't that serious. Of course it is embarrassing to be defaced—nobody likes it."
	As a notorious figure, Mitnick has been targeted by hackers who wish to bolster their status and for people seeking to prove their abilities.
	Zone-H reports that in one occasion, there was a struggle between different black hat and white hat hackers when some defacers put their nicks on Mitnick's site and fans replaced the vandalized copy with an original unmodified one. This went on for a full day.

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