Topic 1119 [media]: Media Appearances of WELLperns VI, S.F.Bay Area Division #212 of 296: john markoff (johnm) Wed Jan 3 '96 (16:58) 256 lines <hidden> My response to Charles Platt's rebuttal..... JM Writes: "The darkside hacker label was created during the late 1980s by the Southern California press. It is a label that I noted, but I didn't create. However, he's right I don't regret using it. And also for the record, Kevin Mitnick used to drive around in Las Vegas with a stack of copies of Cyberpunk in the trunk of his car to give away to admirers. He is on record as saying the book is '20 percent inaccurate.'"
JM is confusing the issue. I never suggested he invented the "darkside hacker" term. This is totally irrelevant. I said, very specifically, that he was the first to *apply* this label to Mitnick. JM does not actually deny this, and I believe it is true.
Sorry, you're wrong. The "darkside hacker" label was used in the headlines of Southern California press coverage of Mitnick in 1987-8, in particular by John Johnson, an LA Times metro reporter. I was not the first one to use the term with respect to Mitnick. Re my description of his initial article about Mitnick for the NY Times, JM writes: "This is really inaccurate. Kevin Mitnick had become notorious nationally in the late 1980s as a result of his being arrested for attacks on Digital Equipment Computers. A menacing mug shot? It was the only photo available. No actual news? Not the way I remember it. The news was that he was being pursued by the FBI (three agents full time), the California DMV, US Marshalls, telco security, local police, etc. The further news was that the FBI had told cellular telephone companies that they believed the fugitive had stolen software from at least six cellular phone manufacturers. I thought then, and still think, this merited a story. I also think the story was a good yarn. Mitnick had succeeded in evading law enforcement for more than a year - again."
"Notorious" in what sense? This is another of those vague terms that JM throws around without limiting or defining it. Mitnick may have been "notorious" in hacker circles, but not in the eyes of the general public. My point was, and is, that JM converted Mitnick from a relatively obscure hacker into a public figure. JM tries to evade this point but cannot specifically deny it. As for Mitnick being "actively pursued," I believe this is a vast overstatement. As I understand it, law enforcement had largely lost interest until JM's news item embarrassed them. Even after that, according to JM's own book _Takedown,_ law enforcement had to be prodded into taking action. They seemed not to share JM's perception of Mitnick as a severe threat. They certainly didn't characterize him as one of "America's most wanted."
Since when is "notorious" a vague term? The dictionary def. of notorious is "generally known and talked of." Kevin Mitnick had national press attention in at least two cases (Los Angeles 1981 and Los Angeles 1987) and there were a number of articles in the Los Angeles Times, which the last time I checked was not a hacker quarterly, before Katie and I wrote about him in Cyberpunk. He was notorious. Charles is just plain wrong about the issue of pursuit: There was a US Marshalls search for him for a parole violation, a team of FBI agents in LA was detailed to finding Mitnick, telecommunications companies in Seattle and Southern California were pursuing him, California DMV had a special investigator looking for him. I could go on....Law enforcement did not have to be prodded into action. The first thing Tsutomu did when he was invited to the Well was meet with a US attorney and FBI agents who had an open case. In response to my statement that Kevin Mitnick has never been accused of intentionally damaging a computer, JM writes: "Wrong again. He was accused of doing more than $100,000 damage at US Leasing, a SF time sharing company in 1980. Their system was trashed by a group that Mitnick was a member of. After that, at various other times he cost companies tens of thousands of dollars trying to close the door on his attacks.
With all due respect, this is not fair or accurate journalism. Was Mitnick *active* in the group that caused the alleged damage? Did he play a personal role? Does JM know? If not, he's just slinging mud. This is a smear and should not be presented as if it is a fact. On the other hand, if there is evidence that Mitnick was indeed actively responsible, I will gladly admit that I didn't know of this.
Kevin was convicted in this case in the Spring of 1982. He spent 90 days in juvenile detention, he was given a year's probation.
As for the money that companies spent fixing the security weaknesses that allowed Mitnick to gain access, it is grossly unfair and misleading for JM to throw this into a paragraph discussing "intentional damage." This is exactly the kind of deliberate blurring of different kinds of computer misuse that I complained about in my review.
I'm afraid that Charles has confused me here. I simply gave an example where intentional damage was done for which Kevin was convicted. I didn't say that he always damaged machines, I simply object to the portrayal of him as an innocent Regarding Mitnick's "most wanted" status, JM writes: "Sorry, but I didn't create the character, Kevin did. He has now been arrested six times in fifteen years. Each time, except for this last time, he was given a second chance to get his act together. He chose not too. It seems to me that he is an adult and makes choices. He chose to keep breaking in to computers. He knew what the penalty was. So what's the problem?"
Of course Mitnick is responsible for his actions. I never disputed this, and never suggested he was innocent of the crimes for which he was convicted. I merely suggested that the crimes were relatively trivial and were exaggerated out of all proportion by JM's extravagant prose. Exaggeration, imprecision, and innuendo: *that's* the problem, JM.
In a passage above Charles accuses me of being vague, now he says that exaggeration, imprecision and innuendo are the problem. Boy, talk about being vague. But I guess we've descended to the nyah, nyah level.... 8) JM writes: "A witch hunt? Give me a break. It was an article describing a law enforcement hunt for a fugitive, who had been arrested five times previously, convicted at least three times, and was known to be attacking the computers of the nation's cellular telephone companies."
My review complained that JM throws around words such as "attack" without ever defining them in computer terms. He's still doing it here in his rebuttal. Kevin Mitnick never attacked any computer, by my understanding of the word.
Mitnick was persistent and frequently arrogant in his break-ins into dozens of different computers. Attack is not an exaggeration. Re Mitnick's dangerousness, JM writes: "This is just not true. Kevin Mitnick was actively sharing system vulnerabilities with other people on the net. That is about the most damaging thing that could be done to the Internet community."
Is JM aware that some highly respected security experts believe that sharing news of vulnerabilities is the best way to encourage better security? True, this is a controversial subject; but certainly the sharing of vulnerabilities is NOT "the most damaging thing that could be done to the Internet community." That's just another of those wildly exaggerated phrases that JM throws out for emotional effect. I can think of many politicians--and even a few journalists--who pose a far greater danger to the future of the net than Kevin Mitnick ever did.
Charles probably missed the followup discussion on this point, but I think there is a dramatic difference between distributing information publicly and sharing it in a clandestine fashion with a small gang of crackers the way Mitnick was doing it. I assume from his comments that Charles thinks that issues like Internet privacy and security are trivial and don't really matter very much. I disagree with him here. Re the petty gossip in _Takedown,_ JM writes: "The reason we described what happened at Toad Hall on Xmas was that the attacks first came from toad.com while Tsutomu and Julia were there. If we hadn't have been complete in our description someone would have charged us with a cover up. Please remember that David Bank, a San Jose Mercury reporter, spent several weeks pursuing the hypothesis that Tsutomu had attack his own computers."
Uh-huh. And I suppose the rest of the sordid, relentlessly personal thread in _Takedown,_ describing every little nuance of Shimomura's campaign to steal someone's long-term girlfriend, was merely included so that no one could complain that the account was incomplete? Really!
Sharon Fisher had a good response to the notion of girlfriend as property. Charles is being viciously innaccurate here. In my review, I complained about pejorative terms (such as "attack") that JM uses repeatedly. His response: "Perjorative?? Yikes! I mean we could go to the dictionary....."
Well, I guess JM *should* go to the dictionary. If he does, he will find that pejorative is a perfectly good word which I spelled correctly. It's ironic that he seems unaware of it, since it so aptly describes his own journalistic technique.
This is getting weird again. I still don't have any problem with using the word "attack" and would use it again. I think Charles has sort of run out of gas trying to mount a defense against something that is basicly indefensible. It's just not ok to read other people's mail, steal commercial software, leave trojan horses scattered around, and systematically alter system software. No matter how you dress it up, its criminal activity. Re my assertion that all charges but one against Mitnick have been dropped, JM replies: "Wrong. Kevin Mitnick is in jail in Los Angeles facing charges from more than six United States Federal Districts. He may go on trial or he may plea bargain."
I tried to contact Mitnick's attorney before I wrote my review. He did not return my calls. I based my statement on information from three other sources. If it's incorrect, obviously I stand corrected. As I understand it, though, those charges from other federal districts may not have been actually filed. Is "facing charges" another of those slightly misleading terms that makes the situation sound worse than it really is? Are the charges actual, or potential?
Why didn't Charles think to give any of half a dozen US District Attorney's a call and chat with them about the charges that are being brought against Kevin Mitncik. For those who are curious there is a plea bargaining process going on now and Mitnick has a scheduled court date for January 29. Finally JM writes: "Myth and reality? I have been writing about Kevin Mitnick for a long time, since 1981 to be precise, but I didn't create a myth, he created his own story."
In his own rebuttal, JM has already referred to the Mitnick story as a "good yarn." A yarn, of course, is a richly embroidered, sometimes fictionalized version of the truth. This is precisely what I believe he concocted, and it isn't my idea of decent journalism.
Please Charles, which part is concocted? The part about Kevin being a criminal who was a fugitive and who was caught while he was breaking in to computers?
Would JM like to explain how Dan Farmer's perception of "the Mitnick threat" can be so different from Shimomura's? To the outside observer, it almost looks as if there wasn't a significant security threat, and Shimomura must have been motivated by wounded vanity, while John Markoff was motivated by his desire to tell a "good yarn" and make a lot of money. Am I wrong?
Yes you're wrong. I can't speak for Dan, but Tsutomu was invited by both the Well and Netcom to help them solve a persistent computer security problem. His advice to the Well was that they would never be secure unless the person who was attacking their computers was apprehended. The Well had no viable way to lock Kevin Mitnick out. Tsutomu's solution to actively pursue Mitnick was the only reasonable option, one which the Well management agreed with. There are several philosophies in the computer security world. One view is that rather than hiding in your shell it is necessary to track down offenders who have broken the law. I really don't see what's wrong with that approach. Do you Charles?