Kevin Mitnick Tells All in Upcoming Book -- Promises No Whining

By Kim Zetter

Now that the statute of limitations has lifted on many of his crimes -- as well as a seven-year court ban prohibiting him from writing about them (the ban ended midnight on January 28, 2007) -- former hacker Kevin Mitnick is telling his story in a book to be published next year.

Mitnick, the Mumia Abu-Jamal of the hacker world who inspired a "Free Kevin" movement, was imprisoned for four and a half years, beginning in February 1995, before he was finally sentenced to 46 months in 1999, with some credit for time already served. Part of that time he was held in solitary confinement and without bail because the government feared he had the ability to detonate a nuclear weapon simply by whistling a tone through a phone. He was released in 2000.

But don't look for Mitnick to whine in his book about the government's unfair treatment of him or his long-standing feud with New York Times scribe John Markoff, whom Mitnick accused of inflating his stories about Mitnick to get a book deal. Instead, he tells Forbes, he plans to set the record straight about his hacking spree.

Kevin Mitnick: It's pretty much my autobiography, the story of my years as a hacker and a fugitive told from my point of view--starting out from my younger years in telephone phreaking when I was 11-years-old, to my arrest, to my post-arrest career as a security professional. There's going to be a lot of information revealed about hacks I pulled off. The statute of limitations has lifted on a lot of that stuff, so now I can talk about it publicly.

Forbes: Can you give us a preview of the exploits you're going to recount in the book?

I'm trying to save that all for the book. What I can tell you is what won't be in the book--I won't be whining about my trial or my mistreatment by the government or [Mitnick-chronicling] John Markoff.

This book is going to be a kind of Catch Me if You Can in cyberspace. It's going to be what's real in my history and what isn't, what I did and how I did it and how I've since turned my life around.

Forbes: What are some of the myths about Kevin Mitnick that just aren't true?

I never wiretapped the FBI, though I did wiretap an informant who was working with the FBI and chasing me for the bureau. Some other myths: that I hacked into the National Security Agency, that I hacked into NORAD.

Forbes: And some things you did do?

Well, I compromised all the phone companies, essentially. Even when I was a kid I had the capability to disrupt the telephone systems for entire states.

I hacked into the systems of all the major software companies at the time: Digital Equipment, Sun Microsystems, IBM, Silicon Graphics. Also most of the companies that made cellular phones at the time, like Nokia, Motorola, Fujitsu.

Mitnick, whom the government had deemed "the most wanted computer criminal in United States history" was charged with 25 counts of wire and computer fraud and causing nearly $300 million in damages. He eventually pleaded guilty to 7 counts and was ordered to pay only about $4,000 in restitution after his release.

Photo: Neon Samurai

Original here