David Mitnick: “The Condor”

PERSONAL BACKGROUND

• NAME: Kevin David Mitnick (a.k.a The Condor)
• BORN: August 6, 1963
• WHERE: Los Angeles
• OCCUPATION: Computer consultant and Author

What did he do?

• At age 12, Mitnick used social engineering  to by pass the punch card system used in the Los Angeles bus system. After a friendly bus driver told him where he could buy his own ticket punch, he could ride any bus in the greater LA area using unused transfer slips he found in the trash. Social engineering became his primary method of obtaining information, including user-names and passwords and modem phone numbers.
• Mitnick first gained unauthorized access to a computer network in 1979, at 16, when a friend gave him the phone number for the Ark, the computer system Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) used for developing their RSTS/E operating system software. He broke into DEC’s computer network and copied their software, a crime he was charged with and convicted of in 1988. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Near the end of his supervised release, Mitnick hacked into Pacific Bell voice mail computers. After a warrant was issued for his arrest, Mitnick fled, becoming a fugitive for two and a half years.
• According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Mitnick gained unauthorized access to dozens of computer networks while he was a fugitive. He used cloned cellular phones to hide his location and, among other things, copied valuable proprietary software from some of the country’s largest cellular telephone and computer companies.
• Mitnick also intercepted and stole computer passwords, altered computer networks, and broke into and read private e-mail.
• Mitnick was apprehended on February 15, 1995 in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was found with cloned cellular phones, more than 100 clone cellular phone codes, and multiple pieces of false identification.

Criminal Acts that he did…

• Using the Los Angeles bus transfer system to get free rides
• Evading the FBI
• Hacking into DEC system(s) to view VMS source code (DEC reportedly spent $160,000 in cleanup costs)
• Gaining full administrator privileges to an IBM minicomputer at the Computer Learning Center in Los Angeles in order to win a bet
• Hacking Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu Siemens systems
• Stole computer manuals from a Pacific Bell telephone switching center in Los Angeles
• Read the e-mail of computer security officials at MCI Communications and Digital
• Wiretapped the California DMV
• Made free cell phone calls
• Hacked Santa Cruz Operation, Pacific Bell, FBI, Pentagon, Novell, California Department of Motor Vehicles, University of Southern California and Los Angeles Unified School District systems.
• Wiretapped FBI agents, according to John Markoff, This was denied by Kevin Mitnick

Where he is?

• Mitnick now runs Mitnick Security Consulting LLC, a computer security consultancy.
• http://mitnicksecurity.com/

Trivia…

• Mitnick is referenced in one of the in-game emails of the videogame Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
• In the Rockstar video game Grand Theft Auto III, on the Chatterbox Radio Station (which can be accessed in-game) a paranoid caller yells “FREE KEVIN” before he’s cut off by the DJ.
• In the Rockstar video game Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, on the WCTR Radio Station (which can be accessed in-game) the same paranoid caller says he could “launch a nuclear attack by whistling into a phone”, a clear reference to the charges thrown onto Kevin Mitnick prior incarceration.
• In the 2004 video game Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines a character named Mitnick provides optional hacking-related quests.