What is Digg?116 Comments
- nsummy, on 10/12/2007, -31/+109@RogerStrong You are totally offbase. Yes he was mainly a social engineer and a phreaker, but he was still a coder of some sorts. He isn't the script kiddie you are making him out to be. He didn't use a bunch of shiny apps with nice gui's that did everything for him. He actually found ways to break the phone system on his own. How is that being a script kiddie?
And while he was eventually caught, for the longest time they couldn't catch him. - RogerStrong, on 10/12/2007, -70/+140What skills? The guy wasn't a coder; he used other people's tools. He was the world's greatest script kiddie.
Most of what he did was "social engineering" - another name for good old-fashioned fraud. He doesn't need the internet for that.
What cracks me up is how fellow script kiddies spout things like "They couldn't catch him". He wasn't just caught; he was caught *repeatedly*. That's why he had the long sentence, and still has restrictions - every time he was set free, every time he promised not to do it again, he soon got caught doing it again. Repeat offenders lying to judges tend to lose a bit of freedom. - Trention, on 10/12/2007, -12/+62I guess breaking the law can kinda suck.
- Visceral, on 10/12/2007, -8/+51"Hey, remember me? I broke into your house about 12 years ago!. Can I come in?"
.....
"Yea, uh, no." - RogerStrong, on 10/12/2007, -29/+68That's not the bio I read. He stole manuals, used other people's tools, but mostly he used fraud to get passwords.
> And while he was eventually caught, for the longest time they couldn't catch him.
You mean, for the longest time they couldn't locate him - AFTER he was caught / found out for his latest crime. He was caught - and convicted - repeatedly.
He's not like the jewel thief who never gets caught, let alone convicted, and no-one knows the identity of. He's more like the pathetic loser who keeps robbing the local 7-11 store, and gets caught every time; maybe he's only caught on video, and the police have to go find him, but they know who he is. - jtorkbob, on 10/12/2007, -5/+27Never heard of The Well? Me either:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WELL
Nothing to see, move along now. - RogerStrong, on 10/12/2007, -3/+24@ luckynas:
I'm a programmer. I started with punch cards and now work in Dot Net languages. I worked for years as a computer technician doing board-level repairs with a soldering iron - until the clock speed of motherboards and video cards surpassed the speed of my occilliscope and the boards became disposable.
Yeah, I write my own tools, and I've done so on Microsoft & Apple OS's and several flavors of Unix. I just I don't use them for the equivalent of breaking & entering or vandalizing someone's garage.
Using someone else's tool to "take advantage of a loophole in a network" doesn't take any great skill - an the same way that a tagger doesn't need to know the chemical composition of his paint. That's why punks who do are derided as script kiddies: They run the script with no clue how it works, and when it does, they tell people what a great haxor they are. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18Downfall
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 by the title of Paper Trail, written by Barbara Snow Gilbert.(ISBN 1-886910-44-8) Boyds Mills Prwhse. Mitnick was arrested after the FBI obtained a search warrant, searched his house, and found his wallet with the fake ID's. Although he was caught in what seems like a foolish accident (by having the fake identification still in his possession), he was able to evade the FBI and police for an impressive amount of time.
NUFF SAID - washcapsfan37, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Idiot is an understatement.
The funniest part is him throwing out Prototype as an example of a script kiddy. That's like saying anyone who uses open source libraries when programming are script kiddies. Plopping prototype.js onto your website doesn't automatically turn your website into some awesome Web 2.0 site. It requires a lot of front-end and back-end coding to use Prototype/Script.aculo.us and AJAX. A script kiddy uses someone else's program with little to no knowledge of how it works. That, and Prototype has absolutely nothing to do with hacking/cracking/phreaking. - vulcanius, on 10/12/2007, -13/+25@philz
Social engineering is not based on skill so much as it is personality and confidence. It requires no "mad skillz."
@mdhauke
Retard. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15Idiot.
- mapkinase, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16That is the most lamely constructed acronym I have ever seen:
The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link??? - Chewie67, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15Two words jump to mind: WHO CARES?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12"He's a dumby."
Oh the irony here is so delicious it needs a slice of lemon. - niteskunk, on 10/12/2007, -14/+24@mdhauke
Are you ***** KIDDING ME? Look up Mitnick's arrest, and then look up when the Patriot Act was signed into law (or when Bush was first in office)... let me guess, you're the type who's against Bush cause it's the cool thing to do? - hoyaman, on 10/12/2007, -9/+19WHile it's understandable that Mitnick isn't allowed into the WELL, what's more obscure is that he is still held in a dark light while other real criminals - Ollie North, G. Gordon Liddy, Ben Stein, are able to not only profit off of their criminal acts, but return to society as celebrities, lauded by the far-right as "Heroes" and captains of business.
Anarchy over facism, any day. - krokodil, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9"Am I the only one who doesn't know what "The Well" is?"
Ah, new generation... - RogerStrong, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10"Social engineering" - weasel words for fraud and theft.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Damn, you guys on Digg are worse than the dumbasses at USA Today.
He wasn't a hacker, he isn't a hacker, he will never be one. Hackers find alternate uses for things or expand networks/devices/whatever to operate beyond their design. Cracker is the term you should all be using. Even then, Mitnick didn't really crack much of anything. He was a badass social engineer that obtained alot of sensitive data...and not even to exploit anything. He digitally and physically snuck in and grabbed things just for the sake of it. People like him are valuable in consulting because they help plug leaks in the most vulnerable security element: human beings. - mapkinase, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10who cares?
- mhuggins, on 10/12/2007, -7/+13Am I the only one who doesn't know what "The Well" is?
- mikeyrock, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@popfrogs
Actually the internet is more like a series of tubes.. Not to be confused with a truck. - xxmya, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8My experience dealing with him was that he was somewhat more than a script kiddie. He had a kit of small, focused cracking tools that he used fairly well. He would just hammer away on known technical vulnerabilities, steal what he wanted, and create a few new backdoors for next time. The whole social engineering myth is overblown. He was nothing more than a low to mid-level system cracker who worked hard enough and pissed off enough people to attain criminal notoriety.
- XSforMe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Wow! This guys are still in business? I thought they were long gone along with all the other BBSes of the 70s-80s. This guys predate the times of the commercial Internet, back then they were quite important.
- seneyr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Oh lordy. He's not kicked off the net. Just the WELL won't let him rejoin. If you got caught scamming on eBay would you expect them to let you back in as well? Same idea. Abuse the service and see if people treat you the same.
- nightsweat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Almost had it. The Well didn't post that e-mail. Mitnick did. Who's the attention whore?
- penneyisok, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Wait...I can't believe no one else posted this yet seeing as theres a huge population of Screen Savers fans on here plus it was also on digg a few times..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUNIzsntFsU
am I missing something?
edit: sorry didn't mean to reply - jordandiggsit, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11Another thing...
Why are so many people willing to stick up for felons as long as the crimes they committed dealt with 'hacking'? I say string him up! - DrewBlood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5No one's mentioned yet that "the WELL" is a hell of a lot different the "Net". OP, why'd you feel the need to sensationalize the headline?
- geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8For a bunch of technical hackers who were not script kiddies:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/07/05/max_vision_begins_18month_term/ - michaelzhao, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I'm not sure what you mean by Ben Stein's "criminal acts". Get your research straight, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Stein.
Unless you consider starting off as a poverty lawyer a "criminal act"...
Knowledge over ignorance any day... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I don't consider any of those you named to be "Heroes and captains of business". I do however know that if Liddy applied for the position of my chief of security I wouldn't even interview anyone else.
- fober, on 10/12/2007, -8/+12He's not missing anything.
- RogerStrong, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8> A hacker doesn't necessarily mean a person who knows how to code.
> [...]
> he rarely had to resort to using other people's tools because he mostly used
> social engineering to help him gain entry into other systems.
That's not a hacker. That's a con artist, a fraud, a cheat, a crook.... "Social engineering" is just a phrase used by frauds to justify thier anti-social behavior. - almighty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I think the Digg story on Chicken McNuggets was better than this.
- nightsweat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Link?
- tnvwboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I didn't even know the WELL was still around. I remember it being hip and cool back in the day, when AOL and CompuServe came on floppy disk. How relevant is it today? I'm sure the only reason KM even wanted to join is because it was active back when he was. I'm sure there are plenty of communities, who would welcome him without question. Why is this news?
- philz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Vulcanius,
The skill about social engineering is not HAVING personality and confidence. The skill is MAKING USE of it, like getting people to do
things they did not intend to do.
Also, personality and confidence is something you can develop. - Time4SumWupAzz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I'm having a hard time understanding why this article has been dugg so many times. Its dumb. To sum it up.... Who Cares??? Get a life dude.
- NatieB, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Way to copy and paste a comment from TFA
- krenzo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6So what you're saying is the internet isn't a big truck but more like the road the truck drives on?
- Fratm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@mikefitz2 "obody on this ***** site could do some of the stuff that guy did."
There are people on this site that were doing what he did, 10 years before he got caught.
-Fratm - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4its probably that box , on job apps " have you been convicted of a felony" that helps route his application to the garbage can. In the usa, we like to discriminate against that.
- VANOS, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Exactly.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Speak english much?
- bigwyrm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2In America, those both imply drugs.
- quick5pnt0cobra, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Wow what an in depth article on him not being welcome on the net. :::rolls eyes:::
- josegutz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well, it's like saying; I went back to try another round with my ex girlfreind from 12 years ago...
But I guess she never forgave my frequent intrusions... - baalzebub, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8a criminal is a criminal regardless if intelligence, if mitnick was smarter he would have used it talents for getting a job & bettering him self in the first place, now that he as a felony on his record he will find some doors in this world will never be open for him...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3mitnick is a ***** loser... full stop.
-
Show 51 - 100 of 115 discussions
Check out the new & improved 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is