Famous hacker heads to SA

<joke>Darn... for a moment I thought I'd finally found someone to help me rearrange Telkom's website!!! :)</joke>
 
nic777 said:
famous cracker, not hacker.....
Click to expand...
No, he is a hacker. Read his bio if you want to find out more. He didn't do anything malicious which is what crackers do. About the most serious offence he did was to download the source code for operating systems to see how it worked. The media blew the whole thing out of proportion and made him out to be this massive boogie man with the result that he was held for 4 and 1/2 years without even a bail hearing, which is against the US constitution. Its a very interesting story actually. You can find out about him in a documentary called Freedom Downtime.
 
Last edited:
fergus said:
No, he is a hacker. Read his bio if you want to find out more. He didn't do anything malicious which is what crackers do. About the most serious offence he did was to download the source code for operating systems to see how it worked. The media blew the whole thing out of proportion and made him out to be this massive boogie man with the result that he was held for 4 and 1/2 years without even a bail hearing, which is against the US constitution. Its a very interesting story actually. You can find out about him in a documentary called Freedom Downtime.
Click to expand...

Oh, okay. I read a bit of his bio and he checks out ok :)

Although,

Widely recognised as the world's most famous hacker, Mitnick was first arrested at the age of 17, in 1981, and has since spent almost half his adult life either in prison or as a fugitive. Since his plea-bargain release in 2000, he has focused on helping corporations and government agencies protect systems from hacker attacks.
Click to expand...

when written like that, it seems like he was a cracker.
 
His book "The Art of Deception" is brilliant! I recomend it to any IT and non-IT security specialist. Gives alot of insight(examples) on how to get information out of people without raising suspicions.
 
Yeah, he definitely did a lot of wrong, illegal stuff, but I just wanted to highlight that by and large it wasn't with malicious intent, but rather out of curiousity. Whats interesting is that most of what he achieved was with social engineering, ie, conning people into believing that he worked at the company he was breaking into or something similar. Some of his stories are absolutely amazing. It makes you think about security in a totally different way. Companies can have the most expensive firewall and best security imaginable but if a cracker can manipulate a gullible employee into giving him what he wants all the security means nothing.

Does someone have a link for this event? I'm hoping he'll do a talk in Cape Town that I can go to.
 
nic777 said:
c-r-a-c-k-e-r

famous cracker, not hacker.....
Click to expand...


His a hacker:P not a "cracker" (which is a term that has not caught on in the last 10 years)

Used to be black hat, now his white hat
 
I wonder if he is alloud to touch a computer these days I know that for a while he was band to touch a computer. If he is still baned in the US I wonder if that law wil count for him when he is in SA.
He is one of my Idols in the computer world and I love his work
 
nic777 said:
c-r-a-c-k-e-r

famous cracker, not hacker.....
Click to expand...

w1z4rd said:
His a hacker:P not a "cracker"
Click to expand...

"cracker n. Used as a disparaging term for a white person."

Maybe he meant that 'cracker' .. :)

Seriously though, nowadays English grammarians follow a descriptive approach, meaning, if everyone uses a particular word to mean a certain thing, then the word becomes regarded as the/a correct one, and if another word still just 'hasn't caught on' after 10 years then it's probably time to give it up :)
 
hamba said:
I wonder if he is alloud to touch a computer these days I know that for a while he was band to touch a computer. If he is still baned in the US I wonder if that law wil count for him when he is in SA.
He is one of my Idols in the computer world and I love his work
Click to expand...
He's was allowed to use computers again in 2003.
 
My god! All this bickering about Kevin Mitnick. If you didn't know who he was on the first post, then you shouldn't even be posting here. And if you feel like a twerp for posting here, then read: http://www.takedown.com/evidence/transcripts/index.html

It might educate you a little bit. There is, of course, more than one side to a story. Both Shimomura's and Kevin's has intrigue, and conviction. But please. Don't let the press belittle "a famous hacker" and the man that caught him to a little piece of sideshow reporting.

This is one of the most awesome stories, and non-fiction ever written. From both sides.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X