Hacker Busted
Story from New York Times - Dec 26, 1988
Typed by Corpus Dementia
4/25/89


"MAN IS HELD IN COMPUTER PROGRAM THEFT
By John Markoff

     "A Southern California man accused of stealing computer programs from the
Digital Equipment Corporation is being held without bail in a Los Angeles jail
on the orders of a Federal magistrate, who said the man posed a threat to the
community when armed with a computer.
     "The 25-year-old suspect, a veteran computer intruder who has had numerous
encounters with the law-enforcement and corporate computer security officials
in the past eight years, has been barred from making unsupervised telephone
calls from jail becuase the authorities fear he could tap into a computer with
the telephone.
     "The suspect, Kevin D. Mitnick, was arrested Dec. 9 and was indicted by a
Federal grand jury last Tuesday on charges of forcing Digital to spend more
than $4 million in tracking his electronic intrusions into the companies
nationwide computer network.
     "Leon Weidman, an assistant United States attorney in Los Angeles, said Mr
Mitnick used telephone lines to enter computers systems remotely and steal
software valued at $1 million.  Mr Mitnick, of Panorama City, is also accused
of using unauthorised long-distance service codes to avoid telephone charges
while tapping into computer systems at Leeds University in England.  Mr Mitnick
is believed not have acted alone, and the FBI has interviewed at least one
other suspect in the case.
     "Mr Mitnick has little formal computer training but is highly skilled  and
has been involved with a shadowy outlaw computer underground at least since he
was 16 years old, according to a member of the investigation who asked not to
be named.
     "The investigator said Mr. Mitnick's reason for breaking into the
company's computers ws unknown, but some suspected that he ultimately planned
to blackmail Digital by ditributing information related to security flaws in
the company's computers.
     "Mr Mitnick tried to conceal his location by masquerading as a member of a
group of German computer enthusiasts, the investigator said.  In 1987, Digital
machines used by a worldwide NASA computer network were the target of the
so-called Chaos Computer Club.  Digital officials have not commented on the
case.
     "Mr Mitnick's court-appointed lawyer, Anthony J. Patti, disputed the
portrait drawn by investigators.  'They think that he is able to pick a phone
up and ruin people's credit rating,'  Mr Patti said.  'But he didn't make a
dime on this.  Some companies may have been hurt because he showed there was a
crack in their security systems.'
     "In May 1980 Mr Mitnick was caught for the first time by the campus police
at the University of California at Los Angeles and was accused of using campus
systems to gain access to computer networks.  He was not prosecuted.
     "Computer security investigators said that as a teen-ager Mr Mitnick
belonged to a shadowy Southern California group of computer enthusiasts, the
Roscoe Gang, who met in a pizza parlor in the Los Angeles area.  The group also
stayed in contact through a variety of computer BBSs, including one, 8BBS Santa
Clara, California, run by employees of Digital.
     "In 1981 Mr Mitnick and three other group members were arrested on charges
of steaing technical manuals from the Pacific Telephone Company.  Mr Mitnick
was convicted and served six months in a youth detention center.
     "He was caught again by University of Southern California officials in
1983 trying to break in to the school's computers.  In another incident, Mr
Mitnick fled to Israel to avoid prosecution after being accused of tampering
with a computer storing credit information at TRW Inc.
     "In December 1987 he was convicted of stealing software from Microport
Systems in Santa Cruz, and was sentenced to 36 month's probation.
     "In the most recent incident, Mr Mitnick successfully eluded Federal law
enforcement officals and computer scientists for more than six months before
being betrayed by a friend and was caught by Federal agents.
     "A member of the California computer underground who is familiar with Mr
Mitnicks activities said the Soutnern California man had obtained the complete
text, or "source code", of Digitals VMS operating system program as well as a
special security program,  Source code is particulary valuable for anyone
intending on breaking into a computer system because it permits a detailed
examination of how a program functions.  The text may have been taken from a
military computer and not stolen directly from a Digital computer.
     "Mr Mitnick was able to avoid being apprehended by tampering with
telephone company switching equipment to mask his location, he said.
     "The FBI was able to catch him only after he threatened a friend, Leonard
DiCicco, in an effort to force him to let Mr Mitnick use a Digital terminal
where Mr DiCicco worked.  Mr DiCicco contacted the FBI which set up an
operation to trap him.
     "Mr Mitnick was the focus of Pacific Bell Company investigators this year.
In an internal memorandum expressing telephone company "alarm" about
"sophisticated hackers," Mr Mitnick was singeled out for the activities that
led to his 1987 arrest.
     "The memorandum said that disks found at the time of his arrest indicated
that Mr. Mitnick had compromised all the telephone companies switching
systems."

Hey People, lets be careful out there!
Corpus Dementia