Takedown (1995) | Hacker News Reader

Takedown (1995)

takedown.com

35 pointsbrudgers39 comments

I grew up as a huge Mitnick fan, and I still am. He was vilified and used as the poster boy for all computer hackers, phreakers, and the lot - unfairly I think. Takedown was one of the most dry and dull books I've ever read, and John Markoff should be ashamed of himself. Read Mitnick's book, Ghost in the Wires. So much better.

I can't speak to "Ghost in the Wires", however a book that contemporaneous to "Takedown" that does a better job, I think, is "The Fugitive Game", by Johnathan Littman: https://www.amazon.com/Fugitive-Game-Online-Kevin-Mitnick/dp...

I've read all three (_Ghost in the Wires_, _Takedown_ and _The Fugitive Game_) and all three were interesting in their own way. The first was from Mitnick's view, the second from the FBI/Shimomura's point of view (and man, does Shimonura come across as a jerk). The last is really from neither (or both) but does tend to fill in details not mentioned by the prior two.

Ah, I've not heard of The Fugitive Game. I will read it. It's not that I think Shimomura is a bad guy or anything, it's just...the writing is very dry for me.

I was in prison at the same time Mitnick was (but not at the same prison), and in about 1997, Justin Petersen (Agent Steal) showed up at the prison I was at, and we got to know each other well. He's one of the other main figures in The Fugitive Game, and he said this book was probably the most accurate of the several books about the Mitnick/Poulsen/Petersen story. I read the book in prison one night and I couldn't put it down until I finished it.

Heh, yeah even in Takedown you end up rooting for Mitnik. And why so much detail about food!?

Like the other comment in this thread, I've read all three and think The Fugitive Game is my favorite. It was definitely an enthralling read. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend The Watchman, also by Littman, but about Kevin Poulsen.

Thanks, this is nostalgic. I remember reading this several times back around 1996. Mitnick felt like a hero to me back then.

To me too in a way. It all looked cool. It was only later then I started to see the way we valorize bad actors as a bad thing about culture. Someone who does bad things is automatically treated as smarter then someone who has good ethics and cares about his impact on others.

I'm not even "why idealize hackers". I remember being a teenager too. I'm saying, why Mitnick? What about his M.O. was ever interesting?

Were there others as high profile at the time? He might have just been the first widely known when “hacking” and the Net was new for a lot of people.

Yes, and they set an interesting counter-example: Kevin Poulsen, Mark Abene, Elias Ladopoulos, and others took things in a sinister direction. Mitnick wasn't like that, and I think that really set him apart, but because he was the best the government had to make an example out of him.

How did Mark Abene take things in a more sinister direction than Kevin Mitnick?

There were of course other major hackers at the time, but were any of these nearly as well known as Mitnick outside of law enforcement and hackers who would already know of these people?

He wasn't like that? Says who? Him? And you believe this? The Internet in the late 80s to the mid 90s was like the wild west -- there were a few bad actors as Mitnick was one of them. Sorry.

I don't know, honestly. Likely the way he was written about more then what he did. I went by pop descriptions, uninformed irc debates, the book, etc, so I think that any answer to your question is more cultural then technical/factual.

The way hacking or lying your way somewhere seemed to be socially proof of ones superiority and something admired by others. For a time I really thought there is something aspiring and cool about hacking. And that people who do it are all definitely inherently smarter then me, but it kinda felt bad to try and my parents would be disappointed so I never tried. I had not the same impression about other types of crime. And it stopped the moment I had closer light weight contact with that culture.

Oddly, i simultaneously believed that techies are inherently more ethical them "managers" and "politicians". I did not even wanted to believe that veev could be nazi, so strong the bias toward hacker in trouble therefore cool was.

Because of how unjustly he was treated. Held for 5 years without trail, most of that in solitary confinement, because the government thought if he got to a phone he could launch nuclear weapons (seriously). Mitnick was in it for the knowledge, and exploration, not financial gain, not destruction, or anything like the script kiddies of today.

He seems like more or less the archetype of the modern script kid (he was using other people's exploits --- and in an era where you could exploit a lot of vulnerabilities with simple shell scripts, no less). What makes you think otherwise? How much do you know about his motives?

a little later:

When talking about his sentence, it's useful to compare it to that of Lewis DePayne, his accomplice. They're both charged with essentially the same crimes. But DePayne isn't going on a hacking spree while on supervised release, and gets probation.

> He seems like more or less the archetype of the modern script kid (he was using other people's exploits --- and in an era where you could exploit a lot of vulnerabilities with simple shell scripts, no less). What makes you think otherwise?

"In his 2002 book, The Art of Deception, Mitnick states that he compromised computers solely by using passwords and codes that he gained by social engineering. He claims he did not use software programs or hacking tools for cracking passwords or otherwise exploiting computer or phone security." [1]

> When talking about his sentence, it's useful to compare it to that of Lewis DePayne, his accomplice. They're both charged with essentially the same crimes. But DePayne isn't going on a hacking spree while on supervised release, and gets probation.

You mean he didn't get caught, and DePayne went screwing with Mitnick's girlfriend.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick

Maybe it's just because I was in this field during the events we're talking about (I got an early start!) but: I don't see how you can be at all familiar with the Mitnick/Shimomura story and think that he didn't use hacking tools. That breakin was famous mostly for introducing the wider world to the concept of TCP sequence number prediction. Unless you think he socially engineered Shimomura's TCP stack.

Kevin Mitnick absolutely did use other people's tools.

I don't know what your last sentence means. DePayne was charged as an accomplice, convicted, and given probation. He obviously did "get caught".

Thomas --

These people weren't there and only know what they have read or what has been glamorized. Mitnick had (has?) an evil streak and is in no way some poor little kid who got in over his head. He know what he was doing (in terms of his desire to cause harm) and he got off it. Lots of people had "fun" -- but very few seemed to be truly nasty human beings.

It's far better to create and help than it is to destroy and harm.

Hell, even u4ea popped up recently and doesn't seem like he's held a grudge for 20+ years -- think others can do or say the same?

What I found interesting about his MO when I read Takedown was the idea of social engineering and stringing together scripts. In particular Mitnick was interesting because it was a counter-narrative to the world Stoll portrays in The Cuckoo's Egg, a world where only technical knowledge seemed to matter in relation to technical issues. I suppose I found Mitnick M.O. interesting because it was so much simpler...like the scene in Raiders of the Lost Arch where Jones faces the swordsman [sans violence]. Not that he was my hero or anything. But I never found myself relating Shimomura in the way I did with Stoll. My recollection is that his book felt like a knockoff written with the expectation that I should feel outrage. I didn't.

Stoll was the most interesting character in his book. Mitnick was far and away the most interesting character in Shimomura's book. Stoll was interesting because he was curious. Shimomura was dull because he was just offended. The book did well because Mitnick was interesting, because cloning cell phones was interesting, because breaking into computer systems is interesting...even to people who aren't going to do it.

... why?

Why was Mitnick a hero? From what I remember about how I felt he didn't hack into systems in the traditional brute force sense. He worked his way in by social engineering. This made me think about how I could change my language, tone, mannerisms to "catch more flys with honey" if I wanted a particular result or outcome from someone.

It's nostalgic too, I read Takedown over the Atlantic on my honeymoon.

I recommend to watch movie based on Kevin Mitnick story:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_Down

I couldn't say it's very accurate story but it's still fun to watch.

99% of it never happened and what actually "happened" was over-dramatized.

They exaggerated so much that Mitnick was sent to a maximum security jail.

He served his sentence in FCI Lompoc, which is where his lawyers asked that he be incarcerated.

This movie is known as Takedown in the rest of the world, and it is not fun to watch, nor does it cover Mitnick's side of the story: "Track Down (also known as Takedown outside the United States), is a 2000 film about computer hacker Kevin Mitnick, based on the book Takedown by John Markoff and Tsutomu Shimomura."

Watch the documentary Freedom Downtime by Eric "Emmanuel Goldstein" Corley and read Mitnick's book, Ghost in the Wires. Written by Mitnick after his probation terms were expired. Dude's got humor, and its written in a way which is both fun and suspense. Whether it is accurate, who knows, but it is from his perspective.

I'm sure the movie is terrible (I've read the contemporaneous books, though not Mitnick's more recent one), as you might expect from a Hollywood crime story.

But what's Mitnick's side of this story supposed to be? The crimes he was sentenced for got his co-conspirator probation, right? It seems pretty clear that Mitnick mostly got punished for being a recidivist. Even Mitnick doesn't claim to be innocent of the charges; in fact, he's spent the last 10 years trading on his criminal reputation.

For a historic account of US phreaking (not Mitnick-specific), check out the book "Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell". Its worth as much as its long title. It even contains a historic account of the US (and international) phone system and how the monopolies came around. I read it because it was all just before my time (I'm mid 30s now). People who were blind phreaking by whistling. Insane!

(Mitnick-specific I can also recommend the docu Freedom Downtime and the book Ghost in the Wires but I've seen both already covered in other posts.)

"webmaster@takedown.com"

Couldn't be more 90s than this, hah.

Challenge accepted. http://www.takedown.com/sun-thanks.html "This site is running on two SPARCstation 20 Model 152 workstations, provided by Sun Microsystems."

I don't get the Mitnick worship. He was an unrepentant script kiddie, and when he harrassed Shimomura, a legitimate genius (https://www.quora.com/Would-someone-with-an-IQ-of-170-easily...), he got what was coming.

While I'm sure Shimomura is a genius, however you define that, I can't help but roll my eyes whenever I see another post about IQ on Quora. If IQ truly even measured raw intelligence, that doesn't get you very far in life. To do anything with that intelligence you need to put in a lot of effort and this requires things like time management, stress management, discipline, focus and drive. I'd rather bet on the person who is high in those 5 attributes I just mentioned but with an average IQ over someone with high IQ but who is only average on those 5 attributes.

the dude wiretapped the FBI. it doesn't get much more badass than that.

http://www.freedomdowntime.com/ “A feature length documentary about the Free Kevin movement and the hacker world.”

John Markoff sensationalized events and villified Kevin Mitnick.

It's a shame that all these years later nobody else knows who JSZ is.

he met his match, that's for sure

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