Kevin Mitnick & Steve Wozniak on TechTV Show "Screen Savers"...

[Jeff Thomas <a2forever@usa.net>]

This was published in our local newspaper. Does anyone know when the
programme is scheduled to be screened?

---technology news
Legendary Hacker Allowed Back Online

SAN FRANCISCO - One of the world's most famous computer hackers gets off
probation this week and plans to dive back into the Internet, his former
playground where breaking-and-entering landed him in jail for five
years.

  On Tuesday, 39-year-old Kevin Mitnick will log on to the Internet for
the first time in eight years, during the live TechTV show "Screen
Savers." Also scheduled to be on the program are Shawn Fanning, creator
of Internet music downloading pioneer Napster (news - web sites), and
Steve Wozniak, a co-founder of Apple Computer Inc.

 Mitnick says he is ready to go to work, ironically, in a position where
he will be helping protect companies against the kind of hacking he used
to do. He has a job interview scheduled for Monday, but declines to name
the company.

 "What's going to be a struggle ... is convincing people in the security
space that a lot of what was written about me is not true, and what is
true, I'm sorry about," he told Reuters in an interview on Saturday. "I
paid my debt to society and I'm trying to do a positive thing. I can't
change the past."

 One of the first computer hackers prosecuted, Mitnick was labeled a
"computer terrorist" and became a cause celebre after leading the FBI
(news - web sites) on a three-year manhunt for breaking into computer
networks and stealing software at companies including Sun Microsystems
Inc., Novell Inc. and Motorola Inc.

 He pleaded guilty in March 2000 to wire and computing fraud and
intercepting communications and has been on supervised release since
then, with restrictions on his travel, employment and use of technology.
He has been allowed to use a cell phone and computer, but not one
connected to the Internet.

 ADVENTURE, THRILL, INTRIGUE

 "I'm looking forward to using email. My friends and family are tired of
checking email for me" and printing it out, he said. He's also excited
to use his first personal digital assistant, a Blackberry his girlfriend
bought him as a getting-off-probation present.

 "I've lost out on a lot of time and education and research," he said.

 While he will be able to surf the Net and send e-mails, Mitnick will
still be barred from making money off his story until 2010, a condition
of his release he plans to fight.

 "I believe, and some attorneys have advised me, that it raises
constitutional issues," he said. "The government can't disadvantage
anyone from exercising free speech."

 Last year he challenged the revocation of his ham radio license and is
now able to enjoy a hobby he's had since he was 13. While amateur radio
was an innocent activity in high school, phone phreaking -- hacking the
phone system -- was getting into gray area, he said.

 "That's where I got hooked on exploiting technology for the adventure,
the thrill, the intrigue," he said. "I was figuring out how the phone
company operated, the internal procedures."

 He learned how to make free phone calls and do pranks, like switch a
friend's home phone service to a pay phone setting.

 Then he moved on to computers, creating a program in school for fun
that would steal passwords, breaking into computers to learn how phone
networks operate and downloading proprietary software code to see how it
works. He said he didn't steal or make any money, or destroy any
computers or networks.

 "At the time, I didn't believe I was going to get caught. I looked at
it as very benign and trivial and more of a pain in the butt," he said.
"When they started to enact federal laws against computer hacking I
continued in that mindset" without realizing the seriousness of the
activity and its potential consequences.

MEMOIR, MOVIE PLANS

 "Now, of course, my attitudes and beliefs and values have changed,"
said Mitnick. "I deserved to be punished for my hacking, but the
punishment didn't fit the crime. I kind of won the scapegoat
sweepstakes."

 The biggest lesson he has learned, he said, is how much "collateral
damage" sneaking into a computer network does. He said he now knows that
it can cost thousands of dollars to cleanup and re-fortify a network
once a hacker has been in.

 Mitnick, who lives in Thousand Oaks, California, said he's been
approached by people interested in doing a movie based on his  life,
including Oscar winning actor Kevin Spacey.

 Even though he was banned from using the Internet, Mitnick has in
recent years turned to one of the most popular Web sites -- auction site
eBay. He had his girlfriend post and then pull from the site two laptops
he used to commit his crimes, after getting too many bogus bids. He is
re-listing them this week, as well as the computer he used to write his
book in the hopes of paying off the $10,000 he still owes his attorney.