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We join with those who mourn the loss of life,  the injuries, and the disruption of lives caused  by the attacks  against Washington,  DC, and  New York, N.Y.    All those effected -- the brave people who helped in rescue efforts, those involved in America's response to terror and in the war with Iraq-- are in our thoughts and prayers.

“Talking with Kevin Mitnick is like channel surfing,” writes John Littman, author of  The Fugitive Game: online with Kevin Mitnick.

Several authors have published books about the headline-grabbing manhunt that culminated in Mitnick’s February 1995 arrest and April 1996 guilty plea.  However, Littman offers the most extensive insights into the hacker’s mind.  Eric Heinz, AKA Agent Steale (a hacker turned FBI source who was rearrested for hacking while under FBI control), told Littman “One of the reasons you become a computer hacker . . . is because you want control.  You want to know what’s going on in your life.  You want to be able to control your life.”

Littman has given us the best window into Mitnick’s mind.  It’s a mind that you cannot pin down.  Mitnick jumps unpredictably from one topic to another, keeping you continually off balance.  A control freak, one minute he would not talk about his activities or anything else you want to hear.  The next minute, he’s telling more than you need.  He is also cagey enought to only provide details on activities past the status of limitations.  He also ingeniously tries to rationalize his crimes—since he was not stealing money or deleting people’s files after copying them, he wasn’t a real threat to anyone and the FBI should leave him alone.

However, control is something the hackers don’t seem able to achieve.  Mitnick cloned cellular phone numbers to steal phone service and to illegally eavesdrop on the FBI.  Still, he had to flee his hide-out in Seattle, WA, when an investigator for the local phone company found him.  (After weeks of surveilling the hacker known only by the alias of “Brian Merrill,” Todd Young finally talked local police into getting a warrant.  When they served it Mitnick was away from the apartment.  After completing their search, the cops left without leaving someone to await his return!  After his landlord explained who had made a mess of his place, Mitnick quietly slipped away.)  Within a few months, he was caught by the FBI, phone company techs, and computer security guru Tsutomo Shimomura in Raleigh, NC.

Another journalist referred to the investigation as a “wilderness-of- mirrors kind of world.”  More than the other books on the subject, Littman explores those complications.  If Shimomura was such a security expert, why did he fail to turn off several of hackers’ favorite UNIX operating system com-mands as a precaution?  Had Shimomura been hacked before?  If so, why did tracking this hacker become a “matter of honor?” 

One of the sites Mitnick regularly broke into, and the one where Mitnick read Littman’s e-mail, was a Northern California Internet provider named The Well.  When the Well’s management learned of the break-ins, they agreed to operate as if nothing unusual had occurred and allowed Shimomura and the FBI to monitor Mitnick’s actions.  Why had they reacted so aggressively to the intrusion?  Littman charges “The Well had been hacked on and off for years. . . .There were 10,000 users and security was not a high priority. . . .Mired in vulnerable UNIX technology like all internet providers, the Well is open to a number of attack requests.  And [Well owner Bruce] Katz is the first to admit the Well’s technology lags behind most Internet providers.”  Littman writes that “Privacy intrusions and crime in cyberspace were old news, and a series of Internet break-ins after Mitnick’s arrest proved the capture of cyberspace’s most wanted criminal had changed little.”

New York Times Reporter John Markoff covered the hunt for his paper, was at many meetings when no one else outside the investigative team was present, and quickly signed a book deal.  Was his role in the episode ethical?  Did he cross a fine line by assisting law enforcement rather than just observing and reporting?  Since FBI policy prohibits having reporters on an investigation, had Shimomura lied (or at least fudged the truth) when Markoff arrived in North Carolina?  Since book and movie rights for Shimomura and Markoff’s book may earn the two over $1M, did Markoff hype the “chase” so he could  cash in later?

After seeing the early galleys, Shimomura and Markoff wrote Littman, challenging some of his assertions.  Littman apparently made only a few concessions, including printing the text of their letter as an appendix.  However, he retained the controversial comments by Mitnick, other hackers, and those involved in the hunt. Littman raises more questions than he provides answers.  The result is an enjoyable and thought-provoking book.

If you want to preview Fugitive Game, check out the World Wide Web site Littman has created by pointing your browser to http://www.well.com/user/jlittman/.

Reviewed:   The Fugitive Game: online with Kevin Mitnick by Jonathan Littman, New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1996, 375 pages, hardback, $23.95.

[Webmaster's note:  This article was originally written in April 1996 for the VSAC News & NCMS Channel Islands Newsletter.