Kevin Mitnick was a Top 10 most wanted criminal by the FBI when he went on the run. His exploits are that of legend, and that is part of the problem. Repeatedly, mythical abilities have been assigned to Mitnick when interacting with law enforcement and the judiciary. While his skills were amongst the best in the world, he could not whistle into a phone to order a missile strike. His story is fraught with these mislabelings, and ultimately should have us all asking questions about law enforcement, legal proceedings, and how we handle high tech crimes.
All that said, Kevin Mitnick most certainly abused telephonic systems, stole proprietary material, created multiple fake identities for the purpose of evading law enforcement, and impersonated personnel of multiple law enforcement agencies and companies. His pursuit seems to be one of information, however. It has never been proven that Mitnick ever saw much, if any significant financial gain. Most of his illicit exchanges were in kind, meaning the bartering of information and copies of code. While Mitnick was literally the poster child of cyber crime for a time, his telling offers unique insights and a lot of nuance.
Side Note: Mitnick repeatedly takes jabs at John Markoff and his book Cyberpunk (co-written with Markoff’s wife Katie Hafner) as well as various articles Markoff wrote about Mitnick. His assertion is that Markoff’s writing was filled exaggerated claims that were used in courtrooms as de facto evidence against Mitnick. It’s enough smoke to make you look for the fire…
Recommendation
An absolute must read. I listened to this book on Audible and immediately went out and got The Art of Deception, only to find it was a series of scenarios that were dissected one at a time to point out procedural flaws and mitigations. His tell all autobiography, however, puts all of those “training scenarios” into their original contexts, as he and his associates performed them to gain access and information into networks. You can read the highs and lows, the moral dilemmas, the compulsions. Throughout my read I was constantly asking, “How would my company handle this? Would our procedures have stopped him?” That introspection, guided by Mitnick’s prose, is a valuable exercise for all of us.