The Making of a 'Darkside Hacker'
---------------------------------

   By Doug Thomas, Online Journalism Review Staff Columnist
   July 3, 1998

   This  month, Miramax announced that Skeet Ulrich will play the part of
   Kevin  Mitnick  in  the  film  version  of  John  Markoff  and Tsutomu
   Shimomura's book, "Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick,
   America's  Most  Wanted Computer Outlaw -- By the Man Who Did It." The
   book,  which  chronicles  Mitnick's  tracking  and  arrest,  is wildly
   inaccurate and libelous, according to Mitnick himself.

   The  upcoming movie is the latest in a series of renderings of Mitnick
   that  have  been  done  without  his  permission,  colored  the public
   perception of him, and made him a clear target for law enforcement.

   The first, and perhaps most destructive, portrayal of Mitnick occurred
   in  "Cyberpunk:  Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier," a book
   by  Katie  Hafner and John Markoff, published in 1995. In "Cyberpunk,"
   Mitnick  was  portrayed as a "darkside hacker" for the first time. The
   label  stuck, leading USA Today to publish a picture of Mitnick's face
   superimposed over an image of Darth Vader.

   Hafner,  who  was  primarily  responsible  for the characterization of
   Mitnick  as  a  darkside  hacker,  admitted  to  Charles  Platt in his
   review of "Takedown" that it "might have been a mistake to call him
   a   darkside  hacker."  Hafner,  in  fact,  has  come  to  regret  the
   characterization  and its fallout. "There are malicious characters out
   there,"  she  told Platt, "but Kevin is not one of them... He has been
   turned  into  this bankable commodity. Leave the guy alone! He's had a
   really tragic life."

   Her  mistake  has had a profound and lasting effect on Mitnick's life.
   Unlike  hackers  who seek publicity and visibility, Mitnick has always
   sought  to  maintain  a low profile, even refusing to talk with Hafner
   and  Markoff  while they were writing "Cyberpunk." As a result, Hafner
   and  Markoff  relied extensively on sources who portrayed Mitnick as a
   malicious,  petty  and  evil  person  who  tampered  with celebrities'
   telephone  lines,  altered  credit  reports,  and accessed and changed
   police files, accusations that Mitnick denies.

   Two  of the main sources for Hafner and Markoff's account were "Susan"
   and  "Roscoe,"  two  of  Mitnick's  fellow  hackers who, as Hafner and
   Markoff  write,  "cooperated  with  us in the understanding that their
   true names would not be revealed." In a final touch of irony, they end
   the  book  with  the line, "We respect their right to privacy." One of
   the  two,  Roscoe,  would  later claim that much of the information he
   provided to Hafner and Markoff was intended to deceive them.

   The  most  damning  accusations  against  Mitnick were not his hacking
   exploits.  What colored the perception of Mitnick most thoroughly were
   the little things, most of which, Mitnick claims, were untrue and used
   to "spin" and to "assign motive" to his actions. The one that seems to
   bother  him  most  is  the claim that he stole money from his mother's
   purse  to  further his hacking exploits, an incident that he refers to
   as absolute "fiction."

   What  has  damned  Mitnick  in  the  eyes  of  both the public and law
   enforcement   is   not   his   hacking,   but  his  personality.  That
   characterization  of  Mitnick  is built almost entirely on second-hand
   accounts  from  people who had either served as informants against him
   or  had  an  investment  in  vilifying  him to suit their own agendas.
   Turning  Mitnick  into the archetypal "dark-side" computer hacker is a
   move  that  has  benefited a number of agendas, most recently those of
   Markoff and Shimomura.

   Markoff  has kept the Mitnick story alive in the pages of the New York
   Times, where he has referred to Mitnick as "Cyberspace's Most Wanted,"
   "a computer programmer run amok," and the "Prince of Hackers." Markoff
   also  covered  the  break-in  of  Shimomura's  system that spurred the
   manhunt that ultimately lead to Mitnick's arrest.

   In  the  first  story,  Markoff  described  how Mitnick was eluding an
   F.B.I.  manhunt  (July  4,  1994);  in  the  second,  he  detailed how
   Shimomura's  computer system had been breached (January 28, 1995). Two
   weeks  after  reporting  the  break-in,  Markoff  wrote  that  federal
   authorities  had suspected that the "31-year-old computer outlaw Kevin
   D.  Mitnick  is  the  person  behind  a  recent  spree of break-ins to
   hundreds of corporate, university and personal computers on the global
   Internet" (February 16, 1995).

   From  that  point  on,  Markoff  began  telling  the tale of the noble
   samurai  warrior, Shimomura, versus the "dark-side" hacker, Mitnick --
   as  if  there  were  a  Hollywood-esque battle of good versus evil. As
   Markoff  later concluded in the Times, "Mr. Mitnick is not a hacker in
   the  original  sense  of  the  word.  Mr. Shimomura is. And when their
   worlds collided, it was obvious which one of them had to win."

   Now we'll get to see the battle played out on the big screen, and once
   again,  Mitnick will be offered up for sacrifice in a tale of good and
   evil that promises to both completely demonize Mitnick in the public's
   eyes  and  further  enrich  both  Markoff  and  Shimomura  (they  were
   reportedly  paid  $750,000 for their book deal; I'm assuming the movie
   option pushes them well over the $1,000,000 mark).

   The  upcoming  film will include a scene in which Mitnick is whistling
   touch tones into a phone receiver in order to make free phone calls (a
   technical  and physical impossibility) and, most unbelievably, a scene
   in  which  Mitnick  physically assaults Shimomura with a metal garbage
   can, leaving him "dazed, [with] blood flowing freely from a gash above
   his  ear." The only difficulty with that part of the narrative is that
   Shimomura  and  Mitnick  had  never  met,  much  less  had  a physical
   altercation,  at  that  point  in  time.  A more comprehensive list of
   factual  errors,  compiled  by  Emmanuel  Goldstein, editor of 2600
   magazine, can be found here [http://www.kevinmitnick.com/review.html]

   As  a pre-trial detainee, Mitnick has very few legal options available
   to  him.  If  he  were  to  pursue  legal  recourse  by suing Markoff,
   Shimomura  or Miramax for slander or libel, he could well find himself
   deposed,  without  Fifth  Amendment  rights,  and  be forced to answer
   questions which could later be used against him in his criminal trial.

   With  the  script in Mitnick's attorney's hands, it remains to be seen
   what  can  be done to prevent the film from portraying Mitnick in ways
   which  might  further  damage  his  reputation and his right to a fair
   trial.  According to Greg Vincent, a member of Mitnick's defense team,
   it  may  be  difficult to take legal action until after the damage has
   already been done.

                                 Copyright 1998 Online Journalism Review
                    ___________________________________


   Doug  Thomas  is an Online Journalism Review staff columnist and a
   professor at the Annenberg School for Communication.