Talk:Kevin Mitnick

Who is Suzy Thunder?

How does she relate to Kevin Mitnick again? It says in the article that she was the one who told authorities that Mitnick could cause a nuclear war by whistling into a telephone. I do not think this information is accurate.

Searching Google Video for hacking yields a 50 min video about hacking, and in it Kevin Mitnick himself says that during one of his trials, the prosecutor told the judge that if he [Kevin Mitnick] had access to the payphone inmates used to contact their families, he could start a nuclear war.

At this time this movie can be found at,

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5512733670886412215&q=hacking&hl=en

Susan Thunder was a girl enamored of Kevin in the late eighties. He blew her off and she got pissed and started blabbing. She's now a prostitute in 'Vegas and does pretexting on the side for extra cash.

stories, including his own, tell of the penetration by Mitnick and his friends of what is called, reverentially, "The Ark" at Digital Equipment Corporation. Although rare at that time outside of DEC, inside there was a whole network of computers with addresses using up to six RAD-50 characters. ARK:: was the address of the RSTS development system. It was nothing special, just another PDP-11/70, and certainly not the sanctum sanctorum of Digital software that he makes it sound. Most operating system people in DEC at the time thought downloading old RSTS sources was a hilarious waste of time. I worked on a better OS on KERMIT:: and ALIEN::, that RSX guy, Ortolan88 05:37, 28 January 2003 (UTC)

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Fake IDs?

The article, as it reads right now, makes it sound like Mitnick spent 5 years in jail for having 4 fake IDs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.105.126.10 (talk) 08:47, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup

I think this article needs a complete overhaul and rewrite. Instead of just tearing it apart, I'm going to propose my major changes here for discussion. If no one has any objections, I will go ahead. To start:

• The entire "Skills" section should be removed. It is completely unsourced and unencyclopedic.
• The "Downfall" section should be renamed to "FBI arrest" and reduced to what there are currently sources for.
• The "Controversy" section should be rewritten and unsourced material removed.
• The "Attacks on Mitnick's sites" section should be removed. It is not relevant to a biographical article, and it is poorly sourced.
• The "Recent activities" section should be rewritten as prose, and all unsourced material should be removed.
• Anything that is sourced to http://www.freekevin.com should be removed because that site now appears to be down.
• The "In popular culture" section should be rewritten as prose, and all unsourced material should be removed.

After all of that, I am willing to find neutral, reliable sources and begin rewriting the article. Thoughts? --Mus Musculus (talk) 19:16, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Removing things cited to web sources which are now down is not standard procedure, afaik. That is the reason we have accessdate fields in the citation templates. In all likelihood the site is still available from the internet archive. Finding extant sources would be ideal, but there isn't, imo, any reason to remove the info.—WAvegetarian (talk) 19:24, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Good point. So are you more of the opinion that we can leave most information while we seek out sources? One strategy would be to only remove unsourced material that violates WP:BLP. For example, we would not want to state that Mitnick engaged in any illegal activities that we don't immediately have a source for. --Mus Musculus (talk) 19:35, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

This article is terrible, one of the first things it states is that "he is considered a criminal by some, but has also gained many supporters who generally argue he was made a scapegoat and that his punishment was excessive" This is a huge POV, and also weasel words at the same time. First is "he is considered a criminal by some" this is clearly designed to give the impression he isn't really a criminal and that implication is furthured by "but he has also gained many supporters". He is by definition a criminal by having been convicted of crimes, and who are these "many" supporters?, how does the person who edited this know what they generally argue?, where are the citations for this statement? and who do these "many supporters" say he was a scapegoat for?. I am going to change this to "Though Mitnick has been convicted of computer related crimes and possesion of several forged identification documents, his supporters argue his punishment was excessive".

I removed the dead link to http://littlegreenguy.fateback.com/chapter1/Chapter%201%20-%20Banned%20Edition.doc More than that, the domain is an untrusted site according to WOT --InfoGathering (talk) 16:48, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

This article reeks of bias. You would never know that he was arrested 5-6 times for repeated computer crimes based on what is written here. Instead we get the impression that Mitnick is an innocent hero who is wrongly convicted.

first sentence

In the first sentence is explained Mitnick was incarcerated for more than four years without trial or a bail hearing. Is this fact more important than his actual conviction? According to the next section there was a trial. --78.34.4.52 (talk) 22:42, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

That was clearly inappropriate. Thanks for removing it. DreamGuy (talk) 15:47, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Though I agree it should not be the first sentence of this article, there needs to be some non-implied reference made of the extraordinary length of his pre-trial confinement without a bail hearing. It is in all probability likely record-setting, and the most fascinating aspect of the case. ((Anonymous, 14:58:22 3 Sep 2009) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.172.96.17 (talk) 15:04, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

"Free Kevin"

Is it worth mentioning the "Free Kevin" movement and associated banners/stickers/shirts/etc. that were for a period of time nearly ubiquitous in certain circles? Not quite as widespread as, say, "Free Mumia", but it seems like it was a significant aspect of his popular fame (see e.g. this discussion). --Delirium (talk) 23:31, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Coin-toss as to whether it should be a subhead or a separate article. Definitely worth mentioning.

— User:Adrian/zap2.js 12:32, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

FYI, I came hoping to read about that whole "Free Kevin" movement and yet I found nothing. I have spent the last two hours crying on the floor curled up in the foetal position because of this. So please add that info. Thanks!--72.1.222.80 (talk) 00:04, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do. I do own "Freedom Downtime", and I'll see what else I can find. Sephiroth storm (talk) 11:52, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Odd ordering of sections.

I see no good reason for this BLP to not match most of our other BLPs in putting things in a reasonably chronological order, so I am editing that. If there's a good, substantive reason, please explain back here. Otherwise, it almost seems to be pushing emphasis on the arrest and conviction in an undue manner. ThuranX (talk) 05:46, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Feel free. Actually, I should add some more recent information about him, If I can find any. Sephiroth storm (talk) 13:02, 30 August 2009 (UTC)