Preview
Slippery cybervandal caught in his own electronic web
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(c) Copyright the News & Observer Publishing Co.
How a computer sleuth traced a digital trail
New York Times
RALEIGH, N.C. (9:05 p.m.) -- After a search of more than two years, a team
of FBI agents early Wednesday morning captured a 31-year-old computer
expert accused of a long crime spree that includes the theft of thousands
of data files and at least 20,000 credit card numbers from computer
systems around the nation.
The arrest of Kevin D. Mitnick, one of the most wanted computer criminals,
followed a 24-hour stakeout of a Raleigh apartment building here.
A convicted computer felon on the run from federal law enforcement
officials since November 1992, Mitnick has used his sophisticated skills
over the years to worm his way into many of the nation's telephone and
cellular telephone networks and vandalize government, corporate and
university computer systems. Most recently, he had become a suspect in a
rash of break-ins on the global Internet computer network.
"He was clearly the most wanted computer hacker in the world," said Kent
Walker, an assistant U.S. attorney in San Francisco who helped coordinate
the investigation. "He allegedly had access to corporate trade secrets
worth billions of dollars. He was a very big threat."
But federal officials say Mitnick's confidence in his hacking skills may
have been his undoing. On Christmas Day, he broke into the home computer
of a computer security expert, Tsutomu Shimomura, a researcher at the
federally financed San Diego Supercomputer Center.
Shimomura then made a crusade of tracking down the intruder, an obsession
that led to Wednesday's arrest.
It was Shimomura, working from a monitoring post in San Jose, Calif., who
determined last Saturday that Mitnick was operating through a computer
modem connected to a cellular telephone somewhere near Raleigh, N.C.
Sunday morning, Shimomura flew to Raleigh, where he helped telephone
company technicians and federal investigators use cellular-frequency
scanners to home in on Mitnick.
Mitnick was arrested at 2 o'clock Wednesday morning in his apartment in
the Duraleigh Hills neighborhood of northwest Raleigh, after FBI agents used
their scanners to determine that Mitnick, in keeping with his nocturnal
habits, had connected once again to the Internet.
Shimomura was present Wednesday at Mitnick's pre-arraignment hearing at
the
federal courthouse in Raleigh. At the end of the hearing, Mitnick, who now
has shoulder-length brown hair and was wearing a black sweat suit and
handcuffs, turned to Shimomura, whom he had never met face to face.
"Hello, Tsutomu," Mitnick said. "I respect your skills."
Shimomura, who is 30 and also has shoulder-length hair, nodded solemnly.
Mitnick, already wanted in California for a federal parole violation, was
charged Wednesday with two federal crimes. The first, illegal use of a
telephone access device, is punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a
$250,000 fine.
The second charge, computer fraud, carries potential penalties of 20 years
in prison and a $250,000 fine. Federal prosecutors said they were
considering additional charges related to Mitnick's reported Internet
spree.
Federal officials say Mitnick's motives have always been murky. He was
recently found to have stashed thousands of credit card numbers on
computers in the San Francisco Bay area -- including the card numbers of
some of the best-known millionaires in Silicon Valley. But there is no
evidence yet that Mitnick had attempted to use those credit card accounts.
Indeed, frequently ignoring the possibility of straightforward financial
gain from the information he has stolen, Mitnick has often seemed more
concerned with proving that his technical skills are better than those
whose job it is to protect the computer networks he has attacked.
Federal officials say the arrest of Mitnick does not necessarily solve all
the recent Internet crimes, because his trail of electronic mail has
indicated that he may have accomplices. One of them is an unknown computer
operator, thought to be in Israel, with whom Mitnick has corresponded
electronically and boasted of his Internet exploits, investigators said.
Still, the capture of Mitnick gives the FBI custody of a notoriously
persistent and elusive computer break-in expert. Raised in the San
Fernando Valley near Los Angeles by his mother, Mitnick has been in and out of
trouble with the law since 1981.
It was then, as a 17-year-old, that he was placed on probation for
stealing computer manuals from a Pacific Bell telephone switching center in Los
Angeles.
í' 0*0*0*ø ø Those who know Mitnick paint a picture of a man obsessed with the power
inherent in controlling the nation's computer and telephone networks.
The recent break-ins he is accused of conducting include forays into
computer systems at Apple Computer Inc. and Motorola Inc. and attacks on
commercial services that provide computer users with access to the
Internet, including the Well in Sausalito, Calif., Netcom in San Jose,
Calif., and the Colorado Supernet, in Boulder, Colo.
To make it difficult for investigators to determine where the attacks were
coming from, Mitnick is said to have used his computer and modem to
manipulate a local telephone company switch in Raleigh to disguise his
whereabouts.
In recent weeks, as an elite team of computer security experts tightened
an invisible electronic net around the fugitive, Mitnick continued to taunt
his pursuers, apparently unaware of how close they were to capturing him.
About 10 days ago, for example, someone whom investigators believe to have
been Mitnick left a voice-mail message for Shimomura, a Japanese citizen.
The message reprimanded Shimomura for converting the intruder's earlier
voice-mail messages into computer audio files and making them available on
the Internet.
"Ah Tsutomu, my learned disciple," the taunting voice said. "I see that
you put my voice on the Net. I'm very disappointed, my son."
But the continued attempts at one-upmanship simply gave the pursuers more
electronic evidence.
"He was a challenge for law enforcement, but in the end he was caught by
his own obsession," said Kathleen Cunningham, a deputy marshal for the
U.S. Marshals Service who has pursued Mitnick for several years.
Mitnick first came to national attention in 1982 when, as a teen-age
prank, he used a computer and a modem to break into a North American Air Defense
Command computer.
He subsequently gained temporary control of three central offices of
telephone companies in New York City and all the phone switching centers
in California.
This gave him the ability to listen in on calls and pull pranks like
reprogramming the home phone of someone he did not like so that each time
the phone was picked up, a recording asked for a deposit of a coin.
But the break-ins escalated beyond sophomoric pranks. For months in 1988,
Mitnick secretly read the electronic mail of computer security officials
at MCI Communications and Digital Equipment Corp., learning how their
computers and phone equipment were protected.
Officials at Digital later accused him of causing $4 million in damage to
computer operations at the company and stealing $1 million of software. He
was convicted in July 1989 and sentenced to a year in a low-security
federal prison in Lompoc, Calif.
One of his lawyers convinced the court that Mitnick had an addiction to
computers. In July 1989, after his release from prison, he was placed in a
treatment program for compulsive disorders, the Beit T'Shuvah center in
Los Angeles. During his six months there, he was prohibited from touching a
computer or modem.
That restriction was a condition of his probation when he was released in
mid-1990, and it was for reportedly violating this condition that federal
officials were pursuing him when he dropped out of sight in November 1992.
In September 1993, the California Department of Motor Vehicles also issued
a warrant for his arrest. The warrant stated that Mitnick had wiretapped
calls from FBI agents. He then used law-enforcement access codes obtained
by eavesdropping on the agents to illegally gain access the drivers'
license data base in California.
Federal law enforcement officials believe that Mitnick has conducted a
long string of computer and phone telephone network break-ins during more than
two years on the run.
And they say his ability to remain at large until now illustrates the new
challenges that law enforcement officials face in apprehending criminals
who can cloak themselves behind a curtain of forged electronic data.