FC: Followup to Kevin Mitnick and Justice Department hoax stats

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 01:33:38 -0800
From: Todd Jonz <todd () tj org>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Re: The Justice Department's hoax "domestic terrorism" statistics

Declan,

The St. Petersburg Times editorial you posted regarding the Justice
Department's "cooked" domestic terrorism statistics reminded me of
another recent thread about the FCC considering whether to deny the
renewal of convicted cracker Kevin Mitnick's amateur radio license.

I worked at Sun Microsystems during Mitnick's cracking days and had
casual contact with some of the folks charged with investigating
Mitnick's intrusions at Sun, from which he downloaded the source
code for an unreleased version of the Solaris operating system.  After
Mitnick had been arrested, federal authorities were very interested
in the value of the software that Mitnick had "stolen", and urged
Sun to value it at the full R&D cost (which, if I recall correctly,
was in the neighborhood of $80 million according to published reports.)

To the best of my knowledge, all Mitnick did was download the source
code.  Apart from a bruised ega, I find it difficult to believe that
Sun had suffered any real loss.  In fact, not long after this incident
Sun began making Solaris source code availble to selected customers
for next to nothing, which blows any theory that Sun had lost any
proprietary secrets to Mitnick.  Can the ludicrous valuation of this
code be interpreted as anything other than an attempt to paint Mitnick
as a far more pernicious cyber-criminal than he actually was?

Now that Mitnick has, as they say, paid his debt to society, found
gainful employment as a journalist and consultant, and kept his nose
clean since his release from prison, I can't help but view the FCC's
desire to revoke his ham license as an attempt to perpetuate his
poster boy image as a warning to others.

Is it any wonder that more and more people have taken to examining
"facts" that come out of the Beltway with a jaundiced eye?  And just
for the record, no, I do not in any way condone Mitnick's activities;
it's just that I'd prefer see my tax dollars spent in pursuit of
dangerous criminals rather than on creating the *appearance* of
dangerous criminals.


--
Todd Jonz                               When cryptography is outlawed,
todd () tj org                          bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.




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