http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000302/tc/hacker_on_the_hill_2.html
> Tech Headlines
> Thursday March 2 4:40 PM ET
> Jailed Hacker Sought for Advice
>
> By TED BRIDIS AP Technology Writer
>
> WASHINGTON (AP) - The government that imprisoned the world's most
> infamous computer hacker for nearly five years sought his advice
> Thursday about how to keep its own networks safe from intruders.
>
> Just weeks after his release from federal prison, an animated
> Kevin Mitnick advised senators against focusing too much on
> technical protections at the expense of simpler safeguards - such
> as making sure a company receptionist does not disclose passwords
> to sensitive systems.
>
> Mitnick, 36, wearing a slightly ill-fitting navy suit and rocking
> gently in a witness chair, warned lawmakers about his favored
> technique of ``social engineering,'' or deceiving others into
> believing he could be trusted. He told of duped victims at major
> corporations volunteering their passwords and even sending him
> secret software blueprints.
>
> ``I was so successful in that line of attack that I rarely had to
> resort to a technical attack,'' Mitnick said. ``Companies can
> spend millions of dollars toward technological protections and
> that's wasted if somebody can basically call someone on the
> telephone and either convince them to do something on the
> computer that lowers the computer's defenses or reveals the
> information they were seeking.''
>
> It was easy to imagine why Mitnick was so successful. The
> convicted felon disarmed Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee,
> chairman of the Government Affairs Committee, and the others with
> his apparent candor. He joked about his earliest days when a
> school teacher assigned him a computer project to capture
> passwords. ``Of course, I got an A,'' Mitnick said to laughter.
>
> When Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., mentioned that he lives in
> Raleigh - where Mitnick was captured in his new apartment in 1995
> after a three-year manhunt by the FBI - Mitnick deadpanned,
> ``been there.'' Another senator, Susan Collins, R-Maine,
> empathized that Mitnick ``paid a pretty heavy price for your
> crime.''
>
> Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., known among colleagues for being
> unusually introspective, pressed Mitnick on his motives for
> hacking, asking what might serve as ``the potential for deterring
> the next Kevin Mitnick.''
>
> ``My hacking activity actually was a quest for knowledge, the
> intellectual challenge, the thrill and the escape from reality,''
> Mitnick answered. ``It was kind of like somebody who chooses to
> gamble. I felt like an explorer in those computers.'' He insisted
> it wasn't an addiction: ``I'm not sure you could equate it to a
> physical addiction. I'd say it was a distinct preoccupation.''
>
> The committee is considering a wide-ranging bill, introduced last
> year, to require agencies to create anti-hacker programs and seek
> approval from the Office of Management and Budget that such plans
> are adequate.
>
> Mitnick recounted deceiving employees by telephone from the
> Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration into
> disclosing confidential taxpayer information. That happened in
> 1992, he said, ``which just so happens to be beyond the
> applicable statute of limitations'' for federal computer crime
> laws.
>
> Mitnick told Lieberman that hacking in the computer industry's
> earliest days wasn't routinely condemned as serious, saying the
> founders of Apple Computer Inc. (NasdaqNM:AAPL - news) - now
> personally worth hundreds of millions - described manipulating
> the nation's telephone system decades ago.
>
> ``The fork in that road went in different directions,'' said
> Lieberman, adding, ``Maybe there's still time. You're young.''
>
> Mitnick, who can't touch computers or even a cellular phone for
> the next three years, seemed comfortable with his infamy and
> notoriety. He endured an aversion to flying to travel to
> Washington. And as he testified, his media agent stood in the
> back corner of the room in rolled shirtsleeves.
>
> ``I figured the United States of America was obviously my
> adversary for many years in this litigation,'' Mitnick said after
> the hearing, ``but I figured despite all that if I can serve
> country, I'll do it.''
--
Gerald Oskoboiny <
[email protected]>
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/