With the world focusing intently on the US justice system, time perhaps to spare a thought for thirty four year old Kevin Mitnick, the notorious hacker, with 25 counts of alleged federal computer and wire fraud violations still pending against him and no way out of jail in sight. He has been kept in a federal detention center in Los Angeles for almost three years in total – eight months of which were in solitary confinement – when, his defense team claims, he was sometimes kept naked in an air-conditioned cell and taken shackled to the showers. He has been refused normal privileges such as a Walkman – ‘ he could turn it into a transmitter’ – or the use of a phone because he is a ‘detainee’ and not a prisoner and, in any case, ‘he could whistle down it’ and get free calls. Mitnick has not behaved himself in the past, that’s true, but on the other hand, there’s no doubting he’s served his time.
By Denise Danks
In December 1988, he was arrested on charges of causing $4m in damages to a DEC computer – a year later the amount was deemed closer to $160,000 but he spent 14 months inside all the same before being released. He was caught and arrested again in Raleigh, North Carolina on February 15, 1995 after being spectacularly hunted down by a computer security expert, Tsutomu Shimomura. In June, he got 22 months for violating his probation which meant he should have been out December 15, 1996. However, the federal government continues to detain him without bail pending the trial relating to the 25 count indictment which has now been set for April 14, 1998. His refusal to plea bargain, which would have got him eight years, with no time off for good behavior and his three years served to date counting for nothing, means he could be looking at an impractical but, nevertheless, draconian 200 years jail time if his accusers – Motorola Inc, Nokia Oy, Fujitsu Ltd, Novell Inc, NEC Corp, Sun Microsystems Inc and various internet service providers – win the day. Mitnick himself has not profited from his crimes nor the number of best-selling books written about him and is unable to pay for a legal defense. Payments for a public defender have been witheld by Judge Mariana Pfaelzer who thought that the bills for computer experts on Mitnick’s behalf were too high. Mitnick’s Los Angeles attorney, Donald Randolph, says the government’s case against his client includes over 200 pages of discovery material and due to this suit, would require technical witnesses and research. The prosecutor, US Attorney David Schindler, concurred that if all the documents were printed, it would fill up a space larger than the courtroom.
Free mobile calls
The main accusation against Mitnick is that he stole source code from vendors and used it to make free mobile phone calls. To win a maximum sentence under federal guidelines and a name for himself, hot shot prosecuting attorney, Schindler, has to prove that Mitnick cost the victim corporations $80m. Randolph, suspects that the prosecution team is keen to see a high value put on the case in order to get a big sentence and a big name for itself. A long sentence would also ‘encourage les autres’ in time-honored fashion and make sure hackers would be more likely to plea bargain in the future. The defense also thinks it suits the government to portray Mitnick as a a dangerous public nuisance in order to justify its own agenda for regulation and control of the internet and the telecommuncations industry. Hijacking source code is not unheard of in the computer industry, of course. However, big name vendors suffering patent infringements usually go to court only if they see their technology being exploited successfully by their competitors in the market place and a deal cannot be struck. Recent cases have almost invariably settled by mutually beneficial commercial arrangements. Mitnick, who pursued his hacking career, rather typically, as an intellectual challenge, is obviously not in a position to do this. Nor did he have the profit motive required to sell the source code in Taiwan. If he had done so, he might have been in an enviably ‘OJ situation’ and, as the saying goes ‘got himself the best justice money can buy’.
