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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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010989
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01098900.006
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1990-09-17
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TECHNOLOGY, Page 49Drop the PhoneBusting a computer whiz
Even the most dangerous criminal suspects are usually allowed
access to a telephone, but not Kevin Mitnick -- or at least not
without being under a guard's eye. And then he is permitted to call
only his wife, mother and lawyer. The reason is that putting a
phone in Mitnick's hands is like giving a gun to a hit man. The
25-year-old sometime college student is accused by federal
officials of using the phone system to become one of the most
formidable computer break-in artists of all time.
Mitnick, who was arraigned last week in Los Angeles and is
being held without bail, faces a possible 30 years in prison and
$750,000 in fines. His alleged crimes include gaining illegal
access to computers at Digital Equipment Corp., in Massachusetts,
and at the University of Leeds, in England, and stealing valuable
computer programs and long-distance phone services. Prosecutors
assert that it cost Digital $4 million to repair and upgrade its
computer-security program after Mitnick's intrusion. He is believed
to be the first person charged under a new federal law that
prohibits breaking into an interstate computer network for criminal
purposes.
Mitnick has apparently compiled a long history of computer
capers. At 17 he used the phone system to enter Pacific Bell's
computer network and steal electronically stored technical manuals,
earning himself six months in a juvenile-detention facility
followed by probation. Perhaps not coincidentally, the judge in the
case later discovered that electronic files at a credit-information
service had been mysteriously altered to downgrade the judge's
credit rating. And a telephone belonging to a probation officer
assigned to Mitnick's case was disconnected, although the phone
company had no record of having done so.
In December 1987 Mitnick was convicted of stealing software
via telephone from a Santa Cruz, Calif., company. He got 36 months'
probation for that crime, but the record of his offense has somehow
vanished from police computers. Federal authorities suspect,
although they have not proved, that he also planted a false and
damaging story on an electronic financial-news network concerning
a company that refused him a job.