The Fugitive Game: Online With Kevin Mitnick (40 page)

"The information," Mitnick intones.

"Information." It's one of the hacker's favorite words, right after
"idiot."

"There's always got to be one center that's more secure than the
other," Mitnick continues, sounding professional. "They are just
about to do a leverage [buyout] and the value of the company's
going to double in the next week. So you buy ten k [of stock] and it's
worth twenty k."

"Right, and then you sell."

"As long as you don't buy a hundred thousand dollars," Mitnick
advises. "Maybe [you] establish a credit profile under it and then
you take that cash. You launder it. You deposit it in your real ac-
count under your other identity in different increments. So in other
words you wouldn't take five grand out of that bank and the same
day deposit five grand in your other bank.

"They have certain trip levels that notify the IRS. With the new
database the government's going to do on America, they're going to
keep track of everyone's banking finances. So you take out two thou-
sand dollars, and a few days later make another two-thousand-
dollar deposit."

"Big Brother doesn't watch if it's under two thousand dollars?"

"Twenty-five hundred is the trip level," Mitnick explains. "Ten
thousand is the big trip level, but banks also notify at twenty-five
hundred. They actually have a database which keeps track of all
these transactions — that's how they catch big drug traffickers."

"They do this on everybody?"

"What's the big deal? So it takes four times as long. It's basically
free money," Mitnick says, suddenly wondering why he just told me
this. "You're going to write this in
Playboy
like this is like my next

avenue of accomplishment. I'm telling you if I was a real thief I
wouldn't be toying around with cellular shit. 'Cuz there's no money
in it!"

It makes sense. Petersen wasn't anywhere near the hacker Mitnick
is, and he hacked out a $150,000 wire transfer. Imagine what crimes
Mitnick could commit if he put his mind to it.

"Zero," Mitnick continues. "What, so I'm going to modify a cel-
lular phone and sell it to somebody so that person can go turn me in?
If you're going to commit a crime, do it where there's no witnesses.
And that's in this insider shit."

"What're the other theoretical methods that could be used?"

"Besides wiretapping?" the hacker asks.

"Yeah."

"There's many different ways of wiretapping: social engineering,
outside penetration, computers can be broken into. If they're on the
Internet [they] might as well have a welcome mat. Hold on a second,
OK?"

Mitnick puts on his jacket and says he's going to see if there's a
restaurant nearby. His stomach has been bothering him all day.

"Why are they so interested in me?" Mitnick ponders. "I guess
maybe one of these companies that got hit, they either think it was
me — or they must have a lot of pull."

"Uh-huh."

"Because I'm just curious why Markoff is so interested. It's like
he's a federal agent. That's why he's a Puppetmaster. Markoff is
participating like he's a victim. For whatever reason, maybe he feels
it's his civic duty."

February 12, 1995

A little after 4:30 p.m. on Sun-
day, I retrieve my messages.
The first one arrived just minutes after I left on Saturday afternoon
for an overnight trip. It was Markoff, sounding upbeat, asking me to
return his call.

Before I have much of a chance to wonder why the
New York
Times
reporter needs me to call him back on a Saturday, the phone
rings. It's Kevin Mitnick, talking about his nemesis, John Markoff.
Mitnick says his "grapevine" has been telling him that Markoff has
been busily interviewing people over the weekend.

"The people I talked to that he [Markoff] placed calls to are sur-
prised because he usually never calls," Mitnick tells me. "Maybe
there's an article coming out."

"What kind of people was he calling?" I ask.

"Hackers," Mitnick says.

"These are people he doesn't call often?"

"And Shimomura," Mitnick adds. "And people like that."

How does Mitnick know Markoff is calling Shimomura? He
won't say, other than to refer to his ubiquitous grapevine. I can
see how Mitnick knows Markoff's calling hackers. But Shimo-
mura? Has he hacked Shimomura's voice mail? Is he on the

switch, checking the records? Or could he actually be wiretapping
Shimomura's line with SAS?

"He's trying to get Shimomura to work against me," Mitnick
continues.

"BEEP!"

It's my call waiting. Tonight I'm not in the mood to pick up. But
for days afterward I'll wonder who was trying to call.

"I don't think he [Shimomura] has a bone to pick with me because
I've never attacked him. I know a lot that goes on because I have links
to the underground. They trust me because they know I'm not gonna
be an informant because of the status I'm in. So I'm learning about all
that's going on. Who's doing what. It's great. That's how come I have
all
the information."

Is Mitnick planting his alibi with me?

"You talk to some of the young kids?" I ask.

"No. They're not trustworthy. I trust the inactive hackers
that associate with the active ones that are overseas," Mitnick
explains.

"Like ones in the Netherlands?" I guess.

"Like ones overseas. Out of the U.S. territories, because if the
Bureau [FBI] comes to them, they just tell 'em to go fuck off."

The rumor is that Mitnick associates with an Israeli hacker.

■ ■ a

"You're sure that they [the FBI] know that we're talking?" I ask
Mitnick.

"I believe they do. I haven't verified it, but I have a good gut
feeling."

"But you're still able to be careful?"

"Right. Well, the actual area I'm in is temporary. I'm not liv-
ing here, so if they actually tracked it down, the city I'm calling
from, which is plausible, it doesn't matter because I'm not gonna
be here."

"And that's as far as they can go?"

"Yeah. They can get it down to the cell site, which is within a
quarter mile from where I physically am, and I won't be here and I
can check into hotels under an alias."

Mitnick decides to give me a primer on checking into hotels anon-
ymously. The Kevin Mitnick system, so to speak. It's ingenious.

"You find out a person that went there. You always go to a hotel
that keeps you on database. So if you check in again and say, 'Oh, I
stayed here on blah-blah-blah date,' they look in the computer and
they don't ask you for your driver's license. You've already been
verified. And I already do this prior to going to where I'm going."

"How would you find out somebody who had already stayed?"

"Their name? Social engineering them. 'Hi! I'm looking for Jones
that was in there a month ago. Could you check it in the system?' If
you're already in the system, they don't require ID."

"You can actually call and say I'm looking for somebody who —"

"No, no, no. You're calling from another Marriott for a billing
problem, accounts payable deal from Corporate. It has to be like
Holiday Inn or Marriott, where you can call an 800 number. So
you're Bill from Marriott calling someplace in Alaska. You under-
stand? Once you're known to the system, you're not scrutinized."

"So you come up and you're just Bill Jones?"

"Yeah. 'I'm Bill Jones, stayed here blah-blah date.' They bring it
up. 'Oh yes. Hi, Mr. Jones! And they explain all the benefits and they
go, 'Do you want to put it on your card?'

"You go, 'No. I'm going to pay cash this time.' You never use a
credit card because if you're ever discovered, they can follow your trail.
Unless, of course, you want to be mean and nasty and when you feel
you're discovered you give it [the credit card] to somebody else to use."

The conversation drifts. Mitnick chats about how De Payne is the
Alan Abel of the 1990s, following in the footsteps of the great
prankster who has pulled hoaxes on the media since 1966. He tells
me how he uses hard luck stories to win cheaper rates for almost
anything, including rental cars, offering cash only after he's signifi-
cantly cut the price. Finally, I get a word in edgewise. I tell Mitnick I
found his childhood mentor, Irv Rubin, the head of the radical Jew-
ish Defense League in Los Angeles.

"Oh, from the JDL!" Mitnick says, surprised. "He doesn't know
too much about me as a hacker — just as a normal person involved

with them back when I was a kid. My stepfather at the time was
heavy into that."

"What kinda things would you do?"

"Shooting," Mitnick says.

"I remember participating in the marches," recalls the hacker. "I
knew the guy that actually bombed one of these air places and then
he had to skip off to Israel."

"How old was he?"

Mitnick doesn't like my questions anymore.

"I wouldn't want the government to know I was involved with the
JDL because they might come up with a whole bunch of other shit.
'Oh! So he's a terrorist!' "

"Well, this is when you were eight years old."

"They
don't care!" Mitnick thunders. "They don't take it as chro-
nological! They take it as a whole picture. So who knows what could
be twisted? They're very good at twisting stuff. I got a feeling ole
Markoff is gonna put something out. I'll have to watch the
New
York Times
in the next couple days."

Mitnick doesn't pause between "twisting stuff" and "I got a feel-
ing ole Markoff is gonna put something out." For such a high-tech
master, Mitnick seems to rely on his gut feelings pretty often.

"I don't know what his new story could be," I venture. "I mean,
they don't usually let them write a new story unless —"

"Unless something happens."

■
■
■

"BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"

"Oh, fuck! What's that?" Mitnick panicks. "Something's beeping
in the car! I don't know what that was!"

Could it be Mitnick's scanner telling him the feds are on his tail?

"BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"

"Did you hear that?" he asks.

"It's not your beeper? The car beeper?"

"I dunno. It's something in the car."

"It's a bugged car!" I say, laughing.

"It's a bugged car!" Mitnick screams.

"It's tracking you," I joke. "My job was to get you in that car."

It's Sunday night, February 12, 1995. Tsutomu Shimomura
landed at Raleigh-Durham Airport about an hour ago.

a ■ ■

Mitnick starts talking about his near capture in Seattle. "A lot of
people are pissed off, right? They know where I was, right? Where I
was working required a clearance, and I passed the security clearance."

"That irritated certain people?"

"I think so."

"What sort of things do you have to pass for something like that?"

"I'd rather not get into it."

"But you had a clean background obviously," I say, meaning
Mitnick had created verifiable documents — birth certificate, social
security number, driver's license, and educational records — to es-
tablish a whole new identity.

"Yeah. They actually took a thumbprint to check. I knew that all it is
is a deterrent because you can't classify fingerprints with one print. See,
if you know how the system works, you can find a loophole."

"So, you weren't even afraid?"

"No. I knew it'd work. I was right."

"Why don't they do more?"

"I think probably soon, like the year 2010, they'll probably have it
where you might have to get a full set of prints," Mitnick prophesizes.
"And then when you get stopped by Mo Jo Cop, he scans it and it
checks NCIC [the National Crime Information Center] right away.
Wouldn't that be scary? And how about when the government decides
we don't want cash. We want to put it all on a plastic card. Your net
worth. Then whenever the IRS wants to tax you, they just take it out.

"Hold on a sec, this guy's gonna take my stuff."

Mitnick's talking to somebody else. "Hold on! I'm gonna go on
that one, I just have to get something."

■
*
m

"You were talking to somebody?"

"I'm at a library and someone took my spot somewhere so I had
to ask them to move," Mitnick replies.

"So they don't mind you having a phone in the library?"

"No. I'm in a section where they have all the research computers,
so I'm out here researching."

"What are you researching?"

"Stuff. I'm trying to find out the formula to Coca-Cola. I want to
know what I'm putting into my body. Is that such a bad thing?"