The Fugitive Game: Online With Kevin Mitnick (43 page)

Federal subpoenas served on phone companies pinpointed Mitnick
dialing from Raleigh into Netcom. That's not a trivial fact. Not just
anybody can look at the results of subpoenas or court-ordered tele-
phone taps. At some point in San Francisco, it appears, Shimomura
must have officially been made part of the FBI investigation.

Reading on, Markoff says that by 1 a.m. Monday, Shimomura
was sitting in the passenger seat of a Raleigh Sprint technician's car,
holding a cellular-frequency direction-finding antenna, and watch-
ing a "signal-strength meter display its reading on a laptop computer
screen."

Why doesn't Markoff say whose equipment Shimomura is using?
Is this Sprint's setup, or the Oki software Mitnick might have
wanted from Shimomura's computer?

After a bumpy flight, I'm in a rental car headed toward Raleigh, the
rain beating down mercilessly. I've got a map on the seat, but it's not
much help. Duraleigh Road suddenly appears right in front of me
after a billboard advertising cellular phones. I turn left, and the rain
falls harder, turning the windshield into a gray sheet. The second
time I pass by I see the small, brightly colored sign by the road for
the Player's Club. I dash into the manager's office with my briefcase
over my head. It's easy to tell I'm in the right place.

"I'm with
Newsweek,"
a woman announces gruffly, a camera
slung around her neck, her pockets stuffed with lenses and equip-
ment. "I understand it isn't apartment 202?"

She doesn't even have to mention Mitnick's name.

The manager shoots her a tough look. "This is private property."

While the
Newsweek
photographer argues with the manager I
take a look around. "Let the Games Begin," trumpets the bold red
lettering on the wall. "Definitely not your ordinary features," reads
the blurb. "Definitely not your ordinary community."

There's an air of fantasy that makes the Player's Club seem more
like a health club resort than an upscale apartment complex. The
bright colors, the allure of sport and youth. There's even a red surf-
board hanging incongruously on the wall.

The
Newsweek
photographer finally leaves, and the manager is

hesitant when I, too, introduce myself as a journalist. The FBI has
ordered her to say nothing.

"I guess he wasn't here long?" I ask.

"He was here a couple of weeks," she says quietly.

I ask what she thinks attracted the world's most famous hacker to
the Player's Club. She's happy to talk about the upscale apartments.
"We have an outdoor pool, complete with weight room," she be-
gins. "It's a fifteen-minute drive from the airport. There are phones
in every apartment. There's central air conditioning."

As she's talking, I glance out the window. The entrance has a
storybook feel, picturesque birch trees and pretty shrubbery, a cas-
cading waterfall splashing beneath a slate walkway with red iron
railings. I remember how Mitnick told me he loved the water, and
how he phoned me one day from the beach.

The manager leaves for a minute and I read on about the "spa-
cious covered patios and decks, sparkling Eurostyle kitchens, Water-
pick showerheads, and convenient breakfast bar."

I arrange the Polaroids of Mitnick the deputy U.S. Marshal in Los
Angeles gave me on the desk. The manager's assistant shakes her
head at a photo of a tubby hacker and another of a trimmer, bespec-
tacled hacker.

"That's him," she whispers at the third Polaroid, pointing to the
image of a smiling, fit, handsome man without glasses, nothing at all
like the picture on the
New York Times
front page.

"I saw him a couple of times."

■ ■ •

The road floods red with rain, the clay soil bleeding across the street.
I'm careening through the afternoon downpour on my way to down-
town Raleigh, barely able to see the car in front of me, water
spraying up like the wake from a power boat.

The U.S. Marshal's out but I decide to wait. I make some calls,
and an hour and a half later the secretary invites me in. U.S. and
North Carolina flags stand proudly in the corner of the cavernous
office, anchored by a big oak desk at one end. Marshal Berryhill is
big too, a tall broad man with a full head of hair, a ready smile, and
a blue and orange tie battling his navy blue jacket. He shakes my

hand, introduces his quiet chief deputy, and offers me a seat. We
chat briefly about the southern hotel they recommended yesterday,
and then I pop the question.

"I've heard that a reporter was part of the FBI investigation. Did
you deputize John Marlcoff?"

Marshal Berryhill shakes his head.

"I am only speaking of since I've been Marshal," he booms in his
deep voice. "I have never, ever deputized a journalist and made him
a part of an investigation."

That's a long time. Berryhill just told me he's been the Marshal in
Raleigh for the last thirteen years.

"Sprint couldn't have deputized him?"

Marshal Berryhill shakes his head. "Sprint has no federal law en-
forcement deputizing power."

He leans his big frame forward slightly. "My best suggestion is
you speak with the FBI."

"Who would you suggest?"

"John Vasquez is the agent in charge. He should know the details
of how it transpired."

Ten minutes later I take the elevator down and stand in the tiny
waiting room by the bulletproof glass window, my notebook and
pen in my jacket pocket. Behind the glass, I can see FBI agents pass-
ing back and forth. So what if FBI agents generally don't talk, I
think. What can it hurt to try?

"Excuse me," I call out. "I'm looking for Agent Vasquez."

A few seconds later a handsome, muscular Hispanic man in his
late thirties moves cautiously over. I introduce myself, and he eyes
me carefully. But when I show him the front-page
New York Times article, he's fascinated. He had no idea he'd busted such a bigtime
fugitive.

I ask Special Agent Vasquez if the FBI deputized John Markoff.

"We didn't do it."

He doesn't sound surprised by my question.

"Do you sometimes bring journalists along for the bust?" I ask.

"We don't bring journalists along on investigations." He grins
broadly behind the glass, flashing his teeth. "That's a no-no."

Half an hour later, I'm sitting in the waiting room of the U.S.

Attorney's office, writing up my notes from my last two interviews,
waiting for Assistant U.S. Attorney John Bowler.

He apologizes for the delay and takes a seat across from me. The
room is hardly private; a couple sits nearby reading magazines wait-
ing to see another government attorney. Bowler appears to be in his
late thirties, medium height, balding, dressed in a conservative suit.
He's got a friendly, honest face. When I ask him what crimes he
suspects Mitnick committed, he says he can't really talk about the
case. But what about citizens becoming part of a federal investiga-
tion?

"There's no legal barrier for citizens helping law enforcement,"
Bowler replies cheerfully.

"Did you know John Markoff was present during part of the
stakeout?"

His face clouds. "I didn't know he was there."

Bowler suddenly grimaces. "Let's go off the record for a second."

But just as abruptly he stops himself.

"I shouldn't be talking off the record," Bowler snaps angrily. "I
don't know how he [Markoff] was there. You should ask Shimo-
mura why he was there."

"Is it up to Shimomura how an FBI investigation is run?" I ask the
assistant U.S. Attorney in Raleigh.

Bowler pauses. "That's an interesting question," he considers for
a moment, as if the question were an intellectual exercise. "It's cer-
tainly unusual."

I start to ask the question again, but Bowler stands up and says he
has to get back to work.

And then he's gone.

Tsutomu Shimomura and
Kevin Mitnick aren't the
only ones to get their fifteen minutes of fame. On Thursday, Febru-
ary 16, John Markoff's cyberspace reporting thrusts him into the
public light. He's Noah Adams's featured guest on the National Pub-
lic Radio show
All Things Considered.
The popular radio host asks
Markoff, "Now, I'm curious here. They watched him [Mitnick]
steal, for example, 20,000 credit card numbers from rich people. But
did he ever use them? What was he doing with all this information,
all these things he was stealing?"

Markoff acknowledges Mitnick doesn't seem to be in it for the
money, and then narrates the Raleigh court scene. The reporter de-
scribes how he and "Tsutomu" arrived for Mitnick's hearing, and after-
ward, Markoff says he just wanted to introduce himself. "I'd never met
him." It's an intriguing statement. Markoff wasn't just a spectator, he
helped capture Mitnick and staged the defining scene in his story, when
Mitnick utters the great line "Hello Tsutomu, I respect your skills."

Finally, Markoff tells Adams that he wonders whether Mitnick
was trying to get himself captured. "I could see he was doing things
that were going to get him in trouble ..." volunteers the reporter.

How did John Markoff "see" things Mitnick was doing?

The legend of Kevin Mitnick is about to go global. Kevin Mitnick
is the prime subject on the February 16, 1995,
CBS Evening News
with Dan Rather and Connie Chung.
Rather leads off the broadcast
with a flourish: "High-tech detective work has led authorities to the
world's most wanted information highway robber. His 'modem op-
erandi': breaking and entering codes at will and escaping through
the Internet — that is, until now."

The
CBS Evening News
segment provides a snapshot of the in-
creasingly notorious Mitnick reputation — billions of dollars of
stolen trade secrets, thousands of swiped credit card numbers, the
biggest, baddest hacker of all time. But the network adds its own
spin. CBS neatly sidesteps Mitnick's lack of a profit motive by quot-
ing a Justice Department spokesman who, without ever mentioning
Mitnick, insists hackers are more profit-oriented and malicious than
ever before. And CBS flatly states, "Mitnick was working the phones
even as agents pounded on the door." Does the network really know
Mitnick's last phone calls were malicious or criminal?

The facts of Mitnick's case seem less and less important. It's the
message that counts, a message that seems to play right into popular
sentiment. To the government and the press Mitnick has become
something larger than himself, a symbol of all that is feared and
wrong in cyberspace, an argument for a new crackdown on the in-
formation superhighway, a warning that walls need to be built and
locks need to be installed. On the Well, many subscribers are so
convinced of Mitnick's guilt that they're clamoring for his head.

"Could he be convicted and sentenced under the 'three strikes'
bill?"

"Innocent till proven guilty ... in the eyes of the law . . .In the
eyes of this user he is guilty as sin."

"Kevin Mitnick, Three Strikes Poster Child. It's a concept."

But Emmanuel Goldstein, editor of 2600, asks his fellow Net citi-
zens to consider what they're reading more carefully.

... A lot of what some of you are saying is unsubstantiated and
bordering on hysteria and witch hunting. ... Read the NY Times
piece very very carefully. Oh, it's good writing; kept me on the edge
of my seat. But there's a lot that's very wrong here... ."

A few minutes before nine Thursday night, Douglas Fine, a journal-
ist who has written about hackers for
Spin
magazine, asks online
why the Mitnick story made the front page of the
New York Times. He wonders how the lengthy profile of Shimomura was ready the
day the story broke, and he asks whether others see a new hard line
toward hackers as enemies of "the people." Finally, the journalist
notes the
New York Times
left out the word "alleged" when discuss-
ing Mitnick's supposed crimes.

Shortly before midnight, Goldstein weighs in with his analysis of
Markoff's
Times
story.

In reading the opening paragraph of this morning's story, Mitnick
is . . . "accused of a long crime spree that includes ... at least
20,000 credit card numbers from computer systems around the na-
tion. . . ." Even I got the impression Kevin was doing some bigtime
credit fraud from *that* description. Let's look a little closer. . . .

As far as I can see, the only computer system we're talking about here
is Netcom, not "computer systems around the nation". Netcom is
currently saying that this . .. happened recently and it never hap-
pened before. This is false. As is common knowledge in the hacker
world, Netcom's credit file was compromised last summer and bits of
it were displayed over IRC [Internet Relay Chat]. We reported this in
the autumn issue of z6oo... . Netcom is not up front about its
security problems and they have had massive security problems. . ..