The Fugitive Game: Online With Kevin Mitnick (47 page)

#439

Dear Friends,

Thank you for being patient while we wrote this message, in re-
sponse to an article that appeared in today's issue of the New York
Times. We feel that given the issues raised, and the information
presented, the article warranted a full and complete examination.

First off we want to share with you how bad all of us felt when we
read the story last night. We have known John Markoff for years as

a respected and honest reporter and member of the WELL commu-
nity. Having said this we feel that there are a number of misrepre-
sentations and mistakes in the article that we would like to address
case by case.

From the article that appeared on Page C1 of ... the New York
Times....

"And just a few hours before his arrest, they say, he delivered a last
electronic blow that nearly destroyed the Well and the electronic
community it served."

The WELL was not "nearly destroyed". Erasing files would not have
"destroyed" us. In the worst case we could have re-built from backups.

"... and erased all the accounting records for the on-line service,
Well officials said."

WELL officials did NOT say this. The cracker erased a SINGLE
accounting file. ...

"It was a moment of decision at the Well, whose services and unwitting
subscribers had been exposed to extraordinary invasions of privacy."

We do not think it is accurate to say that our members were exposed
to "extraordinary invasions of privacy." .. . We monitored nearly
every keystroke of the cracker. A total of 11 accounts were compro-
mised by the intruder, and we have contacted all of the account
holders.. .. Because of our backups, destruction of additional files
would have had little or no effect on the health of our business.

Accusing a
New York Times
reporter of "misrepresentation and
mistakes" is a serious matter. The Well must be pretty upset about -
Markoff's story and pretty sure of the facts to take such an extreme
public stand. By denouncing the reporter the company risks a defa-
mation suit. But in an interview, Katz would say even more about
the
Times
reporter: "I only knew John Markoff a little bit. I thought
he was a friend of the Well. But something happened. I heard his
father was ill. I don't know if that had anything to do with it. All of a
sudden he starts hugely hyping the story, saying this horrific cata-
strophic event happened, that the Well almost ceased to exist."
Half an hour later, Well management, responding to concerns

that it invited the FBI into the close-knit electronic community, reas-
sures its subscribers that the Well is in control of the scope of the
FBI's investigation:

#445

It has been clearly understood from the beginning that we will pro-
vide only information relating to the accounts used by the in-
truder. ...

This morning I found out that in this process the authorities will
issue a search warrant (not a subpoena) for those records....

We have told the U.S. Attorney that we will not give them a full
tape back-up, but will cooperate in providing only the files they
need to try the case.

The Well has promised its subscribers it would not turn over per-
sonal e-mail, but the FBI doesn't appear to care about the Well's
commitment to protect subscribers' privacy. At 4:19 p.m. one of the
Well's most prestigious subscribers, former board member Howard
Rheingold, a celebrated author and columnist, uploads his current
syndicated newspaper column to the thread, and asks whether the
zealous manhunt threatens basic constitutional protections.

#452

CIVIL LIBERTIES, VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES, AND HACKERS

By Howard Rheingold

The recent arrest of alleged superhacker Kevin Mitnick has fo-
cused the attention of the public on the dangers of putting sensitive
information online: communication networks, by their nature, will
always be technically insecure....

This knowledge should not cause us to act out of ignorance and
fear. . . .

The Well is where the Electronic Frontier Foundation was born and
the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conferences are organized,
which leads some to ask why a system famous for its defense of
individual liberties ... played a small role in making the decision to
cooperate with the hacker-hunters....

The safety of the wider community ... must always be balanced by
a vigilance to Constitutional guarantees. The Bill of Rights exists
because Americans have always feared fishing expeditions by the
State. If there is a good reason to believe a serious crime is commit-
ted, law enforcement officers are required to present their evidence
and obtain permission or a warrant for a specific search.. . .

We might need police, but we don't need thought police or secret
police. We owe it to our freedom to hold cybercops accountable to
the Constitution and we must not let legislatures extend unreason-
ably the power of State authorities to snoop in cyberspace.

On Saturday, February 18, Goldstein of 2600 checks in with more
analysis of Markoff's initial
Times
stories.

#556

A few rather interesting things:

1) The 20,000 credit card numbers Mitnick allegedly copied have
been floating around since last summer, i.e. he wasn't the first one

to get this file and he could have gotten it without ever going thru
netcom.... [L]ots of people did.

2) The voice on Shimomura's machine was not Mitnick's.

3) Quite a few people knew about the files on Shimomura's ma-
chine. It's unlikely Mitnick was the first or last. Of course, Mitnick
was still a wanted man but add these facts to the front page times
story and it loses a lot of its punch. Probably wouldn't have even
*been* a front page story....

The next day, Sunday, February 19, the
Times
publishes another Mark-
^;
off article in its "Week in Review" section, for the first time revealing
Markoff's personal role in the criminal investigation. To Markoff, it's
yet another opportunity to praise his friend, Tsutomu Shimomura.

CAUGHT BY THE KEYBOARD: HACKER AND GRIFTER DUEL ON

THE NET

By John Markoff

My first inkling that Kevin Mitnick might be reading my electronic

mail came more than a year ago. ...

Last month ... I was less tolerant than I had been a year ago. I was
not alone. The electronic intruder had also rifled the files from the
home computer of Tsutomu Shimomura....

One day this month, I watched Mr. Shimomura's computer screen
as the suspect wrote a message ... complaining that I had put his
picture on the front page of The New York Times. ... I too became
emmeshed in the digital manhunt for the nation's most wanted
computer outlaw.

Mr. Shimomura . .. [has] an uncanny ability to solve complex tech-
nical programs in the manner of Star Trek's Vulcan Mr. Spock.

He seems to embody the very essence of the original hacker ethic —
writing programs to create something elegant, not for gain....

Mr. Mitnick is not a hacker in the original sense of the word. Mr.
Shimomura is. And when their worlds collided, it was obvious
which one of them had to win.

But outside the
New York Times,
the public spin on the capture of
Kevin Mitnick is beginning to shift. The carefully orchestrated image
of a duel between good and evil is beginning to crack. The press has
caught on to the existence of a third man, and on this same Sunday
John Johnson of the
Los Angeles Times
is the first to report a jour-
nalist was part of Shimomura's team:

A CYBERSPACE DRAGNET SNARED FUGITIVE HACKER

By John Johnson

The group tracking Mitnick had now grown to include New York

Times reporter John Markoff.. . .

"John was our Kevin expert," Shimomura said. For instance, [Julia]
Menapace said, if Mitnick's signal went silent, they would turn to
Markoff and ask what Mitnick would probably be doing now. If he
was eating, where would he go?

"John estimated he would go to the cheapest possible place and he
wouldn't worry about" the quality of the food, Menapace said.

Markoff acknowledged trading information with Shimomura, but de-
nied being a member of the team. "I wasn't involved. I am a reporter.

Tsutomu and Julia call me a member of their team, and that's fine if they
want to call me that. But I was a reporter," Markoff said.

By Sunday afternoon, Markoff's new
Times
story is what's raising
eyebrows on the Well. Kevin Kelly, executive editor of red-hot
Wired
magazine, a respected author, friend of John Markoff, and
Well board member, begins posting some intriguing questions about
Shimomura and the image created by the
New York Times.

#621

Having had "inside" knowledge about this event for the past two
weeks (as a member of the Well board and as a friend of Markoff)
the thing that I still don't get is:

How did the ultimate Genuine Smart Guy, the real hacker, let him-
self get hacked by the challenger Mitnick?

If Tsutomu can't keep a determined hacker out of his very valuable
tool box then how is the Well supposed to?

Something is not right with the picture of Tsutomu getting hacked
by Kevin.

If Mr. Security can't keep the trespassers out, then it seems the only
answer for public places like the Well is some kind of encryption.
Maybe.

I'd like to hear more of what happened at Shimomura's gate. It was
apparently a well-known hacker target. Why did he let it get breached?

A little after ten, Netta Gilboa of the counterculture publication
Gray Areas
asks:

What proof does the WELL have that the hackers/crackers of Sept.
1993 ever left?... I knew of at least eight of them who had root
then.... I can also confirm Emmanuel's statement that it is not
Mitnick's voice on the audio files Tsutomu released.

Late Sunday and early Monday morning, February zo, a transfor-
mation takes place. What began as a thread about the network secu-
rity breakins has become a dialogue about John Markoff. Mike
Jennings (#660) comments on a post in which someone asks,

"When did John cross over from Joe Journalist to Cybercop." Jen-
nings responds,

If I were in a good position to assist an investigation, I would, no
matter what it said on my business card.

#661 [Jeanne DeVoto]

Well, that's not really the point, is it?

If a journalist is actively aiding LE [law enforcement] in an investi-
gation, does it mean that information given him by sources in confi-
dence will end up in the hands of LE officials? Would the need to
aid LE take priority at any time over the needs of honest and com-
plete reporting? Could a journalist be used by LE officials to get
around the legal requirements police are expected to operate under?

I have a lot of faith in Markoff's ethics, but it's not unreasonable to
raise a question when a journalist is deeply involved in an investiga-
tion such as this. The idea does bring up some issues worth explor-
ing and imply some questions that may need answering.

#662 [Emmanuel Goldstein]

I'm glad to hear such intelligent talk — these issues are exactly
what's been bothering me from the very start. I only hope we get to
the bottom of all this sooner rather than later.. . .

On Monday, February 20, after a formal protest by the Well, the
New York Times
prints a correction on Markoff's story about Mit-
nick's near destruction of the Well:

An article in Business Day on Friday about an attack on the Well
computer network before the arrest of a computer vandalism sus-
pect overstated the damage done. The attack did not destroy all
accounting records of the on-line service; it erased all data from the
file containing records of that day's connections.

But according to the Well, the
Times
correction fails to correct
Markoff's error. The Well says only the back-up to one third of the
day's accounting was erased. Mitnick erased no real data.

Tuesday afternoon, February 2.1, a scant six days after Mitnick's
capture, Charles Piatt, a frequent
Wired
contributor, breaks the news
that Mitnick's downfall is someone else's windfall. He says an editor
friend phoned to say Markoff has landed a $750,000 book deal. Platt
cites Markoff's close relationship with Shimomura and his role in cap-
turing Mitnick, and then questions the
Times
reporter's "ethics" in
getting rich by selling a news story he "just helped to create.. .."

On Friday, the
Washington Post
weighs in with an article not
about Mitnick or Shimomura but about the reporter who broke the
story.

media notes: computer thief scoop nets book deal

By Howard Kurtz

When FBI agents arrested fugitive cyberthief Kevin Mitnick in
Raleigh, N.C., last week, it came as no surprise to computer buffs
that New York Times reporter John Markoff was there.