Re: Mitnick Rings Bell

[Rich Burroughs <rich@paranoid.org>]

On Thu, 6 Nov 1997, John Young wrote:

>  6 November 1997, Digital Cellular Report:
>
>  U.S. government takes hard line on Mitnick. US Hacker Pleads for Help
[snip]

I think Kevin's time in custody shapes up to at least 31 months now.  He
was recently sentenced on a couple of charges, but his time served
exceeds the sentence he was given.  He has been held without bail for
this incredible length of time, yet he has never committed a violent
crime, AFAIK, and never profited financially from his hacking.  In a
hearing a few months back he finally established the fact that he was not
a "fugitive" when he went underground, but had completed the release terms
he was under shortly before.

While I'm not sure I can follow this all to the conclusion that the gov is
using his case to distract people from their attempts to regulate the
Net, I think it is clear they are using him as a warning sign to potential
hackers: Don't believe you have anything like civil liberties, because we
can lock your ass up for years without even having to take you to trial.

There is a pretty quiet majordomo list about Kevin's case at 2600 --
mitnick@2600.com.  Some of us who are concerned about Kevin's case have
been participating in an RC5 team that's meant to hopefully draw attention
to his case.  We're working on RC5-64 now, and people who are interested
in joining can visit the URL below.

The judge in Kevin's case recently set a tentative trail date, for April
of '98, I believe.  That means he'll have been in for over 3 years before
his federal tial begins.  He is facing a 25-count indictment.



Rich

---
Rich Burroughs  rich@paranoid.org
PGP Key Fingerprint = 22 BA C5 D7 2C 34 BF 8E  B5 82 2E 13 46 38 AA 1D
Cracking RC5-64 for Kevin Mitnick   http://www.paranoid.org/mitnick/