The Fugitive Game: Online With Kevin Mitnick (31 page)

"But somebody else does," I counter, thinking about his alter ego.

"I have a friend, all right. You know those little flyer cards that
come in the mail?" Mitnick begins, absorbed in his story. "You fill it
out and you get junk mail? This guy, I swear to God, spent a week
just printing out labels [with the address of a person he disliked] and
sticking them on these cards. So their mailboxes at work, home,

their parents' house, were just
flooded
— flooded with mail of com-
panies sending
mail, mail, mail.
Like on the Internet, you know how
you could flood someone's mailbox?"

"The same thing?"

"The same thing. Talking about so much mail that it would be
work to find out where your real mail is. They could make this junk
mail look like a pay to the order of your name. You would open that
up, right? I mean this guy is dedicated."

"On the Net, he's known as —?"

"Yeah, he's using my name. My name is trouble. If he puts my
name in lights, he has nothing to lose. I don't dislike him at all. I'm
just saying it's worked its way out over the years so a lot of the shit
he's done, people think I've done.

"He'll say, 'This guy on Netcom, I want to know where he works
and how much he made for the last five years, and if he's married
and how much is in his bank.'

"I'll say, 'OK, I'll run that one, too.' So he uses that ammunition
to fuck with people."

"What do you feel about that?"

"They think it's him. I don't care. It's not
my
battle. It's
nothing. You're not releasing somebody's
personal
diary. You worked at
Apple Computers and you made 22,406 dollars and 12 cents."

So this is how Mitnick justifies his role in De Payne's campaign of
info harassment. If Mitnick can get information, he figures it's not
really personal. I'm not surprised by the amoral techno logic.
Hackers don't get to be hackers by worrying about rules or by re-
specting privacy.

"Then he likes to project, 'This is what I'm telling you. Can you
imagine if I know
this
how much I
really
know?'" Mitnick con-
tinues, amused. "In other words, bluffing. That way, people get
scared of him. When people are scared of you, that's
power."

"You think it's a power thing for him?"

"The power over somebody?" Mitnick considers. "I think so. He
likes to watch people get unglued when he can tell them all about
them, personal shit. I'm the one that obtains the information for
him, though, and he just uses it."

"Do you think it's wrong?"

"No, I don't see anything wrong with it! I don't see anything
wrong with him doing it. I could care less! It's not really hurting
anyone. He's just agitating people. It's not like he's giving people's
credit card numbers out and people are gonna get financially hurt.
It's like walking in a bar and saying, 'Fuck you!' "

"It's just without fists."

"Yeah, right. What are you gonna do?" Mitnick laughs haughtily.
"Turn off your computer?"

■ ■ ■

Mitnick doesn't read many books, but he loves movies.

"The one I like is
Three Days of the Condor,"
I say.

Mitnick sounds suspicious. "That's supposed to be my favorite
film, remember?"

"It's a good film," I say.

"And then the fucking media twisted it around," Mitnick booms.
" 'Oh! This is
really
the reason why he picked the Condor. Because
condor is a
vulture
and he's a vulture.' "

"What did you like about the movie?"

"Well, the technical stuff, and he plays a slick guy. He was able to
get himself out of a bind when the powers that be had something
hanging over his head. They wanted him killed."

"The powers that be weren't good guys."

"No, they were evil government bureaucrats."

"Evil CIA factions, actually."

"Yeah, CIA within the CIA. That's one thing I never try to do is
get in the military computers because if you find out something
you're not supposed to know, I don't think they would have any
problem killing you.

"That's why I'm surprised Poulsen actually went into that shit
because that's something I have the capability of doing but I
wouldn't even
cross
that boundary because when you start fucking
the military, they take that
real
serious...."

Night,
January 19,1995

It's about 5:30 p.m. when Mit-
nick hangs up to answer his
pager. I haven't been outside all day, and night is already falling. All
the talking has given me a big appetite.

The phone starts ringing again. Something tells me it's Mitnick.

"You want some calamari?" I greet the caller.

"Yeah," Mitnick says.

"With tomato sauce? A few mushrooms?"

"That sounds good. Hey, did you ever eat in Chicago in a place
called Gino's Eats?" Mitnick asks.

"No."

"It's on Michigan Avenue. The best pizza I've ever had. I was
actually there about two days ago on business."

"Really?"

It's the first time Mitnick has hinted at his whereabouts. It seems
too spontaneous to be a test. But then who knows.

"Yeah," says Mitnick.

"It must be freezing there!"

"Dude, I was walking down the street and the wind — I never felt
such cold wind in my life. My head felt so cold that, oh man, it's
hard to describe that wind."

So Kevin Mitnick was in the Windy City just two days ago. Or
he's playing with me and anyone who happens to be listening in.

"Do you cook?"

"Nah. I go out to eat all the time. 'Cuz I'm always traveling."

Another hint. Does Mitnick's job keep him on the road or is this
just his life as a cyberfugitive?

"Do you date women that cook?"

"Yeah. This one gal was into making Thai food, and I really like
Thai food."

"So I'm gonna ask you another silly question since you're a
world-famous cyberperson. What do you look for in a woman?"

"Well, that's a new one," Mitnick chuckles. "I like her to be
pretty, number one. And have a pretty good mind. Someone you
could actually talk with. You know, I wouldn't date someone like
the blond in
Married with Children."
Mitnick laughs again.

"Somebody that would stick by me through thick and thin. But
I'm kinda a hard guy to stick by.

"I like 'em to be
really
beautiful. I mean I wouldn't date any big
two-hundred-pound gal. She wouldn't turn me on. You know how
we
are. We go by looks."

"You mean the male species?"

"Yeah. We go by looks, number one."

"How about women?"

"I think they do it by feelings. Like Bonnie. I was really fat and
ugly. And you know, we got together and she was pretty beautiful,

so . . ."

"What was it like for you to have a beautiful woman attracted to
you?"

"It made me feel good," Mitnick brightens, then sighs at the mem-
ory. "She was always on me to lose weight and stuff, to get into
exercise. I was too busy with my hacking. I mean this overconsum-
ing hobby kinda screwed up my life."

"Some people have tried to portray you as not having the normal
sides of your life that most people have —"

"I'm like everybody else," Mitnick cuts in angrily.

"As a cyberman, how do you find women?"

"Well, I send them messages on their computer screens," Mitnick
jokes.

"Do you tell them, 'I'm the most famous hacker in the world'?"

The idea annoys Mitnick. "No. I don't tell them anything about

that. Hold on a second. I'm looking for a battery pack. Hold on a
second. Doo, doo, doo. Where did it go?"

I can hear Mitnick tromping around in what must be his apart-
ment. He sounds like a big, oafish guy. That's what I'm imagining
anyway.

"Hope I didn't lose one of my eighty-dollar battery packs," he
grumbles.

Everything has a price to Mitnick. Probably because money
means freedom. Probably because he's never made much of it.

"OK. Sorry about that," Mitnick apologizes for the interruption.
The battery's still lost.

"So you see someone in a supermarket and you —"

Mitnick laughs. "I just say, 'Hey, I'm the greatest lay and the
greatest hacker in the world.' "

"What more could you ask for?" I joke.

"Yeah. Well, I'm not a Don Juan. I just meet 'em and if I'm inter-
ested get their phone number. Like there's one gal I met but she was
only nineteen."

"And how'd you meet her?"

"Actually, waiting for a doctor. I said, 'Hi,' and, of course, they
ask 'What do you do for a living', and I tell them I'm a private
investigator. You tell 'em that, and they're 'Oh, I always wanted to
do that. Can you find out anything on me?'

" 'What do you want me to find out? I can find out all I want
about you from you just telling me.' They laugh. You always get 'em
to laugh," Mitnick explains. "It's a numbers game. You know,
you're gonna get one for every ten you ask out, pretty much."

"This is what's interesting. Your public image is a nerd," I counter.

"Of course I wear my pocket protector," Mitnick stresses in a
serious tone.

"And you would never think that you ever talked to ten women
your whole life, right?"

"Well, they don't know me," Mitnick angrily snaps. "Markoff
doesn't know me. I wouldn't even talk to the guy."

■ ■ ■

"So you talked to this woman in the doctor's office."

"She was pretty young was the problem, really. You can tell if

someone's interested 'cuz, you know, body language. It's all in the
game. You gotta strike something with the person. Then you start
out as friends and go on dates and take it from there. I don't have a
script. It's not like I'm doing a social engineering attack."

The computer arena is another matter.

"I sometimes do social engineering if it's a hack attack," Mitnick
begins, switching to his favorite pursuit. "I'll just be driving in the
car and think, hey, I wonder if they'll fall for it? I'll just pick up the
phone and just do it. Just take no thinking or no planning. I mean,
some of the most
interesting
places have been looked into that way.
It's like I'll call this division and see if there's an idiot there and blah-
blah blah."

By now, we've talked long enough for me to know that "idiot" is
one of Mitnick's favorite words. An idiot is a mark, someone fooled
by one of Mitnick's cons, and he spits out the word with a mixture
of contempt and glee.

"I'm in the car and I'm getting all this information, and I'm think-
ing, 'Could you hold on a second?' " Mitnick chuckles. "I've gotta
pull over near a gas station and get a pen. So the guy thinks I'm in
some executive office instead of a piece of shit car going down the
road. He has no idea! If he only knew!"

"And who are you when this happens?"

"Could be
anybody,"
Mitnick sidesteps. "It depends on what I'm
doing."

"Is that fun to be anybody?"

"Yeah, pretty cool," he confides.

"So you've got a cute girl and things are fine but—"

"I can't tell her anything about who I really am. Rule number one,
trust no one. It's like that poster of the Puppetmasters, you know,
trust no one.
I always think about that and it's true."

"What do you feel then when you start to feel close to someone
but you know you're in this bind?"

"Well, I just put it out of my mind that I'm in the bind and psych
myself out like it's not there. And it doesn't exist and therefore
there's nothing to talk about 'cuz no problem exists.

"So I can settle down and get married, but [first] I'd break my ties
with everybody for a couple years to make sure I'm safe. 'Cuz I'd
hate to get married, and all of a sudden everything comes down and

she's all pissed off 'cuz I lied. But you know I can't trust anybody. I'll
never ever tell my spouse who I am."

"Even if you broke the ties before?"

"I can't," Mitnick insists. "I can't, 'cuz you can't trust 'em. You
can't trust anybody."

"Even if you decided this is the woman to spend the rest of your
life with?"

"No. A wife is not like your mother or your father or your grand-
mother or your grandfather. A wife could always come and go. Fam-
ily, your parents, never come and go. "

a ■ ■

"Trust no one," Mitnick utters like a mantra.