The legend of Tsutomu Shimomura
Friday, August 19th, 2005Kevin Mitnick – the misunderstood, talented, perhaps unbalanced man who defeated the security of high technology companies across the USA in the mid nineties – was not apprehended through FBI intelligence. He was found after he successfully broke into the workstations of Tsutomu Shimomura, a researcher at NCSA. When his own systems were compromised, Shimomura saw fit to help the FBI by tracking Mitnick’s internet and mobile phone activities, leading to Mitnick’s arrest in 1995.
I don’t believe Mitnick deserved his treatment at the hands of the justice system. He’s a perfect case of the naive, intoxicated explorer, never profiting from his actions or damaging property (at least not intentionally). But the romantic concept of this ingenu attracting the wrath of a vengeful god, a security researcher whose skills eclipsed his own, and swiftly feeling that wrath brought to bear is beguiling. Should Shimomura have handed Mitnick to the FBI? Ethically speaking, probably not. But this was payback in all its Hollywood glory: Honour challenged, the hero comes out fighting.
- Tsutomu Shimomura and John Markoff’s site about the events
- Hacker/phreaker radio show Off The Hook archives for the month of Mitnick’s arrest
These two sources paint such a conflicting picture of the events that I’ve been pondering them quite a lot recently. The above is my take on the matter, in a nutshell.
