=========================================================================== == * Forwarded by Peter Sobolev (2:5030/84) * Area : PVT.CRACK (Cracking) * From : Timur Glonti, 2:469/72.50 (26 Apr 97 20:39) * To � : Oleg Vasiljev * Subj : Kevin Mitnick =========================================================================== == � � � � � � � ???? � � � ?????? Hi Oleg! ?????? � � � �???? Friday April 25 1997 11:15, Oleg Vasiljev wrote to All: �OV � ��? ���?? subj � �� ?�? ?�? ??����?�? Who is Kevin Mitnick? The picture that emerged after his arrest in Raleigh,N.C. last February �was of a 31-year old computer programmer, who had been given a number of chances to get his life together but each time was seduced back to the dark side of the computer world.Kevin David Mitnick reached adolescence in suburban Los Angeles in the late 1970s, the same time the personal computer industry was exploding beyond its hobbyist roots. His parents were divorced, and in a lower-middle-class environment that lacked adventure and in which he was largely a loner and an underachiever, he was seduced by the power he could gain over the telephone network. The underground culture of phone phreaks had already flourished for more than a decade, but it was now in the middle of a transition from the analog to the digital world. Using a personal computer and modem it became possible to commandeer a phone company's digital central office switch by dialing in remotely, and Kevin became adept at doing so. Mastery of a local telephone company switch offered more than just free calls: It opened a window into the lives of other people to eavesdrop on the rich and powerful, or on his own enemies. Mitnick soon fell in with an informal phone phreak gang that met irregularly in a pizza parlor in Hollywood. Much of what they did fell into the category of pranks, like taking over directory assistance and answering operator calls by saying, Yes, that number is eight-seven-five-zero and a half. Do you know how to dial the half, ma'am? or changing the class of service on someone's home phone to payphone status, so that whenever they picked up the receiver a recorded voice asked them to deposit twenty cents. But the group seemed to have a mean streak as well. One of its members destroyed files of a San Francisco-_base_d computer time-sharing company, a crime that went unsolved for more than a year