April 21,2000 Daily News Judge Blocks Hacker's Appearance at Conference By Dick Kelsey, Newsbytes April 21, 2000

An information technology conference in Salt Lake City this week had to go on without convicted hacker Kevin Mitnick after a judge ruled his participation in a panel discussion on computer security would violate terms of his probation.

The Utah Information Technology Association (UITA) learned shortly before the two-day conference began Tuesday that a federal judge in California barred Mitnick from sitting on the panel. UITA President Richard Nelson said he was "disappointed" that Mitnick would not be allowed to share his expertise with those in the business of fighting hackers.

Mitnick, 36, was freed from prison in January after serving more than four years behind bars for hacking into the computer systems of Fujitsu, Motorola, Nokia, the University of California and others. Despite the work of untold numbers of hackers and cyber-attackers since his name surfaced early in the last decade, Mitnick is seen as a symbol of the rogues of the Internet.

"Given the critical nature of security issues in today's interconnected world, we felt Kevin's visibility would help encourage greater vigilance among both business and government leaders," Nelson said in a news release announcing that Mitnick would be there as planned.

Since his release, Mitnick has been featured on CBS's 60 Minutes, CNN, Fox and CourtTV for his expertise. He also appeared at and spoke as a panelist during the Online Journalism Conference at the University of Southern California last month, where he addressed the impact of technology on journalism, but no technical issues.

In March, testifying at a Senate hearing on a computer security bill, Mitnick placed a great deal of importance on fighting the human element of hacking as well as its technical aspects. He suggested better education of employees about security risk and how hackers operate, noting that he was often able to dupe government workers into giving him system passwords without putting his technical skills to work.

A witness from the General Accounting Office (GOA) agreed.

Even though he is among the most notorious of hackers, Mitnick is seen in computer security circles as a valuable resource. Nearly one-third of the respondents to a recent poll by CIO (Computer Information Officer) magazine said they'd hire Mitnick once he finishes his three-year parole period.

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com

http://currents.net/news/00/04/21/news1.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), April 21, 2000

Answers

Thanks Martin, good story. I am a member of UITA and was present at the conference. Here is a summary I wrote for my web site:

http://www.cyberstudies.org/April192000.htm

Judge Blocks Mitnick's Appearance at Salt Lake City Conference

Salt Lake City, April 19, 2000

Jennifer Bunker, Executive Director, Center for Society and Cyber Studies

I had been looking forward to using my most spiffed and polished social engineering skills to secure some private time with Kevin Mitnick, but it was not meant to be.

A professional organization that I am a member of, the Utah Information Technology Association (UITA), invited Mr. Mitnick to speak at it's annual corporate gathering in Salt Lake City, Utah. However, when participants showed up on the first day of the conference, we were informed that a judge had ruled that Mr. Mitnick could not come to Utah after all.

According to what we were told, the rules of Mr. Mitnick's probation specify that he cannot leave the seven county area in which he inhabits, unless so deemed necessary by a judge. Also, he is not allowed to profit in any way from his crimes by taking speaking monies or consulting fees. A judge viewed the conference invite as "profit making" for Mr. Mitnick, and as such nixed the deal.

Mr. Mitnick's talk was entitled, "Inside the Head of the Hacker."

Having just attended a four day, intensive Cyber Security conference along with many international law enforcement agencies, I am here to tell you that if we DON'T take an opportunity to look inside the head of a hacker every chance we get, we are losing a very valuable and serious resource to assist us to narrow the gap in our understanding of cyber-deviance. This opportunity lost to those of us who are trying to secure systems is simply indescribable. This also drastically underscores the serious knowledge deficiency currently in operation in our nation's judicial system regarding the operations and nature of cyber crimes. By not allowing the deposition of Mr. Mitnick's motivations for the rest of us to learn from, this ignorant judge has crippled the cyber security effort.

Cyber criminals 1, the rest of us, 0.

-- Jen Bunker (jen@bunkergroup.com), April 21, 2000.