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• Mitnick's Capture: A Battle Between Hackers

  In 1994, Kevin Mitnick was back to his illegal activities, and wanted by the FBI. He was already known worldwide because of his exploits, and his portrait had been distributed all over, encouraging people who recognized him to call the authorities if they spotted him. It was during this year and the one following that Kevin Mitnick would become the object of the most spectacular manhunt launched against a hacker. Mitnick Attacks a Rival Mitnick decided to attack another hacker and security expert, Tsutomu Shimomura. His attack was well prepared, and to be certain nobody would disturb him, Mitnick launched it on Christmas Day, December 25, 1994. He hacked Shimomura's personal computer using a technique unheard of at the time, IP spoofing, which involves using a bogus IP address to avoid being discovered during an intrusion. Mitnick was betrayed by Shimomura's firewall, however, which recorded all activity on the target machine. On December 26, Shimomura received a call from one of his colleagues informing him that his machine had been the victim of an intrusion. He quickly established a link to Mitnick, and decided to lend a hand to the FBI in arresting the hacker, by using his own hacking skills. A Virtual Manhunt Shimomura obtained carte blanche from the FBI, including authorization to use hacking to find Mitnick. The pursuit became a virtual chase; for example, Shimomura reported that he surprised Mitnick on January 17, 1995, when he infiltrated a network belonging to Motorola in order to steal the company's security software. Mitnick's Arrest As the chase intensified, they started closing in on Mitnick, who retreated to the city of Raleigh, North Carolina. To find the cell phone Mitnick used to launch his attacks, Shimomura walked the streets of Raleigh for two days equipped with a communications detector. On February 15, 1995, at 2:00 in the morning, the FBI burst into Mitnick's apartment together with Shimomura. When he saw his rival, the fugitive exclaimed: "Hi, Tsutomu! Congratulations!" After a pursuit of almost two years, Mitnick was sentenced to five years in prison, at that time the harshest sentence ever given to a hacker.

• Famous Hackers

  Adrian Lamo, Kevin Mitnick and Kevin Poulsen Kevin Mitnick The most famous, and undoubtedly most gifted hacker in history, made a name for himself in 1981 at the tender age of 17 by getting into a phone exchange, which allowed him to redirect subscriber calls in any way he wanted. In 1983, he achieved his first major coup - and also his first arrest - when he accessed a Pentagon computer. It was his repeated offenses that made him a target of the FBI. He was sentenced to five years in prison in the 1990s, but today he is a security consultant and owns his own company: Mitnick Security. Kevin Poulsen The current editor-in-chief of Wired was formerly known for rather different activities. In 1983, when he too was only 17 years old, he made his first intrusions into different networks, resulting in a few run-ins with the US legal system. He continued with his illegal activities until his arrest by the FBI in April 1991. In 1994 he was sentenced to four years in prison. Adrian Lamo Lamo has certainly driven the highest number of network administrators insane. From Microsoft to Yahoo!, going through Sun Microsystems, MacDonald's, Cingular, AOL or even the New York Times, he is credited with all types of intrusions and corporate security system violations. He has bypassed protections with disconcerting simplicity: during a broadcast of the NBC Nightly News, the host asked him to prove his talents in front of the camera, and he responded by gaining access to the company's internal network in less than five minutes. Today he is an expert in security and enjoys full freedom of movement, after being under the surveillance of US authorities for many years. John Draper Better known as "Cap'n Crunch", Draper was one of the first hackers in history. This moniker comes from the cereal of the same name, inside of which he once discovered a toy whistle (provided as a gift to entice children to ask parents for the cereal). He discovered that he could use the whistle to hack a telephone line and get free phone calls - all that was necessary was to produce a precise tone in the receiver for the method to work. He was arrested in 1976 and sentenced to two months in prison.

• The Appearance Of Scrambled Communications

  In 1987, Kevin Mitnick left his illegal activities behind. He was under probation following his last sentence, so he could not afford any transgressions. However, he would soon use his skills again for shady activities. One evening, along with his fiend Lenny DiCicco, Mitnick gained access to the internal network of the research laboratory at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). This intrusion was not complicated for Mitnick, because DiCicco was an employee of the laboratory in question and served as an accomplice. EasyNet, DEC's internal network, did not withstand the hacker's attacks for long, and he quickly gained access to the whole system. An Attack Carried Out with an Accomplice As in his previous attacks, the intrusion was quickly discovered, but this time Mitnick had anticipated it. He scrambled the origin of the calls, rendering all attempts to trace him useless. And this time he was not infiltrating the network because of simple curiosity or as a challenge: he had a definite goal. He wanted to seize the source code of the VMS operating system, used by DEC on its VAX computers. Our hacker had taken all precautions, but neglected one: his own friend. Mitnick loves games and practical jokes, so one day he called Lenny DiCicco's employer posing as a government agent. He said an employee (DiCicco) was in trouble with the IRS. This joke was not appreciated by DiCicco, who decided to get revenge in his own way. DiCicco's Betrayal DiCicco betrayed Mitnick, informing his employer about the latter's activities in the company network. He then contacted the FBI, telling them he could deliver the hacker that was regularly infiltrating the laboratory network. It was during a rendezvous that Mitnick fell for the trap set up by his friend, who was accompanied by two FBI agents for the arrest. The case proceeded quickly, with DEC accusing the hacker of data theft and having cost the company upwards of $200,000 in security measures. He was sentenced to a year in prison, and had to enter a six-month program to treat his computer dependency.