Professional Documents
Culture Documents
• Jonathan James
• Kevin Mitnick
• Gary McKinnon
Jonathan James
Jonathan James was known as “c0mrade”
on the Internet. What is his ticket to
fame? He was convicted and sent to
prison for hacking in the United States–all
while he was still a minor. At only fifteen
years of age, he managed to hack into a
number of networks, including those
belonging to Bell South, Miami-Dade, the
U.S. Department of Defense, and NASA.
Yes, James hacked into NASA’s network
and downloaded enough source code to
learn how the International Space Station
worked. The total value of the
downloaded assets equaled $1.7 million.
To add insult to injury, NASA had to shut
down their network for three whole
weeks while they investigated the breach,
which cost them $41,000.
Kevin Mitnick
Kevin Mitnick’s journey as a computer hacker
has been so interesting and compelling that
the U.S. Department of Justice called him the
“most wanted computer criminal in U.S.
history.” His story is so wild that it was the
basis for two featured films.
What did he do? After serving a year in prison
for hacking into the Digital Equipment
Corporation’s network, he was let out for 3
years of supervised release. Near the end of
that period, however, he fled and went on a
2.5-year hacking spree that involved breaching
the national defense warning system and
stealing corporate secrets.
Mitnick was eventually caught and convicted,
ending with a 5-year prison sentence. After
serving those years fully, he became a
consultant and public speaker for computer
security. He now runs Mitnick Security
Consulting, LLC.