--- Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 01:33:38 -0800 From: Todd Jonz <toddat_private> To: declanat_private Subject: Re: The Justice Department's hoax "domestic terrorism" statistics Declan, The St. Petersburg Times editorial you posted regarding the Justice Department's "cooked" domestic terrorism statistics reminded me of another recent thread about the FCC considering whether to deny the renewal of convicted cracker Kevin Mitnick's amateur radio license. I worked at Sun Microsystems during Mitnick's cracking days and had casual contact with some of the folks charged with investigating Mitnick's intrusions at Sun, from which he downloaded the source code for an unreleased version of the Solaris operating system. After Mitnick had been arrested, federal authorities were very interested in the value of the software that Mitnick had "stolen", and urged Sun to value it at the full R&D cost (which, if I recall correctly, was in the neighborhood of $80 million according to published reports.) To the best of my knowledge, all Mitnick did was download the source code. Apart from a bruised ega, I find it difficult to believe that Sun had suffered any real loss. In fact, not long after this incident Sun began making Solaris source code availble to selected customers for next to nothing, which blows any theory that Sun had lost any proprietary secrets to Mitnick. Can the ludicrous valuation of this code be interpreted as anything other than an attempt to paint Mitnick as a far more pernicious cyber-criminal than he actually was? Now that Mitnick has, as they say, paid his debt to society, found gainful employment as a journalist and consultant, and kept his nose clean since his release from prison, I can't help but view the FCC's desire to revoke his ham license as an attempt to perpetuate his poster boy image as a warning to others. Is it any wonder that more and more people have taken to examining "facts" that come out of the Beltway with a jaundiced eye? And just for the record, no, I do not in any way condone Mitnick's activities; it's just that I'd prefer see my tax dollars spent in pursuit of dangerous criminals rather than on creating the *appearance* of dangerous criminals. -- Todd Jonz When cryptography is outlawed, toddat_private bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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