The Fugitive Game: Online With Kevin Mitnick (25 page)

"Look, they've given me a few months to do this," I say, reassur-
ing Mitnick that I'm not going to rush something out and repeat the
old rumors. "What I want to do is get the facts straight."

"All those accusations Markoff put in the book," Mitnick stam-
mers. "Anything bad that happened was attributed to me."

"What things weren't true?"

"NORAD. I don't think it's possible," Mitnick says.

"So how'd you get the bad reputation?"

"I victimized some people when I was sixteen or seventeen, but
after I was twenty I grew out of it."

Really? I think. What about when you hacked Mark Lottor for his
Oki phone software?

"I'm tired of fighting it. Something happened to the probation
officer's phone, and right away it's a fact. It's brought up in all my
cases. Everybody thinks I'm such a bad person because when I was
seventeen I used to fuck with the ham radio guys .. .

"Lewis would fuck with them and I'd antagonize them. We'd
work as a team. Lew would go find private information, then I
would say stuff like, 'How's Betty doing?' Personal information. It
was a game, it was a
fucking game."

"Tell me about the Security Pacific incident," I prod Mitnick.
"The one where they said you put out the false release, saying they
lost hundreds of millions of dollars."

"I was legally hired by Security Pacific Bank. It was in writing.
They even sent around a notice saying, 'Please welcome Kevin Mit-
nick aboard.. . .'

"My fucking luck, one of the ham radio operators worked for the
bank. He contacted the bank [and sabotaged Mitnick's hiring].
Somebody apparently did a news wire that said they lost four hun-
dred million dollars. I didn't do it. If somebody had actually called
the bank they might have found out the truth. I don't even think it
happened.

"It's the tip of the iceberg. I'm not innocent, but I'm also not evil.

"I'm afraid to be back in the light. All this is intertwined, the
Poulsen case, my case, the Petersen link. I'm just really not excited
about it. I'm not going to fuck with your phones, I have no plans to
screw anybody."

I'm feeling a little uneasy.

"So what do you plan to write?"

"You read the e-mail," I remind the eavesdropper.
"Playboy wanted a story about you. Markoff turned them down and sug-
gested me. If they didn't assign it to me, they'd assign it to someone
else."

Mitnick pauses, his voice calmer. "I guess I'd rather have you do it
than someone else."