Word: littman
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Jonathan Littman has a reputation as a friend of the hackers, one of the few journalists covering the computer underground whom its denizens can trust. Two years ago, for instance, when the capture of America's best-known computer criminal, Kevin Mitnick, was front-page news, it was Littman who got the uber-hacker's inside, as-told-to story and wrote a book, The Fugitive Game, that was sympathetic to Mitnick. Since then, the telephone at the Littman home has rung at all hours of the night with digital oddfellas calling--often collect, from prison--just to chat...
...kind of ruined my day," says Littman, who believes the source of the problem is his latest book, The Watchman: The Twisted Life and Crimes of Serial Hacker Kevin Poulsen (Little, Brown). Poulsen was one of the more adept hackers ever to work a keyboard, and the first to be charged with espionage (a charge that was later dropped). At one point he won two $50,000 Porsches by rigging radio contests in Los Angeles. (I'd explain, but you'll have more fun reading the book.) Suffice it to say that the terms of Poulsen's probation specify that...
...however, something more than constructive criticism is being offered. Somebody, not Poulsen, has been messing with Littman's Internet access, blocking his E-mail and knocking the page that promotes his book off the Web. If this E-mail threat is to be taken seriously, Littman can expect much worse...
Write another hacker book? I'd rather take on the Scientologists. Littman says he's starting to feel the same way. He continues to be intrigued by the subject matter but he thinks the subjects may not be worth the trouble. "If I do another book about hackers, it will probably be fiction," he says. I wonder if even that would help...
...incident "took place in 1988, when two-thirds of the people here were not members. The reputation that we get is from people that haven't been here for a long time. The case has nothing to do with us," said Barry G. Littman '91, a former president of the club...