TAKEDOWN: Scenic Drive

Is this Kevin's secret way of communicating with Jon Littman?"

Disconnect

Session to Internex from the Well. Session from Netcom to the Well to Internex. Session dropped in mid-word.
This session is of particular interest because it ended abruptly in mid-word. This was important because we suspected that this might have been from a disconnect/dropped call. If it was, then the disconnection would propagate almost instantly through the network, giving us an event that happened at the same time everywhere along his path. Without such an event, with many people logging on and off of these systems (especially service providers), it can be difficult to match a login on one system to a login on another, since the login to the second system from the first could have been made by anyone currently on the first system.

"itni" as in "Mitnick"?

This is the first session where we saw a possible reference to "Mitnick."

The art of begging (for tools)

This is the chat session in which Kevin asks his friend jsz at Ben-Gurion University in Israel for tools. He asks over and over again until he gets satisfaction. Since we are seeing what Kevin saw, in the talk session the top half of the window (above the dashed line) is what he was saying; the bottom is what jsz was saying.

my hero is japboy!

Nobody speaks better for Kevin Mitnick than Kevin himself. Here we learn that we are indeed dealing with Mitnick, as well as good many other things. Do these sound like nice people to you?
Discussion of Tsutomu, Markoff, Dan Farmer, a "picture on the front page of the New York Times."
The top half of the screen is Kevin, the bottom is jsz.

read cyberpunk
More requests to jsz for tools, and other information, in another talk session. He threatens the Posse.

Dumb and Dumber

The previous night, Kevin rebuilt the kernel (the essential parts of the operating system on a Unix host) on csn.org (Colorado SuperNet)'s server to include NIT (a program for watching what happens on the network), using the CERT advisory on how to remove NIT as a guide. Watch him thrash trying to install a new kernel (he could have done exactly what he wanted to with a one-line command), and reboot their system (so that the new kernel will take effect). Several mistakes were made, causing the task to take much longer and be more complex than necessary.

U.S. hunts master computer 'cracker'

Kevin finally utters his true name, as he breaks into Mead Data Central's NEXIS/LEXIS system and queries the current news file for "MITNICK W/30 KEVIN". He finds a few recent news articles that mention him, including two wire service articles about the U.S. Marshall's Service and the FBI asking the public for help in tracking down Kevin David Mitnick, "a legendary master manipulator of the information superhighway".

probably a tap on the line :-)

Kevin engages his friend Lewiz in a cryptic online talk session, being concerned and wanting to get in touch. "Hottub" is presumably Kathleen Carson, FBI Special Agent in Los Angeles. So just who is "jl?"