Memories to Come
It's been an especially difficult period for many of us in the hacker community. Two of our most beloved members, Kevin Mitnick and Cheshire Catalyst, passed away since our last issue. And while we all know such loss is inevitable, we are always caught off guard.
If you have ever been to a HOPE conference, you would have seen Cheshire. He attended every one of those events and always gave at least one talk. He was key in helping us organize, especially in the early years. It was his perseverance that landed us Steve Wozniak as one of our keynote speakers when nobody else thought that was possible. He was always there to lend a helping hand to volunteers and newcomers. And before all of that, he was the person who headed TAP Magazine in its final days. TAP was a printed zine which helped inspire the idea for 2600. He was known and respected throughout that entire period. And what was truly remarkable was that he was also a renowned presence in his community of Titusville, Florida and amongst those enthused by the many rocket launches in that part of the world.
Ironically, few in each community knew of his significance in the others. He was a man of many talents and interests, and his absence will be felt in the years ahead.
Anyone who has read 2600 over the years knows how important a figure Kevin Mitnick was. Since our first editorial on his plight back in the 1980s to his success as a writer and security consultant in the past couple of decades, Kevin carried the true spirit of the hacker community. He was persecuted for his mischief, misunderstood and misrepresented, taken advantage of, and, eventually, recognized as the person he actually was.
If anyone ever had a reason to be bitter and resentful over his long imprisonment and overall demonization, Kevin did. But that wasn't who he was. Instead, when he was finally released in 2000, he got to work building a life and using his talents to help improve the kind of security that he had been able to compromise in previous years. Even that proved a challenge, as the authorities who were monitoring his supervised release conditions wanted him to completely stay away from technology. He was prohibited from being on the Internet, owning a cell phone, and even telling his own story for that entire three-year period after his release. It was a system designed to have people fail and to get them thrown back into custody for inevitably running afoul of these draconian regulations. Instead, Kevin patiently abided by the terms for the three years, knowing full well that the slightest misstep would land him back in federal prison, perhaps for good.
What Kevin was able to accomplish after that dark period should be inspirational to us all. He became a known quantity in the security world - for the second time, but in a completely different way. In so doing, he never bought into the simplistic notion of sending kids to prison if they misbehaved online. He showed us how to better protect ourselves, encouraged others to act responsibly, and never talked down to anyone, whether it was a wannabe hacker in middle school or the president of a large corporation with terrible security practices. There are countless stories out there of Kevin genuinely helping people without asking for anything in return.
We had always wanted Kevin to speak at HOPE, even when it was just beginning back in 1994. However, that year he was in hiding, in no small part because of a front page New York Times article published in July of that year that made him seem like a national menace: "Cyberspace's Most Wanted: Hacker Eludes F.B.I. Pursuit." (The author, John Markoff, would later go on to play a part in Mitnick's capture and co-wrote the book Takedown about the whole sequence of events, which would go on to become a movie and inspired our own documentary Freedom Downtime.) Kevin was behind bars for our next conference in 1997 and was subject to the restrictions of his supervised release for the next two in 2000 and 2002. But there was nothing getting in the way in 2004 when Kevin made a triumphant appearance at The Fifth HOPE, finally able to speak to a crowd of hackers. His mother and grandmother joined him for that weekend in what was one of our happiest moments.
So much of Kevin's success was helped by the support he received from this community. The entire "Free Kevin" movement was like nothing ever seen before in the hacker world. And it really made a difference: attention was drawn to his case along with the many injustices he suffered; that truly awful Takedown film that attacked his character while he was powerless to fight back was prevented from getting a wide release due to demonstrations all over the world; and, when he was finally released, there were so many people out there who wanted to help him get back on his feet. Of course, had Kevin not possessed the skill and the drive to earn such a successful career, he wouldn't have become the post-release legend that he will always be. But those of you who helped get the word out and made it known that this injustice wouldn't stand, know that your actions and words meant a great deal to Kevin.
We believe our relationships are stepping stones that can help make us better people as we move forward in life. The individuals we know personally, as well as those whose words and accomplishments we study, influence how we talk to and treat other people. We can only hope that our all-too-brief time with Cheshire and Kevin had an effect on us and also affected the many others they met, and that we'll all be encouraged to take a path we might otherwise not have gone on. This can be true of anyone we encounter, but it was especially clear with these two.
It's right to feel sad and we will for some time to come. Nothing is forever - that much is certain. But with every transition, there is something else. The only thing we know for certain is that there's so very much we're not capable of understanding at this stage. And that can be both terrifying and comforting.
But in these difficult moments, we need to talk to each other, know that we're not all that different, and remember that we're not alone. However we choose to communicate, that human connection is extremely powerful and affirming.
Our experiences are all we know, yet they are so puny in the big picture. We are reminded of that each and every time we look at the night sky. Is it there simply to mock us with glimpses of worlds we can never truly explore? Or are we looking at our future through images of the past?
One thing both Cheshire and Kevin were well known for was their undying curiosity. And whenever you feel that, you're feeling a bit of them, something that will always live on and continue to bind us together.