Kevin Mitnick Quotes

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Kevin Mitnick

Profession : Businessman

Birth : August 6, 1963

I happen to be notorious. That, I have no control over.

Kevin Mitnick

Social engineering is using deception, manipulation and influence to convince a human who has access to a computer system to do something, like click on an attachment in an e-mail.

Kevin Mitnick

For a long time, I was portrayed as the Osama bin Laden of the Internet, and I really wanted to be able to tell my side of the story. I wanted to be able to explain exactly what I did and what I didn't do to people who thought they knew me.

Kevin Mitnick

The key to social engineering is influencing a person to do something that allows the hacker to gain access to information or your network.

Kevin Mitnick

The Patriot Act is ludicrous. Terrorists have proved that they are interested in total genocide, not subtle little hacks of the U.S. infrastructure, yet the government wants a blank search warrant to spy and snoop on everyone's communications.

Kevin Mitnick

I think a cyber-terrorism attack is overblown, though the threat exists. I think al Qaeda and other groups are more interested in symbolic terrorism, like what they did to the World Trade Center - suicide bombers or something that really has an effect and is meaningful to people.

Kevin Mitnick

I wasn't a hacker for the money, and it wasn't to cause damage.

Kevin Mitnick

Our Constitution requires that the accused be presumed innocent before trial, thus granting all citizens the right to a bail hearing, where the accused has the opportunity to be represented by counsel, present evidence, and cross-examine witnesses.

Kevin Mitnick

I could have evaded the FBI a lot longer if I had been able to control my passion for hacking.

Kevin Mitnick

For the average home-user, anti-virus software is a must. A personal firewall such as Zone Alarm and running a program like HFNetcheck, which is a free download for personal users. It checks your system to see if anything needs to be patched. I'd also recommend a program such as SpyCop to periodically check for any spyware on your system.

Kevin Mitnick

I get hired by companies to hack into their systems and break into their physical facilities to find security holes. Our success rate is 100%; we've always found a hole.

Kevin Mitnick

For the average home-user, anti-virus software is a must.

Kevin Mitnick

Are hackers a threat? The degree of threat presented by any conduct, whether legal or illegal, depends on the actions and intent of the individual and the harm they cause.

Kevin Mitnick

My actions constituted pure hacking that resulted in relatively trivial expenses for the companies involved, despite the government's false claims.

Kevin Mitnick

I'm an expert witness in a case that's in appeal about a guy who allegedly misappropriated source code from a major, major company - he actually worked there and then apparently they found it on his laptop later.

Kevin Mitnick

Then again, my case was all about the misappropriation of source code because I wanted to become the best hacker in the world and I enjoyed beating the security mechanisms.

Kevin Mitnick

Any type of operating system that I wanted to be able to hack, I basically compromised the source code, copied it over to the university because I didn't have enough space on my 200 megabyte hard drive.

Kevin Mitnick

So what I was essentially doing was, I compromised the confidentiality of their proprietary software to advance my agenda of becoming the best at breaking through the lock.

Kevin Mitnick

I made stupid decisions as a kid, or as a young adult, but I'm trying to be now, I'm trying to take this lemon and make lemonade.

Kevin Mitnick

Of course I'm sure half the people there hate me and half the people like me.

Kevin Mitnick