TakeDown: Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick, By the man who caught him

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October 7th, 2002, 10:52 PM
Common_Exploit

TakeDown: Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick, By the man who caught him

Well, TakeDown is a really great book that I recommend which goes into the story of Tsutomu Shimomura's pursuit and capture of the famous Hacker, Kevin Mitnick. It goes into detail of The Break In that started it all, to The tracing and actual war between the two, to finally the court sentence and the ending of the story. It is a great book, giving not a biased opinion on the matter at all, but both sides of the story. It even goes into detail of Mitnick's IRC sessions where he fooled Shimomura, to a few telephone conversations they had. Really great book, and I DEFINITELY recommend it.
October 8th, 2002, 12:00 AM
Null

It is a great book, but I wish they had a little bit more of Kevin's side after the capture. Like did he know how close they were to getting him, did he know Shimomaura before he hit his systems, etc...
October 8th, 2002, 12:38 AM
Tedob1

read the book, loved it, and still thought the movie was pretty good!

cookoo's egg is also good
October 8th, 2002, 03:10 AM
Dome

Havent read the book but im thinkin about it, i saw the movie wich was really good.... might get it after im done reason the Andromeda Strain
October 8th, 2002, 01:17 PM
the_JinX

The nice thing about the book (and the movie for that matter) is that you realy get to see what Mitnick did..

He was a social engineer rather then a hacker..
The real danger is usualy the human factor.

Btw.. I once entered a hackme competition and SE'd my way thrue ;) :p
October 8th, 2002, 05:15 PM
Sgear17

Don't heard about that book is there anybody can share what that books contains ive only read some article about Kevin Mitnick and what did he did that put him in prison is there any other site that i can read about his doings?........... thanks
October 8th, 2002, 05:42 PM
newbie

The book is written by a guy called Tsutomu Shimomura, a computer security specialist that tracked down Mitnick and was more or less responsible for his arrest. It is very well written and sometimes there is even some unixish stuff.
I liked it very much as it describes pretty good what Mitnick did and how Shimomura reacted. In the end, it develops into a quite personal thing between those two characters since Mitnick realized that Shimomura can become dangerous to him.
October 8th, 2002, 06:57 PM
the_JinX

For the ppl that don't want to read the book... the movie with (Amongst others) Skeet Ulrich is realy good..

If you want to do it in order.. check out the movie first... the book goes in to it with a lot more detail..
October 8th, 2002, 07:00 PM
Leviatan

Quote:

Originally posted here by the_JinX
The nice thing about the book (and the movie for that matter) is that you realy get to see what Mitnick did..

He was a social engineer rather then a hacker..
The real danger is usualy the human factor.

Btw.. I once entered a hackme competition and SE'd my way thrue ;) :p

True, Mitnick spends most of his time bullshitting his way in, impersonating people, steeling documents, kissing ass etc etc.
The only thing brilliant about him is that he managed to net get caught by the feds by tapping into their phone calls and systems.
October 8th, 2002, 07:10 PM
8*B@LL

you guys actually liked that movie? i thought it was crap...well, crap in terms of representing reality; it was a decent story.
October 8th, 2002, 07:12 PM
outforjustix

HE'S THE BEST:(@
October 8th, 2002, 07:23 PM
souleman

Quote:

It is a great book, giving not a biased opinion on the matter at all, but both sides of the story.

Well, thats complete BS. The book is VERY biased. So is the movie. As a matter of fact, the reason the movie was not released in the US is that it was so biased, the recording company was afraid to release it. The way it was written, you would think Tsutomo was a god. I'll admit, he's good, but I don't give a **** that he was on a ski trip when his computer was broken into. And there is still no proof who broke into his computer. He is a media whore, just like Jonathan Markoff (the coauthor). If you want to see the other side of the story, read the book by Jonathan Litman. Just remember, no mater what you read, the story is never perfect.

Yes, Mitnik was a social engineer. He had access to a program that would break into Tsutomo's machine in the way it was done. It was written buy a guy in Israel. But there is no proof that Mitnik is the one that did it. If you watch the capture logs from the books website, you will see that Mitnik didn't know what he was doing. Thats beside the point.

The book was entertaining, but it was by no means unbiased.
October 8th, 2002, 07:31 PM
El Diablo

I have read both of those books souleman and I have to say that the Litman book was much less biased.

El Diablo
October 8th, 2002, 08:39 PM
Common_Exploit

Well, in the book, Tsutomo gave load's of credit to him and greatly respected his name. After all, he did write the book and I believe it is a pretty good book.
January 10th, 2003, 03:57 PM
mrlin

Thank you souleman,

I was getting worried no one would say that about the book. For those of you who thought the book was good, youve been duped by two mediawhores, Tsotumo and Markoff. Littman's book, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846 was, to say the least, EXCEPTIONAL. PLEASE PLEASE, at the least read both of the books, and the make a decision.
January 10th, 2003, 05:23 PM
jhgrew

i really loved the movie...cud not find the book though
January 10th, 2003, 05:50 PM
iNViCTuS

Quote:

Originally posted here by Tedob1
read the book, loved it, and still thought the movie was pretty good!

cookoo's egg is also good

How did you see the movie "Takedown"? It was never released in the US, at least to the publc. I know the French version can be found, which I believe is called "Cybertr@que" or something.

I have read the book and I completely agree with many others on the fact that it is VERY biased.