Free Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker by William L. Simon, Kevin Mitnick, Steve Wozniak Page A

of the California Youth Authority. Better living conditions, better food. Though it was afive-hour drive, my mom and Gram came every other weekend, as before bringing loads of food. We’d cook steak or lobsters on the outdoor grills, like civilized people, and Mom and I would hunt four-leaf clovers on the lawn of the outdoor visiting area. Their visits helped make my time in custody feel shorter.
    The counselors would drop around to meet the parents, and mine really seemed extra polite to my mom.
    Other aspects of my stay didn’t go as smoothly. The only razors allowed were the throw-away kind, forever nicking my skin, so I stopped shaving. My beard grew full and thick, completely changing my appearance; I would keep it only as long as I was inside.
    I was given early release after only six months. When my Conditions of Release document was being prepared, I was asked, “What condition can we put on you that you won’t keep hacking?”
    How could I answer that? I said, “Well, there’s ethical hacking and there’s unethical hacking.”
    “I need some formal language,” was the reply. “What can I put down?”
    Star Wars
came to mind. I said, “You could call it ‘darkside hacking.’ ”
    That’s the way it was entered into my Conditions: “No darkside hacking.”
    I think it was an
LA Times
reporter who somehow came upon that term. It got picked up and widely reported by the press; it became a kind of nickname for me. Kevin Mitnick, the Darkside Hacker.
    After my release, a cop called me, giving his name as Dominick Domino and explaining that he was the guy who had driven me to juvenile hall when I was picked up at Fromin’s. He was working on an LAPD training video about computer crime. Would I be willing to come in for an on-camera interview? Sure, why not?
    I doubt they’re still using the production this many years later, but for a while I was part of the effort to help LA cops learn about catching guys like me.
    At that time, Gram was sharing digs with a friend of hers, Donna Russell, who as a director of software development at 20th Century Fox was able to offer me a job. I thought,
Way cool—maybe I’ll even rubshoulders with some movie stars
. I loved that job. I worked right on the lot, walking past soundstages to get to my building; the pay was fair, they were training me in developing applications using COBOL and IBM’s Basic Assembly Language, plus I was learning about working with IBM mainframes and HP minicomputers.
    But all good things come to an end, they say—in this case, sooner rather than later. Another employee put in a grievance that under union rules the job should have been offered to current employees.
    After only two months, I was back on the street, jobless.
    It came as a real shock one day when my Parole Officer, Melvin Boyer, called to say, “Kevin, have a big breakfast, eat all you can, then come in to see me.” That could only mean one thing: trouble.
    In the ham radio world of Los Angeles, there was a repeater group on 147.435 Mhz that had been dubbed “the animal house.” People would attack one another, use foul language, and jam other people’s transmissions. For me, it was a game. I’d later learn that a guy in the animal house group who must have had some grudge against me had called the
Youth Authority
Parole Office to complain I had hacked into his company’s network. I hadn’t. But the guy worked for Xerox, which I guess made him credible.
    Mom drove me in. The supervising parole agent asked me to accompany him to his office. He told my mom I’d be right back and said she should wait in the lobby. Instead, I was immediately handcuffed by the supervisor as they whisked me away out the side door to a waiting car. I yelled to my mom that they were sneaking me out the side and arresting me for something I hadn’t even done.
    I was dropped off at the Van Nuys jail by my Parole Officer and his supervisor. By a weird coincidence, my uncle Mitchell had called me