Hannibal Hacker --------------- By Kevin Poulsen June 27, 1998 EXT. GRANDAVENUE - NIGHT: Our hero is pursuing a demon through the dark, rain-slicked streets of Seattle-- and he's gaining on him. A horrific reign of terror appears to be near its end. Suddenly, the psychopath rounds a corner into a black, rat-infested alley and disappears from view. The tension builds as our hero follows, slowly, tentatively, alert to any sound. Look out! Before Tsutomu Shimomura can react, Kevin Mitnick uses a trashcan lid to deliver a crushing blow to his skull. The audience screams, teenagers squeeze their date's arms. "Shimomura, dazed, blood flowing freely from a gash above his ear, raises himself to his elbows and watches Mitnick disappear into the night." To no one's surprise, the hacker community has obtained an advance copy of the screenplay for Takedown, the upcoming Miramax production dramatizing cybersleuth Tsutomu Shimomura's electronic pursuit of hacker Kevin Mitnick. But nobody predicted that the script, supposedly based on the dry, but inoffensive book of the same name, would be filled with so much blatant fabrication. No one expected that Kevin Mitnick might become the most feared and hated screen villain since Hannibal Lecter. Demon dialer "This thing is far, far worse than I ever imagined," wrote Emmanuel Goldstein, a friend of Mitnick's and the editor of the hacker zine 2600. Goldstein obtained the script last Monday, and read it long into the night. Last Tuesday, he announced the results through a public email list of 200 Mitnick supporters, and again on his New York radio program Off The Hook. Emmanuel cited dozens of fabrications from the script. Some of those embellishments are comical: the on-screen Mitnick makes free phone calls by whistling touch-tones, and he cheats at a radio station phone-in contest (ahem). Others, like the wholly fabricated assault in the alley, are simply horrifying. "If this film is made the way the script reads, Kevin will be forever demonized in the eyes of the public," Goldstein wrote. CHAOS Theory has confirmed the authenticity of the script, which is dated 3/20/98. If you're sensitive to adult language or formulaic plotting-- or you don't want to know the ending of the film-- read no further. Cue the Thunder The screenplay portrays Mitnick as an archetype of pure malignance. He is Shimomura's evil doppelganger-- the hidden dark side of his own soul. The demon grimly reaches out from the netherworlds of cyberspace to terrorize innocent people. The story has precious little in common with real life, but it borrows heavily from the horror and slasher film genres. Typifying the script is a sinister phone call Mitnick makes to Shimomura, that seems plucked right from the movie Scream: Mitnick: "Hey. Tsutomu... You still fucking Julia? When you fuck her ... [her boyfriend] is on the next floor. Do you think it bothers him? Do you think he listens? Does it bother you?" We traced the call! It's coming from inside the house! But the Takedown script compares best with Silence of the Lambs. Like Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter, Mitnick is something less than human, while at the same time something more. He is utterly remorseless, totally devoid of conscience. He can kill with a computer, and someday might. When he hacks Shimomura's system, thunder booms dramatically in the background as his fingers move "faster than any human can type (shoot at 12 frames-per-second)." Tsutomu is able to end the terror only by confronting his own dark side, using Mitnick's techniques-- and skirting the law-- to bypass the hapless FBI agents who provide the movie's comic relief. He closes in on Mitnick in Raleigh, North Carolina, but not before the demon tampers with online medical records. Cue the thunder, as Mitnick "gleefully fucks up the lives of total strangers." Screwing up the lives of total strangers is something the script author clearly knows a little about. In addition to demonizing Mitnick, the script makes a minor villain out of Unix expert John Gillmore, pokes fun at electronic civil libertarian John Perry Barlow, and describes FBI agent Stan Ornellas as rumpled and pot-bellied (the real-life Ornellas is an impeccable dresser who looks like he does his crime-fighting at the local gym). Names have not been changed to protect the innocent. The movie ends with Tsutomu visiting his nemesis in a maximum security penitentiary. After our hero struggles in vain to make sense of the motives of a monster, Mitnick issues a chilling warning. "I'll be seeing you... All I need is a dime, and a phone... Sometimes, if I'm lucky-- I don't even need the dime." Just some fava beans and a nice Chianti. The Movie We'll Never See For the record, Kevin Mitnick has not been charged with, much less convicted of, hacking Tsutomu Shimomura's computers. He has never been known to change medical records, cut off the utilities to a female FBI agent, or escape a pursuer by smashing them in the head. (He did once elude motor vehicle agents by throwing fax paper into the air, but no paper cuts were reported.) In the screenplay for Miramax's Takedown movie, he does all of that-- when he's not hanging out in strip clubs and cruising pornographic websites. Hacker stories have been embellished in the past-- take it from someone who just watched the Lifetime network rerun a certain episode of Unsolved Mysteries. More recently, New Republic magazine apologized to its readers for an entirely fabricated story about mercenary hackers. But the upcoming Mitnick movie may ignite the righteous anger of the community like never before. "People are already organizing in Raleigh, Los Angeles, and New York," said 2600's Emmanuel Goldstein. The Mitnick sympathizers' sinister plot involves picketing, letter writing, phone-in campaigns, and the most lethal weapon in their arsenal-- bumper stickers. Goldstein says he's distributed 5,000 Free Kevin bumper stickers in recent months, to people who are displeased that Mitnick-- who apparently didn't profit from his crimes or damage any systems-- has already spent three years in custody. Goldstein has gone back to the print shop in anticipation of a grassroots campaign that he believes may get an extra kick from the Takedown fabrications. "When things get this bad, people get angry," he told me. "And when people get angry they do something. I don't really know what to expect, but it's going to be interesting." In a different world-- a different Hollywood-- none of this would have happened. The Sheepish Screenwriter "I certainly didn't want Kevin to be just a dark character who was nothing but malicious. To me that's not terribly interesting and I didn't see it that way," screenwriter John Danza told me, after reluctantly consenting to an interview. "I felt like an anti-hero story would be more interesting. I wanted to do a story where the villains weren't as clear-cut as they were in the book." Danza will be one of three writers to share a screen credit for the Takedown script. But he doesn't seem happy to see his name connected with the film. "I wanted to write a fairly ambiguous story that wasn't so black and white; good and bad-- I think Tsutomu was basically self-serving, and I thought it would be an interesting idea if he realized that. I even suggested the possibility of having him blow the raid so that Mitnick could escape, and Tsutomu could redeem himself." Now that's a film I'd pay eight bucks to see. But the studio didn't like it, and Danza ultimately gave them a draft that closely followed the Takedown book. "Then they gave it to a high-priced polish writer who gets paid an enormous amount of money to spice up the dialog, and I think he did that and also changed quite a bit. I've read that draft and I'm even less satisfied." Why did they do it? "They want films that are accessible to a broad range of audience, and I think that black and white characters make things easily accessible," Danza said. "Ultimately, they need to feed the masses what they want." Court Action Pending? The real life Kevin Mitnick learned the script's contents last Tuesday afternoon. He reportedly laughed in spite of himself... before calling his attorneys. Miramax publicist Andrew Stengel wouldn't comment on the script, which he hasn't read, but said that the production will begin shooting in late July-- no doubt with many unexplained computer glitches. Skeet Ulrich (who played a similar role as a serial killer in Scream) has been cast in the role of Mitnick, Russell Wong (recently of the joy Luck Club) will play the heroic Shimomura, and Hollywood actors are taking time off from their day jobs to audition for the still-uncast supporting roles. CHAOS Theory contacted the Creative Artists Agency to request an interview with Howard Rodman, the aforementioned "high-priced polish writer" whose name graces the title page of the screenplay. After checking with Miramax, agent Jim Lefkowitz had to decline. "It's sort of touchy situation," Lefkowitz explained. "because there could be all sorts of legal issues with Mitnick." Let's hope so. This is one horror story that desperately needs one of those tacked-on, Hollywood happy endings.