"The Fugitive Game"
Synopsis



Kevin David Mitnick was cyberspace's most wanted hacker. Mitnick could launch missiles or cripple the world's financial markets with a single phone call - or so went the myth. The FBI, phone companies, bounty hunters, even fellow hackers pursued him over the Internet and through cellular airways.



Littman next to the payphone
Mittnick called him on. 		Drawing on over fifty hours of telephone conversations with Mitnick on the run, Littman reveals Mitnick's double life; his narrow escapes; his new identities, complete with college degrees of his choosing; his hacking techniques and mastery of "social engineering"; his obsession with revenge.

"The Fugitive Game" is a journey into a bizarre hacker counterculture studded with an eclectic supporting cast that includes an exotic dancer, a pimp, and technically outmatched FBI agents. Mitnick's story begins in Hollywood when a sadomasochistic FBI informant entices Mitnick with the ultimate hacker tool: the power to wiretap anybody, anywhere, anytime. While fleeing from the FBI, Mitnick became a legendary outlaw - his spectacular alleged crimes landing him twice on the front page of the New York Times. When the FBI proved incapable of capturing him, Tsutomu Shimomura set out to nab the hacker in the name of honor.



Reviews


Newsweek, December 4, 1995
"Is This Hacker Evil or Merely Misunderstood?"

"Littman offers a somewhat different take. Here, Mitnick's at the center, going public for the first time. We watch as he evades his FBI pursuers, monitors their cell phones, reads their credit reports, anticipates their moves - and tells Littman all about it. The author doesn't approve, but he poses broader questions. Government investigators, it turns out, hired a criminal hacker to track Mitnick, maybe entice him into the open. Would this not be entrapment?"

Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 1995

"...the author offers fascinating insights into the world-class hacker's life on the run...A consistently absorbing book that fills in many of the blanks left by Takedown."


Publisher's Weekly (starred review) November 27, 1995

"Although Littman is dealing with the same events that Tsutomu Shimomura and John Markoff chronicle in Takedown, he remains a disinterested reporter who broadens the scope of the inquiry."


New York Magazine, January 8, 1996
"America's Most Hyped"
By Jon Katz

"Littman is refreshingly allergic to the hype that smothered this story from the first. The lines between the good and bad guys and between morality and criminality in cyberspace, Littman suggests, are a lot blurrier than Takedown acknowledges...More significantly, Littman challenges the sorry state of journalistic ethics in the age of the megadeal."




SAMPLE
BIO
HOME
BEGAN
GAME


This page maintained by jlittman@well.com