Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker

by Kevin D. Mitnick

Afterward my parents chided me for mimicking the accent and gestures of the rabbi. But it was subconscious. I’d later learn that this is a very effective technique because people are attracted to others who are like themselves. So at a very early age, all unaware, I was already practicing what would come to be called “social engineering”—the casual or calculated manipulation of people to influence them to do things they would not ordinarily do. And convincing them without raising the least hint of suspicion.

(That’s a trick I’ve discovered very often works. If you ask for a piece of sensitive information, people naturally grow immediately suspicious. If you pretend you already have the information and give them something that’s wrong, they’ll frequently correct you—rewarding you with the piece of information you were looking for.)

My one small act of revenge came about by chance. Once, in the middle of a phone company hack, I needed one telephone line that would ring and ring, unanswered. I dialed the number of a pay phone I happened to know by heart. In one of those small-world coincidences that happen to most of us now and then, Susan Thunder, who lived nearby, was walking past that particular phone booth just at that moment. She picked up the telephone and said hello. I recognized her voice. I said, “Susan, it’s Kevin. I just want you to know I’m watching every move you make. Don’t fuck with me!” I hope it scared the hell out of her for weeks.

When people ask me why I ran, years later, instead of facing the Federal charges against me, I think back on moments like this. What good would it do for me to come clean if my accusers were going to play dirty? When there’s no presumption of fair treatment, and the government is willing to base its charges on superstition and unverified rumors, the only smart response is to run!