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Wow. He was only 59.

I've always loved his lockpicking business card: https://www.mitnicksecurity.com/kevin-mitnicks-famous-lockpi...

While I assume this is real, part of me does feel like a combination of how young he is and who is is leads me to be slightly skeptical. Assuming it's real, hopefully he would have appreciated the skepticism.




Wired story about the origin of the cards: https://www.wired.com/2007/06/lock-pick-busin/ (I looked it up because I thought they looked like some cards someone I knew designed, and sure enough…)


He gave me his business card at CES and it's one of my most prized possessions. I am heartbroken.


I had a similar thought, his social engineering abilities were very strong. If there was one person in the world willing to fake their own death to engineer access to something, it would have been him. A sad day.


> fake their own death to engineer access to something

Care to elaborate?


what is there to elaborate, other than pointing out that he was good at social engineering things and finding behavioral or procedural loopholes to get access to systems?


I'm referring to the insinuation about faking his own death.

I might not be up to speed with a particular instance of that in his life though. Perhaps that's where my lack of understanding stems from.


Can you still get one of these? It says send cash in the mail so… I’m skeptical


I, too, was concerned it was some kind of hacker gotcha trick, but took the leap of faith and mailed the cash.

They did ship the card to me.


There are similar ones on AliExpress, if you just look for lockpicks in CC format


and forego the experience of mailing cash for lockpicks? never.


As of a few years ago, KnowBe4 was sending them out (well, a KnowBe4 branded version) to companies that partnered with them.


Could always ask Woz for a card ?


Adrian Lamo also passed away at an early age (37), coincidentally enough.


Wasn’t sure who that was, but wikipidia says:

“Lamo was best known for reporting U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning to Army criminal investigators in 2010[7] for leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive U.S. government documents to WikiLeaks.[8][9] Lamo died on March 14, 2018, at the age of 37.[10]”

Kind of the wrong side in history there. But RIP, regardless.


> Kind of the wrong side in history there.

Manning’s leaks included vast numbers of documents related in no way to a legitimate whistleblowing issues, some of which helped spark the Arab Spring which precipitated in an ongoing civil war in Syria, slave markets and the beheading of religious minorities in Libya, and on and on all over the region affecting 100s of millions of people. I don’t know about Lamo, but Manning certainly isn’t on the right side of history and deserves to be still in jail.


Manning was very sloppy; that's true. But she also released very important information about war crimes. The intent was good, the execution was bad.

As for the Arab Spring, you can blame it for revolutions in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt (some good, some bad), but I don't think Syria has anything to do with it. And ISIS was the direct result of the US invasion of Iraq.


> The intent was good, the execution was bad

Without being mind readers all we can know is what Manning claimed about intentions. People who break their oaths aren’t the most trustworthy cohort. Regardless, good intentions do not absolve anyone from high crimes and precipitating mass murder.

> ISIS was the direct result of the US invasion of Iraq

Without weakened or destroyed regimes across the region due to Manning’s actions there wouldn’t have been as much freedom for ISIS to spread. Manning shares the blame.


>Manning’s leaks included vast numbers of documents related in no way to a legitimate whistleblowing issues, some of which helped spark the Arab Spring which precipitated in an ongoing civil war in Syria

You're mistaking Manning's leak with the CIA.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syri...


I miss Adrian, looking at this picture now gives me a wistful feeling https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lamo-Mitnick-Poulsen... Hope Kevin Poulsen is doing okay tonight.


Since he's now a journalist, I hope Poulsen writes an obit for Mitnick. That would be somehow fitting and something I'd definitely want to read.


For years I planned to get one by sending him the $10, but I never got around to do it…


damn i missed this! do you know if its possible to still get one of those???


toool is an organization worthy of the support, and they sell a version of it.


Do you have a link? I'm not seeing one at toool.nl






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