Kevin Mitnick, one of the most famous computer hackers in the world and the subject of an over two-year manhunt in the 1990s, died of complications from pancreatic cancer last Sunday, aged 59. His death has been confirmed to the New York Times.
Mitnick is a legendary figure, one of those people whose life story reads like an elaborate work of fiction. After getting his start with a punch card machine that let him get free bus rides at age 12, he graduated to phone phreaking and hacking as he got older, breaking into networks owned by corporations like the Digital Equipment Corporation. The police weren't too keen on that, and he was sentenced to a year in prison and three years of supervised release in 1988.
