Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick, America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw-By the Man Who Did It (Hardcover)

~ (Author), John Markoff (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The true story of how Kevin Mitnick was snagged by computer security expert Tsutomu Shimomura. As gripping as a great mystery novel -- but true -- and as important as any book on computer security -- but eminently readable by anyone.

You can read more about Mitnick specifically or computer crime and social engineering generally in Jonathan Littman's recent The Fugitive Game: Online With Kevin Mitnick, or in any one of a sampler of books on computer crimes and computer cracking.

From Publishers Weekly

Despite some tedious, self-indulgent subplots, this is an engaging account of the electronic battle between cybersleuth Shimomura and cyberthief Mitnick, which ended last February with the FBI's arrest of Mitnick in Raleigh, N.C. The two men are not dissimilar: they're both in their early 30s, technologically brilliant and personally arrogant. Born in Japan, Shimomura was a computer consultant at Princeton at 14 and a postdoctoral researcher at Los Alamos at 19, although he never finished high school or college. Mitnick, who also has little advanced formal education, has been in and out of prison for computer hacking. Shimomura seems to have made Mitnick's apprehension a personal mission after the hacker invaded his computer on Christmas Day 1994. Coauthored in the first person with New York Times reporter Markoff, the story grows in excitement as Shimomura, a computer-security analyst at the government-funded San Diego Supercomputer Center, traces Mitnick's electronic incursions and confers with Internet service providers Netcom and The Well. The book raises vexing questions. Why was Shimomura allowed to virtually commandeer the FBI's investigation? How does the Justice Department determine the varying dollar values of files Mitnick is charged with stealing when he has never attempted to profit monetarily? This is an engrossing tale of high-tech derring-do, but Markoff and Shimomura are such interested parties that readers should turn to Jonathan Littman's The Fugitive Game (reviewed below) for a more disinterested account. 100,000 first printing; $150 ad/promo; film rights to Miramax; foreign rights sold to 13 countries, among them England, Brazil, Japan and Poland.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 324 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion Books; 1st edition (January 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786862106
• ISBN-13: 978-0786862108
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (100 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #518,516 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Recommended, but with reservations, January 22, 2001

By	J. G. Heiser (Sunninghill, Berks) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It's a breezy read, which is pretty amazing, given the number of obscure details that Shimomura feels compelled to share, such as his lunch menu. Still, when you team up an experienced author with a brilliant subject matter expert, it shouldn't be a surprise that the result is something which demands attention.

The definitive story of Kevin Mitnick has still not been told--this is an interesting story, but it is hardly conclusive. Furthermore, given the author's attitude--he's got an ego a mile wide--it's difficult to accept everything in this book at face value. Certainly, Shimomura and Markoff had every incentive during their journey to work towards creating an exciting story. A critical reader must consider the possibility that they manipulated events in order to increase sales of their expected book. It is certainly possible that this did not happen, but how can you know?

A greater understanding of what Mitnick represents is important in developing an ability to think in useful information security ways. He's become such a cultural icon--a criminal genious in the eyes of one side, and a victimized innocent on the other. Neither of these simplistic views is accurate. I believe that Mitnick probably is a genius, but not in technical terms. He's truly one America's great con-men, and his story teaches us a great deal about how gullible normal people can be, and how easy it is for a smooth-talker with selfish motivations to manipulate normal people. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from a study of Mitnick, although the writers of this text provide minimal assistance in helping the reader draw useful conclusions about the story. They are much more concerned with showing how incredibly clever Shimomura is, purportedly tracking Mitnick from ISP to ISP across the Internet, and eventually right to his doorstep with a junior G-man RDF unit.

A Mitnick story that I believe is much more balanced is Jonathan Littman's book, "The Fugitive Game : Online With Kevin Mitnick," which is unfortunately out of print. While Littman's personal relationship with Mitnick--Mitnick apparently just likes him--also should be a datapoint in your evaluation of what actually happened, I think he takes care to make any potential bias clear, and to avoid it.

Littman raises some interesting questions about Shimomura. I summarize my feelings about the purported Mitnick attack on Shimomura like this: 1) Shimomura makes it widely known that he has software on his Internet server that is of interest to hackers. 2) He leaves an incredibly obvious security hole open on his Unix server that any Unix newbie would have known to plug. 3) He sends the syslog (system logging) data to another host, which just so happens to be REALLY TIGHT. If he's capable of capturing syslog records in such a secure and non-compromisable way, why did he leave r-services running on the server with the source code? We will probably never know if he actually created a honeypot with the intention of entrapping Mitnick and writing a book about it, but what he did was fully consistent with such a plan. Fascinating, huh? I guess you'll need to read the book to make up your own mind, but if that is what really happened, how do you feel about subsidizing it through reading the book?

We'll also never know if Mitnick was really the one who hacked into Shimomura's Sun box using a technique that was previously considered theoretical. Somebody did, and Mitnick certainly was aware of it, but I personally don't believe that Mitnick is technically capable of writing such hack code himself, and I'm not sure that he was the one to perform the exploit. The best description I know of this exploit is found in Stephen Northcutt's book, "Network Intrusion Detection."

So it is an important story that can help you develop a better understanding of Internet security, and both security experts and non-specialists could benefit from having a realistic view of the significance of Mitnick. For the time being, this is the most detailed book available, and as an autobiographical account of one the participants in Mitnick's takedown, the book will always have a certain historical significance. But be an especially critical reader with this one. Think through the motivations of the authors, and consider the possibility that Mitnick is a genius at social engineering, but only an average technician. If that's the case, then what really did happen? Read Shimomura's account, and make up your own mind.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Shimomura redefines the word ego..., January 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick, America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw-By the Man Who Did It (Paperback)

I hated this book. Wading through the endless tripe about food and girlfriends really made Takedown a chore to read. Shimomura can't resist an opportunity to make himself seem like a God while everyone else is a complete dolt. His beratement of his own graduate student protege was thoughtless and cruel. I finally concluded that "Julia" is his loving name for his right hand. I can't imagine that anyone would want to be around so irritating a person.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The biggest load of bull I've ever seen, August 2, 2002

By	jj (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick, America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw-By the Man Who Did It (Paperback)

Takedown appealed to me as a story of overzelous CIA agents and computer crackers working for the government "taking down" threats to the internet and persoanl privacy. I thought I would be able to cheer on the Shimomura as he fought to protect the freedoms of america. I was petrified at what this guy did. He basically walked over the personal freedoms of anyone who got in the way of his inflamed ego, and sent Kevin to jail for copying cds! Then the guy never even gets a trial or bail hearing! I found myself reading this book and feeling sour all the way about the guys I was supposed to be cheering on untill I was hoping Shimomura went to jail. Also, it was written terribly, and later I found out that John Markoff never interviewed Kevin once! The whole things just shameful.
-JJ, Systems Analyist