Laptops with Stickers

I never understood people siding with Kevin. He always struck me as a fraud/pseudo-hacker and never did anything technical or substantial.

I'm not really here to defend OR condemn Mitnick. I was just always fascinated with his story, from the first time I read that Hafner & Markoff book Cyberpunk back in the early 1990's. Anyway, one of the notable aspects of his story was the way he was held for a rather long time without even so much as a bail hearing... something many people believed (and still believe) was blatantly unconstitutional. That was, as I recall, the motivation for a fair amount of the "Free Kevin" rabble-rousing, even among people who acknowledged that he had broken the law and deserved some sort of punishment.

By the time I bought that particular laptop and put that sticker on it, (about 3 years ago now, I guess) Kevin had long since been out of jail, had gone legal and was running his own security consulting company. I put one of those one mostly out of nostalgia and as a conversation starter. Perhaps surprisingly, I've had a modest number of people approach me when I was out in public and ask "Who's Kevin?" or say "Kevin Mitnick, right? Yeah, I remember that guy... I was at DEFCON this one year and ... <conversation ensues>".

Once you understand that everything in this world is a system, then you'll see how he was a true hacker.