02/08/2026
Kevin Mitnick started hacking before it was even illegal.
At 12 he figured out how to punch his own bus transfers to ride for free. By his teens he was impersonating phone company employees for free calls. By his twenties he had broken into some of the most secure networks in the world, not for money, just because he couldn't stop.
"Why I was a hacker was the intellectual curiosity, the pursuit of knowledge, the seduction of adventure," he said. "I treated my fugitive status as a big video game."
By the early 1990s he was the FBI's most wanted hacker, the only one ever to make their 10 Most Wanted list. He had broken into over 40 major corporations, hacked the NSA, and hacked the FBI itself.
And while they hunted him, he was watching them back.
Mitnick broke into the phone network servicing the FBI agents chasing him and set up an early warning system that pinged whenever an agent's phone came near his apartment. One evening in 1992 he saw a search warrant had been issued. He spent the night clearing the apartment, then stopped at Winchell's Donuts, bought a dozen assorted, labeled the box "FBI Donuts," and put it in the fridge.
The agents searched the next day and found nothing but the donuts.
He was eventually caught in 1995 after a fellow hacker helped the FBI track him to North Carolina. He served five years.
After release he was banned from computers and the internet. Then the ban lifted. The same companies he once broke into started paying him to do it again, legally this time.
