For those of you who are old enough to remember the “Free Kevin” stickers and shirts from the 90’s … Kevin Mitnick has passed away at the age of 59, from pancreatic cancer.

I guess this was the first big name hacker that I heard of growing up. For a time, it seemed that every website that was defaced had a manifesto, and ended with “FREE KEVIN.” It was more than 20 years since he was released from prison until he passed away, but fundamentally this is a guy who went to prison for stealing software.

RIP Kevin.

  • ClumsyTomato
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    410 months ago

    Sad news! A mythical character from my youth, I have enjoyed so much reading his books. Without doubt, he has been an inspiration for a whole generation of security professionals.

    Fuck cancer.

  • @lackthought@lemmy.sdf.orgM
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    410 months ago

    I just watched some of his videos last week from KnowBe4, who creates security videos that my company uses for compliance training

    His title was ‘Chief Hacking Officer’ which always gave me a chuckle