I remember reading about him in 2600 back in the 90s. Then reading his books in the 00s, and seeing him every time I had to do KnowBe4 training the last few years. While a polarizing figure there is no doubt he was an inspiration for many in our field. RIP
It really is. I’ve seen him live, dude was an absolute genius. It was crazy to see him hack a fully-patched Win 10 machine in like 30 seconds. The world has lost a good one. RIP. :(
A big part of it for me is that in my head he's this 18-year-old idiot who's stolen my credit card information from me personally, even though he was 20 years older than me and that never happened. It's who he was in the hacker legendarium, you know?
We tend to forget he was the “Example” the authorities tried to make at the time.
He was portrayed in court as “a man who could whistle nuclear codes” as the reason for preventing him from having access to the phone as he was entitled. They took his cans of tuna-fish away because too many people were providing him food assistance from outside the prison.
I will remember Kevin as the “kid that coulda been me.” His persona and personality afterwards, well I try not to judge him too harshly, but I got “Do you know who I am”'d at least once while volunteering at a Con by him. He definitely enjoyed the limelight and played as many encores as the staff let him get away with.
Never had a beer with him, but I’ll pour one out for him this year. RIP the last man to be able to whistle the nuclear codes.
