True. He never knew when to leave well enough alone.
He ripped off a lot of cellphone companies for airtime, and stole code from many companies, including Sun.
Funny thing about that: Sun claimed huge losses by the theft of the source code for their SunOS operating system, but the company never posted said losses to their shareholders. As a consequence, their claim ended up not holding any water in court.
If he hadn't hacked into Tsutomu's servers, he would never have been on many radar screens.
Nobody I know believes Kevin had the skill to crack Tsutomu's box. Hell, Kevin couldn't even break into Nyx in Denver (and breaking into that system was like stealing candy from a baby...ask Andrew Burt). It's more probable that Kevin knew someone who cracked Tsutomu's box and only got the big bullseye because he crowed about it the most.
He seems to be doing OK now.
Yeah, he I think his time in Lompoc gave him some perspective and the very clear impression that life has a decidedly sucky quality to it when you're on the wrong side of the law. ; )
Seems like Sun isn't the only one to do that. Acxiom has done the same thing. Claim their damages are in the millions from a hacker, expect to be reimbursed for the losses they claim, but as far as I have been able to determine, did not disclose the losses to their shareholders.
I agree, but it was the taunting of "Shimmy" that did him in. And the Christmas break-in of Toad Hall's servers, too. Kevin was still a couple levels above a script kiddie, IMNSHO.