Security News > 2023 > January > Kevin Mitnick Hacked California Law in 1983

Early in his career, Kevin Mitnick successfully hacked California law.

The setup is that he just discovered that there's warrant for his arrest by the California Youth Authority, and he's trying to figure out if there's any way out of it.

As soon as I was settled, I looked in the Yellow Pages for the nearest law school, and spent the next few days and evenings there poring over the Welfare and Institutions Code, but without much hope.

His response sounded testy: "You're absolutely wrong. It's a fundamental principle of law that if a defendant disappears when there's a warrant out for him, the time limit is tolled until he's found, even if it's years later."

What's interesting to me is how he approaches legal code in the same way a hacker approaches computer code: pouring over the details, looking for a bug-a mistake-leading to an exploitable vulnerability.

Legal code isn't the same as computer code, but it's a series of rules with inputs and outputs.

News URL

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/01/kevin-mitnick-hacked-california-law-in-1983.html