Dan Huard (born May 23, 1979) is a computer enthusiast and American television personality who resides in San Francisco, California. Huard is best known for his work on the TechTV television program The Screen Savers, an hour-long technology-related variety show.

Early life[link]

Huard attended California State University, Fullerton and graduated in the summer of 2003.^[1]

Career[link]

Huard started out working for TechTV and The Screen Savers in 2001 as an intern. He primarily helped Megan Morrone with her segments for the show as well as working behind the teleprompter. From there he worked his way into a position as a Production Assistant. Once becoming a Production Assistant, he was in charge of all the computer systems on the set of The Screen Savers. This also included most video and audio effects required during segments of the show. Huard also was in charge of screening phone calls for the live televised show.^[2]

On March 25, 2004, Comcast's G4 gaming channel announced a merger with TechTV. This move became hugely controversial among loyal fans of TechTV. Around May 6, G4 announced the termination of 250 employees from the San Francisco office by July 10, 2004, allowing approximately 80 to 100 employees to transition to G4's main office in Los Angeles, California if they agreed to relocate there.^[3] Huard chose to stay with G4 and moved to Los Angeles.

On November 11, 2004, Huard was terminated, along with many other co-workers from G4techTV. G4 had decided to revamp The Screen Savers by making it more pop culture, Internet, and gaming-oriented.^[4]

Huard teamed up with Kevin Rose to create the online video podcast thebroken, which features computer security topics such as password cracking and social engineering. They thereafter began work on another podcast, Systm, which loosely resembles older technology-oriented formats of The Screen Savers. After the success of those shows Kevin Rose, Jay Adelson and Dan founded the Revision3 video network and production company.

Huard was a community manager of digg.com. After more than 6 years, he's moved on to viralheat.com as their community manager.

See also[link]

• Revision3

References[link]

External links[link]

• digg.com website
• thebroken official website
• Systm official website
• Dan Huard on IMDB
• Scope Tech

Kevin David Mitnick
Born	(1963-08-06) August 6, 1963 (age 48) Los Angeles
Occupation	Computer Consultant Author
Website
mitnicksecurity.com

Kevin David Mitnick (born on August 6, 1963) is an American computer security consultant, author, and hacker. In the late 20th century, he was convicted of various computer and communications-related crimes. At the time of his arrest, he was the most-wanted computer criminal in the United States.^[1]

Personal life[link]

Mitnick grew up in Los Angeles and attended Monroe High School.^[2] He was enrolled at Pierce College and USC.^[2] He worked as a receptionist for Stephen S. Wise Temple for a while.^[2]

Computer hacking[link]

At age 12, Mitnick used social engineering to bypass the punchcard system used in the Los Angeles bus system. After a friendly bus driver told him where he could buy his own ticket punch, he could ride any bus in the greater LA area using unused transfer slips he found in the trash. Social engineering became his primary method of obtaining information, including user names and passwords and modem phone numbers.^[3]

Mitnick first gained unauthorized access to a computer network in 1979, at 16, when a friend gave him the phone number for the Ark, the computer system Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) used for developing their RSTS/E operating system software. He broke into DEC's computer network and copied their software, a crime he was charged with and convicted of in 1988. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Near the end of his supervised release, Mitnick hacked into Pacific Bell voice mail computers. After a warrant was issued for his arrest, Mitnick fled, becoming a fugitive for two and a half years.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Mitnick gained unauthorized access to dozens of computer networks while he was a fugitive. He used cloned cellular phones to hide his location and, among other things, copied valuable proprietary software from some of the country's largest cellular telephone and computer companies. Mitnick also intercepted and stole computer passwords, altered computer networks, and broke into and read private e-mail. Mitnick was apprehended on February 15, 1995 in Raleigh, North Carolina.^[4] He was found with cloned cellular phones, more than 100 clone cellular phone codes, and multiple pieces of false identification.^[5]

Confirmed criminal acts[link]

• Using the Los Angeles bus transfer system to get free rides^[6]
• Evading the FBI^[7]
• Hacking into DEC system(s) to view VMS source code (DEC reportedly spent $160,000 in cleanup costs)^[6][7]
• Gaining full administrator privileges to an IBM minicomputer at the Computer Learning Center in Los Angeles in order to win a bet^[6]
• Hacking Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu Siemens systems^[7]

Alleged criminal acts[link]

• Stole computer manuals from a Pacific Bell telephone switching center in Los Angeles^[8]
• Read the e-mail of computer security officials at MCI Communications and Digital^[8]
• Wiretapped the California DMV^[8]
• Made free cell phone calls^[9]
• Hacked Santa Cruz Operation, Pacific Bell, FBI, Pentagon, Novell, California Department of Motor Vehicles, University of Southern California and Los Angeles Unified School District systems.
• Wiretapped NSA agents, according to John Markoff.^[8] This was originally denied by Kevin Mitnick^[10] but later mentioned by Mitnick while listing his crimes as a juvenile in an interview with Stephen Colbert on an August 18, 2011 episode of The Colbert Report.

Arrest, conviction, and incarceration[link]

After a well-publicized pursuit, the FBI arrested Mitnick on February 15, 1995, at his apartment in Raleigh, North Carolina, on federal offenses related to a 2½-year period of computer hacking.^[11]

In 1999, Mitnick confessed to four counts of wire fraud, two counts of computer fraud and one count of illegally intercepting a wire communication, as part of a plea agreement before the United States District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles. He was sentenced to 46 months in prison plus 22 months for violating the terms of his 1989 supervised release sentence for computer fraud. He admitted to violating the terms of supervised release by hacking into PacBell voicemail and other systems and to associating with known computer hackers, in this case co-defendant Lewis De Payne.

Mitnick served five years in prison — four and a half years pre-trial and eight months in solitary confinement — because, according to Mitnick, law enforcement officials convinced a judge that he had the ability to "start a nuclear war by whistling into a pay phone".^[12] He was released on January 21, 2000. During his supervised release, which ended on January 21, 2003, he was initially forbidden to use any communications technology other than a landline telephone. Mitnick fought this decision in court, eventually winning a ruling in his favor, allowing him to access the Internet. Under the plea deal, Mitnick was also prohibited from profiting from films or books based on his criminal activity for seven years. Mitnick now runs Mitnick Security Consulting LLC, a computer security consultancy.

Controversy[link]

Mitnick's criminal activities, arrest, and trial, along with the associated journalism were all controversial.

Though Mitnick has been convicted of copying software unlawfully and possession of several forged identification documents, his supporters argue that his punishment was excessive. In his 2002 book, The Art of Deception, Mitnick states that he compromised computers solely by using passwords and codes that he gained by social engineering. He claims he did not use software programs or hacking tools for cracking passwords or otherwise exploiting computer or phone security.

Two books explored the allegations: John Markoff and Tsutomu Shimomura's Takedown, and Jonathan Littman's The Fugitive Game. Littman made four main allegations:

• journalistic impropriety by Markoff, who had covered the case for the New York Times based on rumor and government claims, while never interviewing Mitnick himself.
• overzealous prosecution of Mitnick by the government
• mainstream media over-hyping Mitnick's actual crimes
• Shimomura's involvement in the matter being unclear or of dubious legality

Further controversy came over the release of the movie based on the book by John Markoff and Tsutomu Shimomura, with Littman alleging that portions of the film were taken from his book without permission. In addition, a number of media outlets reported on the unavailability of Kosher meals at the prison where he was incarcerated.^[13]

The case against Mitnick tested the new laws that had been enacted for dealing with computer crime, and it raised public awareness of security involving networked computers. The controversy remains, however, and Mitnick is often cited today as an example of the quintessential computer criminal.

Supporters of Mitnick have asserted that many of the charges against him were fraudulent^[14] and not based on actual losses.^[15]

Media[link]

Adrian Lamo, Kevin Mitnick and Kevin Poulsen (photo ca. 2001)

In 2000, Skeet Ulrich and Russell Wong portrayed Kevin Mitnick and Tsutomu Shimomura in the movie Track Down (known as Take Down outside the USA), which was based on the book Takedown by John Markoff and Tsutomu Shimomura. The DVD was released in September 2004.^[16] A fan-based documentary named Freedom Downtime was created in response to Takedown.

Mitnick is the co-author, with William L. Simon, of two computer security books and his autobiography:

• The Art of Intrusion: The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders & Deceivers^[17]
• The Art of Deception^[18]
• Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker^[19]

On August 18, 2011, Mitnick appeared on The Colbert Report to talk about his new book.^[20] On August 23, Mitnick was interviewed on Coast to Coast AM during the episode "Hacking & Technology".^[21] On August 24, he appeared on the TWiT.tv network's Triangulation episode.^[22]

On September 12, Mitnick answered readers' questions on the technology news site Slashdot.^[23] This was the second time he was interviewed on Slashdot, the first time being in February 2003.^[24]

Mitnick is also referenced in one of the in-game emails of the videogame Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

On the Rockstar videogame Grand Theft Auto III, on the Chatterbox Radio Station (which can be accessed in-game) a paranoid caller yells "FREE KEVIN" before he's cut off by the DJ.

On the Rockstar videogame Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, on the WCTR Radio Station (which can be accessed in-game) the same paranoid caller says he could "launch a nuclear attack by whistling into a phone", a clear reference to the charges thrown onto Kevin Mitnick prior incarceration.

In the 2004 videogame Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines a character named Mitnick provides optional hacking-related quests.

In July 2009 Mitnick's servers for his domains mitnicksecurity.com, mitsec.com, kevinmitnick.com and others were compromised under root privileges. This compromise was subject of the ZF05 (Zero For 0wned, 5) issue.^[25]

See also[link]

• Hacker (computer security)
• List of convicted computer criminals
• The Cuckoo's Egg

Notes[link]

References[link]

Books[link]

Articles[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kevin Mitnick

• official website

This article has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality. Discussion of this nomination can be found on the talk page. (March 2012)

Kevin Rose
Born	(1977-02-21) February 21, 1977 (age 35) Redding, California, United States[1]
Nationality	American
Website
kevinrose.com

Kevin Rose (born Robert Kevin Rose, February 21, 1977) is an American Internet entrepreneur who co-founded Revision3, Digg, Pownce, and Milk. He also served as production assistant and co-host at TechTV's The Screen Savers. He is currently a senior product manager at Google.

Early life[link]

Rose was born in Redding, California^[1] and lived in Oregon before his family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he spent most of his childhood. He became an Eagle Scout with the Boy Scouts of America.^[2] Rose transferred to Vo-Tech High School in Las Vegas in 1992. He then attended the University of Nevada Las Vegas, majoring in computer science but dropped out in 1998.^[3] He worked for two dot-com startups through CMGI.^[1]

Career[link]

Television[link]

Rose was hired as a production assistant for The Screen Savers. He began appearing on-air, in "Dark Tip" segments, and on Unscrewed with Martin Sargent where he provided information on developing computing activities. He became a regular co-host when Leo Laporte left TechTV on March 31, 2004. On March 25, 2004, Comcast's G4 gaming channel announced a merger with TechTV which resulted in a round of layoffs. Rose moved to Los Angeles to stay with G4. On May 22, 2005, Rose reached an agreement with G4 that released him from his contract and went on to create Systm and later, Revision3, where he co-hosted Diggnation alongside Alex Albrecht for 6 years.

Guest appearances[link]

Kevin Rose appeared on the first episode of R&D TV alongside Diggnation co-host Alex Albrecht.^[4] On November 14, 2007, he was a contestant on a game show at NewTeeVee Live.^[5] On March 11, 2009, April 16, 2010, and November 28th, 2011, Rose was a guest on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon along with fellow Diggnation host Alex Albrecht.

Podcasting[link]

Rose began podcasting on July 24, 2003, with the release of the first episode of thebroken while he was still working on The Screen Savers at TechTV. Rose founded Revision3 in Los Angeles, California with Jay Adelson and David Prager in April 2005.^{[citation needed]} On July 1, 2005, Rose and Alex Albrecht started the weekly podcast, Diggnation, which summarizes top stories submitted by Digg users. On October 3rd, 2011, Alex and Kevin announced that they would be retiring the weekly Diggnation show at the end of the year. The final show was taped on December 30th, 2011 at The Music Box in Los Angeles, California.^[6][7]

Startups[link]

In 2004, Rose, Owen Byrne, Ron Gorodetzky, and Jay Adelson formed Digg, a technology link website. The website was publicly launched on December 5, 2004.^[3][8] In 2007, he was named to the MIT Technology Review TR35 as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35.^[9] On September 1, 2010, Rose was replaced as CEO^[10] by Matt Williams, a former general manager of consumer payments at Amazon. On March 18, 2011, Rose resigned from his position at Digg.^[11][12]

On June 27, 2007, Rose launched a micro-blogging site named Pownce^[13] which was acquired by blogging company Six Apart and shut down not long after. In April 2011, the technology blog TechCrunch reported on the founding of "Milk".^[14] The company is focused on creating mobile applications. The first application to be released was Oink, a tool for ranking real-world items.^[15] In March of 2012, Milk, Inc announced that it would be shutting down Oink in order to focus on other offerings.

Google[link]

On March 16th, 2012 Rose announced that he, along with the rest of the Milk team (Daniel Burka, Chris Hutchins & Joshua Lane), would be joining Google.^[16] Kevin Rose started his first day as a senior project manager for Google on March 19, 2012.^[17][18] On May 30, AllThingsD reported that Rose had moved off the Google+ team to become a venture partner at Google Ventures. ^[19]

Investments[link]

Rose invested in Gowalla, Twitter, Foursquare, Dailybooth, NGMOCO, SimpleGeo, 3crowd, OMGPOP, Square, Facebook, Chomp and Formspring.^{[20][21][22][23]}

References[link]

External links[link]

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"The Man" is a slang phrase that may refer to the government or to some other authority in a position of power. In addition to this derogatory connotation, it may also serve as a term of respect and praise.

The phrase "the Man is keeping me down" is commonly used to describe oppression. The phrase "stick it to the Man" encourages resistance to authority, and essentially means "fight back" or "resist", either openly or via sabotage.^[1]

History[link]

The earliest recorded use^{[citation needed]} of the term "the Man" in the American sense dates back to a letter written by a young Alexander Hamilton in September 1772, when he was 15. In a letter to his father James Hamilton, published in the Royal Dutch-American Gazette, he described the response of the Dutch governor of St. Croix to a hurricane that raked that island on August 31, 1772. "Our General has issued several very salutary and humane regulations and both in his publick and private measures, has shewn himself the Man." ^{[2][dubious – discuss]} In the Southern U.S. states, the phrase came to be applied to any man or any group in a position of authority, or to authority in the abstract. From about the 1950s the phrase was also an underworld code word for police, the warden of a prison or other law enforcement or penal authorities.

It was also used as a term for a drug dealer in the 1950s and 1960s and can be seen in such media as Curtis Mayfield's "No Thing On Me", William Burroughs's novel Naked Lunch, and in the Velvet Underground song "I'm Waiting for the Man", in which Lou Reed sings about going to Uptown Manhattan, specifically Lexington Avenue and 125th Street, to buy heroin.

The use of this term was expanded to counterculture groups and their battles against authority, such as the Yippies, which, according to a May 19, 1969 article in U.S. News and World Report, had the "avowed aim ... to destroy 'The Man', their term for the present system of government". The term eventually found its way into humorous usage, such as in a December 1979 motorcycle ad from the magazine Easyriders which featured the tagline, "California residents: Add 6% sales tax for The Man."

In present day, the phrase has been popularized in commercials and cinema, featuring particularly prominently as a recurring motif in the 2003 film School of Rock.^[3][4][5][6]

Use as praise[link]

The term has also been used as an approbation or form of praise. This may refer to the recipient's status as the leader or authority within a particular context, or it might be assumed to be a shortened form of a phrase like "He is the man (who is in charge)." One example of this usage dates to 1879 when Otto von Bismarck commented, referring to Benjamin Disraeli's pre-eminent position at the Congress of Berlin, "The old Jew, he is the man."^{[7][dubious – discuss]}

In more modern usage, it can be a superlative compliment ("you da man!") indicating that the subject is currently standing out amongst his peers even though they have no special designation or rank, such as a basketball player who is performing better than the other players on the court. It can also be used as a genuine compliment with an implied, slightly exaggerated or sarcastic tone, usually indicating that the person has indeed impressed the speaker but by doing something relatively trivial.

See also[link]

• Absentee landlord
• Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
• New World Order (conspiracy theory)
• Ruling class
• The Establishment
• Power elite
• Corrections officer
• YTMND

Notes[link]