The following is a letter I've gotton about the famed computer hacker, 
Kevin Mitnick. There is a movie coming out about Kevin in which Skeet 
Ulrich will be in, entitled "Takedown," based on the book of the same name.
In fact, Skeet will play Kevin. The letter doesn't necessarily express my 
opinion on the movie, but I promised to present the fans of Skeet Ulrich 
and potential viewers of the movie, what the people on Kevin's side think. 
Here is the opposing view of the movie:

Hi!

My name is Sven André. I would like to give you some
facts about the miramax motion picture "The Takedown", in which Skeet
Ulrich will play a major role as the famed hacker Kevin David Mitnick.

I have nothing personal against Mr. Skeet Ulrich (I enjoyed his acting in
Scream),
but I thought you would be interested in some facts
about this movie before you see it, later this year or the next.

Mr. Kevin David Mitnick (born 1963)  was arrested in february 1995 in
Raleigh, NC. He is suspected for breaking a parole from 1989, he is
suspected of some hacking during the years 1993-1995 (the years he was on
the run) and for access to cellular phone logs.

For this, he has been imprisoned for almost THREE AND A HALF YEARS,
*WITHOUT A TRIAL*, bail or ability to meet not-kin visitors. All this for
a person that has never been suspected for making damage on computers or
violent behaviour, or stealing or making profit from his hacking.

Now, Miramax wants to cash in big on the movie-deal with the authors of
"The Takedown",  John Markoff and Tsutomu Shimomura. In the upcoming movie
with the same
title, Kevin Mitnick (played by Skeet Ulrich) is depicted as a violent
racist criminal who constantly lies, cheats and steals.
The obvious ambition for this is that Miramax wants to cash in on
technical-alienation caused hype.
They call their movie "reality based", when the content
hardly corresponds at all with the facts of reality  - nor the book it is
based upon. It is my opinion that a motion picture called "reality-
based should be based on things that happened in real life. Apparently,
this is not
the opinion of the hollywood writers Miramax hired for the movie adaption
of "Takedown".

If this movie comes out in the recent state, Kevin Mitnick's life will be
totally destroyed, his cances for ever getting a fair trial
will be minimalized  - and Miramax will cash in on it.
The depiction of Mitnick in this movie reminds me of cartoon baddies
or the villains in the James Bond movies. Totally one-dimensional
and almost laughable. But this is serious. This is reality.
Kevin David Mitnick is a human being, as real as you and me.

Here are some examples of stuff presented in the 2nd revision of the
manuscript that definitely don't correspond with reality.

- In a scene set in Seattle 1994, Mitnick is seen hitting his opponent
Tsutomu Shimomura with a garbage can lid. This is
totally ridicilous, when you consider that they *hadn't met eachother*
before Mitnick's arrest! It's also libel!

- Mitnick is portrayed as an racist  (anti-japanese) person.

- Mitnick is in the end planning to launch a (very hollywoodesque)
supervirus onto the net? Where the heck did this idea come
  from, not from reality or the book Takedown at least.

- Mitnick manipulates payphones by whistling! Yeah you heard right! Doing
that is impossible!

- Mitnick hacks a radio contest to win a TV.

- The manuscript do not mention the NYT reporter John Markoff (co-author of
"Takedwon") that was very eager to depict Mitnick
  as a "dark-side hacker" because of revenge motives. He also helped
Shimomura with the arrest. This fact has been verified in
  different unbiassed sources.... hmm....

- In the first manuscript of the movie, Mitnick was seen tampering with
medical records(=innocent peoples lives)!!!
  If that isn't grave libel and slander... this was removed in the 2nd
manuscript draft (maybe because of the protests
  arranged by the Free Kevin movement.) 

- The movie also don't mention the role a guy called Justin Peterson (aka
Eric Heinz) played in the drama. The Feds used this
guy, wanted for credit card fraud, grave impersonating and serious fraud to
hunt Mitnick, who never profited from what he was 
doing or caused harm to computer system. Is this ethical FBI behaviour???

This can be explained by this: The federal goverment of USA wants to crack
down on the hacker/phreaker underground, so
they decided to arrest one hacker to make an example of him to scare the
hacker movement of USA (and the rest of the
world) from doing activities that threatens the nice people called NSA and
CIA. The guys in D.C. and Qantico (+ perhaps the
NSA crew of Los Alamos) the remembered Kevin David Mitnick. Some years
before, Mitnick had been arrested in LA (turned
in by a former friend who made some important benefits from this),
suspected for copying VMS source code. Mitnick spent
a year in jail and after that some time in psychiatric counseling for his
"computer addiction". By then, his life had crashed:
he and his wife divorced, his half-brother died of an heroin OD. Despite of
this, mitnick tried to pull the remnant of his life
together. He wanted to get a job, but this was almost impossible because of
a book called "Cyberpunk", where Katie Hafner portrayed Mitnick as a
sociopathic dark-side hacker (she has later said that this was a great
mistake). At last, he got a job at Teltec investigation. This job last
until LAPD was informed by someone who suspected mitnick was breaking into
pac bell computers. Nothing of this is mentioned in the recent manuscript.
Then Kevin fled, and the rest is history. Kevin knew that if he was caught
again, he would maybe never see daylight again.

Well, the feds wanted to make an example out of him. They, and a lot of
other people, has benefited from portraying Mitnick
as evil incarnate, when in other hand Tsutomu Shimomura, they guy who
helped the feds to find him, is portrayed in the movie
and in the book (partly written by himself!) as some kind of noble samurai
superhero kinda luke skywalker dude. Through the years, Mitnick (active as
a phreaker/hacker between 1978 - 1995)  has furthered a lot of different
agendas.
And noone out there in the "ordinary community" seems to know or care.

Meanwhile,
the human person Kevin Mitnick is once again offered up for some good vs.
evil tale. I bet
the feds thinks this movie is great, because it make
them righteous and innocent in the publics eyes, while kevin is utterly
demonized. And the worst thing is, that most people will never learn the
facts of the case, because it is too complicated  - they prefer a made-up
hollywood "reality-based" production. Most of
them will never learn that Kevin has been held for almost 3 and a half
years in the Metropolitan Detention Center, LA (by a
psychologist called dangerous for your psychic health if you is imprisoned
there for more than a year!). The government has
until recently denied Kevin access to the law library or the material used
as evidence in the case  - evidence that he has legal
right to access. Kevin Mitnick  - brought up in a pretty shabby corner of
San Fernando Valley in a one-parent family - has never
had a well-paying job. He has no cash, so he can't pay a good lawyer. But
the government has apparently lot of money and time on their hands to spend
on this case. This case will be ground-breaking. It will make rulings that
will regulate the feds power in the hitech future. They want power, so they
will spend millions of bucks just to win the case and put Mitnick behind
years for the next decades. Judge Mariana Pfaelzer has called Kevin Mitnick
a "very, very great threat to to the society". Sure. The guy could easily
start World War III by whistling into aphone. Sure. He is super-dangerous.
he is Saddam. And Judge pfaelzer is judge in LA, where perhaps a person or
two
are killed every day. He had access to phone logs, some info about bugs
and earlier in his life he hacked in to Digital Equipment. Which of course
is a
very good reason to call him a great threat to society. Sure. Besides, when
Mitnick
was denied bail earlier this year, Pfaelzer was seen laughing and giggling.

And justice for all....

Sure.

Innocent until proven guilty...

Sure.
 
This is modern witch-hunting. The feds want scapegoats (read:
witches) to blame and to draw attention from the more suspect
activities of CIA and NSA. And they can do all this in silence, without
protests from the footfolk, because the people is becoming
alienated from the modern day technology, they are afraid of computers.
They want people to blame, and if the goverment can
provide them with witches/scapegoats, they will accept that   -  and they
won't care about the law, or moral, or ethical behaviour.
They want simple stuff to swallow, not actual facts. 

I find this issue very important, so therefore I want you to learn more
about "The Takedown".

If the movie is made in the state the manuscript now is in, Mitnick will
probably sue Miramax.

I hope you want to know more about this case. I don't know if Skeet Ulrich
is aware of the manuscripts incorrespondance with
documented reality. I hope he and the rest of the involved will protest
against this libelious manuscript.

Luckily, a 3rd revision of the manuscript, is under way. The 2nd was an
improvement to the better, and I really hope that this one
will make even better improvements. After all, the documented facts of this
case is far more intriguing, fascinating and chilling than a cliche story
made up by an hollywood writer who just wants to cash in on hype.

If you want to quote or use the contents of this mail somewhere in your
Skeet Ulrich page, you are free to do it!
My official, prefered e-mail adress is:   

towelboy@hotmail.com

The official Takedown (the book) site is http://www.kevinmitnick.com;

To learn more facts about this case, visit these sites:

http://www.kevinmitnick.com

On this site, managed by relatives of Kevin Mitnick and the Free Kevin
movement, you can learn about the case in general,
read about Kevin's recent plight, read the two manuscript reviews by
Emmanuel Goldstein, read documents, search through
the news archives etc. I strongly recommend it.

You can also visit 2600's Kevin Mitnick page at

http://www.2600.com/kevin


Thank you for your patience when reading this, and feel free to pass the
word on,

/Sven André


 towelboy@hotmail.com