February 15, 1995
Kevin Mitnick arrested after nationwide manhunt
FBI agents arrested Kevin Mitnick in Raleigh, North Carolina on February 15, 1995 — ending a two-year fugitive hunt for the era's most famous phone and computer hacker.
What it was for
Mitnick had broken into Motorola, Nokia, and SunSun Microsystems — maker of Java, Solaris, and SPARC; acquired by Oracle in 2010. systems — social-engineering passwords more often than writing exotic exploits. His prosecution became a symbol of harsh computer-crime sentencing; he later reinvented himself as a security consultant. The case showed how law enforcement struggled to distinguish curious intruders from serious threats.
Why it's here
Mitnick's arrest was the tabloid moment that brought hacker culture to mainstream TV.
Why it mattered
It shaped public perception of hacking and later debates over white-hat research.
What it solved
Law enforcement needed to establish that unauthorized network access was felonious, not a prank.
Media
ImageKevin MitnickCampus Party México, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Related
- Phrack hacker zine first publishedNovember 17, 1985
- DEF CON hacker conference beginsJune 9, 1993
- Morris worm spreads on the internetNovember 2, 1988