Kevin Mitnick Quotes

A hacker doesn't deliberately destroy data or profit from his activities.

I wasn't a hacker for the money, and it wasn't to cause damage.

Gray hats are the ones who think they're doing good, but they're not. You learn that when the FBI shows up on your doorstep.

As a young boy, I was taught in high school that hacking was cool.

If hackers, if anyone committing a criminal act, wants to reduce their risk, they obviously don't involve anybody else. The greater the circle of people that know what you're doing, the higher the risk.

Then again, my case was all about the misappropriation of source code because I wanted to become the best hacker in the world and I enjoyed beating the security mechanisms.

There is the possibility to be suddenly arrested for hacking.

I was addicted to hacking, more for the intellectual challenge, the curiosity, the seduction of adventure; not for stealing, or causing damage or writing computer viruses.

I have too many credit cards. You know what happened? Someone stole one and I didn't notice. I noticed when I got that bill. Whoa! It was so much less! I'm letting him keep it. I'm saving money!

Breaking into a system or exposing its weaknesses is a good thing because truth and knowledge must win out.

Hackers are breaking the systems for profit. Before, it was about intellectual curiosity and pursuit of knowledge and thrill, and now hacking is big business.

I got so passionate about technology. Hacking to me was like a video game. It was about getting trophies. I just kept going on and on, despite all the trouble I was getting into, because I was hooked.

My actions constituted pure hacking that resulted in relatively trivial expenses for the companies involved, despite the government's false claims.

While many hackers have the knowledge, skills, and tools to attack computer systems, they generally lack the motivation to cause violence or severe economic or social harm.

It's kind of interesting, because hacking is a skill that could be used for criminal purposes or legitimate purposes, and so even though in the past I was hacking for the curiosity, and the thrill, to get a bite of the forbidden fruit of knowledge, I'm now working in the security field as a public speaker.

At the end of the day, my goal was to be the best hacker.

Hacking was the only entertainment that would occupy my mind - like a huge video game, but with real consequences. I could have evaded the FBI a lot longer if I had been able to control my passion for hacking.

That was the division in the hacking world: There were people who were exploring it and the people who were trying to make money from it. And, generally, you stayed away from anyone who was trying to make money from it.

I don't hate technology, I don't hate hackers, because that's just what comes with it, without those hackers we wouldn't solve the problems we need to solve, especially security.

I know there are some reasons to suspect me: after all, I have education in computer security and was a hobby hacker in teenage years. But hacking is not my occupation, and I do not have any job within any intelligence, either Russian or some another.

If security were all that mattered, computers would never be turned on, let alone hooked into a network with literally millions of potential intruders.

Are hackers a threat? The degree of threat presented by any conduct, whether legal or illegal, depends on the actions and intent of the individual and the harm they cause.

I think that a really good agent should be able to get the right publisher, which the agent has already figured out, get as much money as she can from that publisher, and make a deal, rather than have the amount of money determine the sale. That's what the best agents do.

The money was good while it lasted. The best part was clearly that it changed my view of what's possible, as far as thinking how you can have an impact on a national level.

I've had movies bomb with terrible reviews, I've had movies make a lot of money with terrible reviews, I've had movies get good reviews and make money. And I like it best when the movies do well and the reviewers like them.