Kevin Mitnick, one of the most skilled and wanted hackers in the US for years, was hired in Ecuador to protect the computer systems used in Sunday's presidential elections.
The 49-year-old hacker legend from California turned to providing computer security advice to businesses and governments after being sentenced to five years in prison, a sentence he served from 1995 to 2000.
"18 years ago I was arrested for hacking. Today, I'm doing the same thing but with full authorization. How cool is that?" Mitnick wrote on his Twitter account.
The American's company, Mitnick Security Consulting, has been contracted to protect, on behalf of another company, Lock Net, the systems that will be used to count votes in Ecuador in the elections, in which the country's president, Rafael Correa, is considered the winner.
In an interview with AFP, Mitnick said that his passion for hacking into the systems of large companies — such as Pacific Bell, Motorola or Nokia — had its roots in his childhood. "When I was a kid, magic fascinated me. I discovered that there was a little bit of magic in hacking. And I also liked pranks," he explained.
The big problems began for him when he hacked into the FBI and Pentagon systems. "We were playing a game of cat and mouse with the FBI. I had hacked into their phones to know where they were" so he could avoid their agents, Mitnick recalls.
Mitnick, the first hacker to be listed on the list of the ten most wanted criminals in the United States, had been on the run from law enforcement for two years before finally being arrested with the help of a Japanese rival, Tsutomu Shimomura.
The story of the discovery is in itself a very impressive story.
He says his motives were never malicious or ulterior: what interested him was “the intellectual challenge, the adventure, the adrenaline.” “I never published or used classified information (…) I kept it to myself to understand how things work,” he explains, maintaining a position that perfectly coincides with the philosophy of hackers.
However, Mitnick rejects the characterization of him as a "threat to national security" by the American authorities.
It is recalled that the Ecuadorian government offered political asylum to another famous hacker who angered US authorities, the founder of the WikiLeaks website, Julian Assange.
Assange has been taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for eight months and is presented by Correa as a victim of persecution.
Although Kevin Mitnick says he opposes hacking for political purposes, he defends the Wikileaks founder. "Assange just published the information (...) I don't consider him a criminal," Mitnick said.
