NetworkTigers discusses 5 famous hackers, what they did, and where they are now.
Most hackers remain anonymous throughout their lives, never getting caught or revealing who they are behind the screen names and online posts.
Some hackers become notorious, however, and have their names permanently etched into the DNA of cybercrime, computing, and even the fight for human rights and privacy.
The following hackers and leakers have earned their place in history by poking holes into the public perception of some of the world’s most secretive institutions, setting the stage for the creation of our most ubiquitous electronic devices, and inspiring global movements centered around their hacktivist work.
Who are they, what did they do, and where are they now?
1. Kevin Mitnick: an icon among hackers
Kevin Mitnick started his career as a young teen. At just 13 years of age, Mitnick devised a way to punch bus tickets to get free rides before becoming a phone “phreaker,” someone who uses an electronic device to make free long-distance calls.
Mitnick then hacked into the North American Defense Command (NORAD) and gained control of three telephone offices in New York City and every phone switching center in California in the early 80s.
His theft of $1 million worth of proprietary software from Digital Equipment Corp. resulted in a year-long sentence and three years of probation. While on probation, Mitnick hacked into Pacific Bell, a move that led to a warrant for his arrest and him becoming a fugitive.
During his two years on the run, it is believed that Mitnick hacked into systems at Motorola, Nokia, Fujitsu, Novell, NEC, Sun Microsystems, Colorado SuperNet, and the University of Southern California.
During that period, he allegedly hacked into computers at Motorola, Nokia Mobile Phones, Fujitsu, Novell, NEC, Sun Microsystems, Colorado SuperNet, and the University of Southern California.
Mitnick’s eventual capture by the FBI resulted in him serving five years in prison. After his release in 2000, he worked as a paid security consultant and public speaker. He ran Mitnick Security Consulting LLC, was part-owner of security firm KnowB4, and wrote several books about his experiences as a hacker and the hacking world.
In 2023, Mitnick died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 59. Before and after his incarceration, his legacy and notoriety cemented him as the “World’s Most Wanted Hacker.”
2. Kevin Poulsen: hacker and journalist
Kevin Poulsen’s hacking career began at age 17, when his 1983 hack into ARPANET, the Pentagon’s computer network, saw him caught but not prosecuted by the US government.
Not discouraged, Poulsen continued his hacking exploits into 1988 when he broke into a federal computer and accessed information regarding deposed Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos. His activities were discovered, and he went underground while continuing to hack into government files and share his findings.
In 1990, Poulsen hacked a radio station contest, which allowed him to win a Porsche, a vacation, and $20,000 in prize money. This stunt alone would have put him among the world’s most well-known hackers, but his reputation was further boosted due to an appearance on NBC’s Unsolved Mysteries. The show asked viewers to call in with any information about his whereabouts, and the call-in line was taken offline. It remains unclear if Poulsen was responsible.
Poulsen was arrested in 1991, sentenced to five years in prison, and banned from using a computer for three years after his release.
While working as a journalist, Poulsen swapped his black hat for a white one, becoming a hero among ethical hackers. His most noteworthy activity post-prison was breaking the news of the arrest of US service member and whistleblower Chelsea Manning and the publication of chat logs between Manning and Adrian Lamo regarding WikiLeaks.
Kevin is a former senior national security correspondent at The Daily Beast and continues contributing articles to WIRED.
3. Julian Assange: can hackers be heroes?
A prodigy among hackers, Australian-born Julian Assange began experimenting with computers at age 16 in the early 80s. As a teen, he was remarkably adept with computers and bypassed many secure systems, including, allegedly, those at NASA and the Pentagon. After engaging in years of what he would refer to as ethical hacking, Assange was charged with 31 counts of cybercrime by Australian authorities in 1994.
His trial in 1995 resulted in a small fine due to his age and a plea deal. Over the following years, Assange worked as a consultant for large corporations and earned a significant income.
In 2006, Assange’s long-incubating humanitarian project came to fruition via WikiLeaks, a website he founded with other activists. The site’s mission was to force organizations to cease abusing practices by revealing their activities to the world.
Assange’s work exposing corruption, violence, social unrest, scandals and his relationships with journalists made WikiLeaks a major player in political news. A report on political killings in Kenya further reinforced WikiLeaks’ standing and even won Assange the 2009 Amnesty International New Media Award.
From 2010 to 2015, WikiLeaks procured and published numerous documents and accounts of corruption and war crimes during the Iran and Afghan wars, explicitly calling out espionage actions that the United States took against its allies and releasing documents associated with detainee torture at Guantanamo Bay.
Assange’s actions made him highly controversial and earned him the ire of numerous governments. He took up residency in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to escape extradition to the US and Sweden and avoid being imprisoned. Despite requests from authorities to turn him over, Ecuadorian foreign minister Ricardo Patiño denied them. In 2012, Assange was granted political asylum and told he could stay at the embassy indefinitely.
The following years saw Assange and WikiLeaks further disrupt government agencies and activities by publishing correspondences that revealed corruption within the US Democratic National Committee and emails from within the Hillary Clinton campaign. He even ran for office in Australia from the confines of his room.
Assange’s relationship with the Ecuadorian government eventually began to erode, culminating in his asylum being revoked in 2019 and his arrest by the London Metropolitan Police. What followed was a years-long legal battle and tug-of-war between Assange and demands for his extradition to the US, which were denied due to Assange’s poor health and a risk of suicide, blamed by some on the “torture” he faced while imprisoned.
In June of 2024, after Assange’s arduous and well-documented battle with international authorities, a plea deal was reached that allowed for his release back to Australia.
Assange has given no clues about what he will do now, aside from “enjoy his freedom,” according to his wife. The future of WikiLeaks is also in question, as the site stopped publishing during his imprisonment.
Assange has amassed a large following among human rights advocates, journalists, and free speech proponents. However, his actions have also led government leaders and pundits the world over to call for his imprisonment and even his execution.
His work with WikiLeaks has had a lasting impact on people’s trust in government leadership, and his influence has inspired countless other hackers to take up the reins of social justice, even though he has clearly demonstrated the danger associated with doing so.
4. Steve Wozniak: the hacker with a household name
While Steve “The Woz” Wozniak is better known today as Apple’s jovial co-founder and not readily referred to as a hacker, he got his start in IT by building his computer at the age of 13.
At 19, he created a “blue box” device that would allow him to hack the public telephone network and make free long-distance calls. His friend Steve Jobs, observing his creation of said devices in a Berkely dorm room, suggested that the two should sell them for $150 each, beginning a business relationship that would change the entire landscape of computing and communication as the world knows it.
Wozniak doesn’t consider his past activities to be hacking, saying that his blue boxes were not malicious and just “for fun.” However, the intention behind an action doesn’t necessarily redefine it, and his saying that his device could “control hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure in the entire telephone network in the whole world from Los Altos and Cupertino, California” further illustrates the power of what he did.
Wozniak and Jobs soon turned their attention to building products they could sell legitimately, and Apple was born.
Wozniak has a storied and impactful history, having come a long way from selling hacking devices to fellow students. He has invented numerous patents for Apple, engaged in philanthropic endeavors, and received dozens of honors, awards, and honorary degrees, making him one of the most recognizable and well-liked names in modern computing.
Wozniak is living proof that hackers, despite the negative connotations, can rehabilitate their images and apply their intelligence to positive causes.
5. Edward Snowden: the leak felt around the world
Edward Snowden may not fit in nicely with the other hackers on this list. Still, his leaking of explosive NSA documents while employed as a 23-year-old contractor has put him among the pantheon and made him as similarly polarizing as Julian Assange.
Snowden joined the military during the Iraq War, but leg injuries he sustained while training for Special Forces left him unable to continue. His experiences with other soldiers led to him feeling that his reason for enlisting, a desire to free others from oppression, was not nearly as popular as his fellow enlistees’ interest in committing sanctioned violence.
He left the military, and his proficiency in computing and understanding of the internet gained him a job in the CIA, where he was assigned an undercover position in Geneva, Switzerland. In this role, he had access to a range of classified documents. His work, in his words, made him question “how my government functions and what its impact is in the world. I realized that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good.” Snowden’s disillusionment with the CIA and poor reviews from a supervisor led him to resign.
His following role as an NSA contractor put him in a position that allowed him to observe surveillance operations carried out against American citizens in which private telephone conversations and other communications were not only being monitored but being shared and used as entertainment among a staff of young employees. His objection to this was the impetus behind the leaking of what government officials say were 1.7 million NSA documents.
Snowden fled to Hong Kong to avoid extradition and watched the fallout from his actions. The US government did not view this with sympathy, and numerous officials sought to discredit and prosecute him.
Eventually ending up in Russia, Snowden attempted to find safe passage to several countries that would have granted him asylum but was curtailed by the US government due to a lack of direct flights to the nations in question.
Snowden was granted permanent residence in Russia in 2020 and citizenship in 2022. He resides in Moscow with his family, where he editorializes on “the intersection of technology, humanity, and power” via social media and his own website. He also serves as president of the board of directors of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
About NetworkTigers
NetworkTigers is the leader in the secondary market for Grade A, seller-refurbished networking equipment. Founded in January 1996 as Andover Consulting Group, which built and re-architected data centers for Fortune 500 firms, NetworkTigers provides consulting and network equipment to global governmental agencies, Fortune 2000, and healthcare companies. www.networktigers.com.
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