Kevin Mitnick : (12) " I’m still a hacker. I get paid for it now. I never received any monetary gain from the hacking I did before. The main difference in what I do now compared to what I did then is that I now do it with authorization. " - Kevin Mitnick " The Internet is like the phone. To be without it is ridiculous. " - Kevin Mitnick " My primary goal of hacking was the intellectual curiosity, the seduction of adventure. " - Kevin Mitnick " Social engineering is using deception, manipulation and influence to convince a human who has access to a computer system to do something, like click on an attachment in an e-mail. " - Kevin Mitnick " But a lot of businesses out there don’t see the return on investment, they look at it as a liability, and until they can understand that proactive security actually returns, gives them a return on investment, it’s still a hard sell for people. " - Kevin Mitnick " Somebody could send you an office document or a PDF file, and as soon as you open it, it’s a booby trap and the hacker has complete control of your computer. Another major problem is password management. People use the same password on multiple sites, so when the hacker compromises one site, they have your password for everywhere else. " - Kevin Mitnick " For the average home-user, anti-virus software is a must. " - Kevin Mitnick " I started with CB radio, ham radio, and eventually went into computers. And I was just fascinated with it. And back then, when I was in school, computer hacking was encouraged. It was an encouraged activity. In fact, I remember one of the projects my teacher gave me was writing a log-in simulator. " - Kevin Mitnick " The government does things like insisting that all encryption programs should have a back door. But surely no one is stupid enough to think the terrorists are going to use encryption systems with a back door. The terrorists will simply hire a programmer to come up with a secure encryption scheme. " - Kevin Mitnick " 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. " - Kevin Mitnick