Kevin Mitnick, Unplugged

Katie Hafner’s Esquire profile, published a few months after Mitnick’s arrest, examines his psychology and personal history, drawing on Hafner’s earlier reporting for her book Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier.

The piece looks past the “most wanted hacker” headlines to Mitnick’s childhood, his fixation on telephone systems, and the pattern of intrusions and probation violations that led to his fugitive years.