A Tale of Two Hackers

Patrick Gray profiles longtime friends and business partners Alex Kasper and Kevin Mitnick, contrasting the different paths they took after becoming involved with telephones, computers, and hacking as teenagers.

The article traces Kasper’s early fascination with the telephone network, his decision to leave hacking behind, and his later work as a video-game producer. It also recounts Mitnick’s arrest, imprisonment, and subsequent public career as an author, speaker, and security consultant. Their shared history leads into the founding of Defensive Thinking, where they applied their experience to security education and social-engineering prevention.