Mitnick gets 46-month term

Convicted computer cracker Kevin Mitnick was sentenced last week to 46 months in prison and ordered to pay $4,125 in restitution to more than a dozen companies and organizations.

The damages, which Mitnick must pay during a three-year period of supervised release, are a fraction of the $1.5 million request made by federal prosecutors.

U.S. District Judge Marianne Pfaelzer acknowledged that the fine is a “token” amount but said she wanted to levy a fine that she was sure Mitnick could pay as a condition of his release. Mitnick is scheduled to be released to a halfway house in January, but he may be freed earlier if credited with time off for good behavior.

Ira Winkler, president of the Internet Security Advisor’s Group in Saverna Park, Md., said the value of the damages Mitnick inflicted were closer to $1.5 million than $4,125. But he said the victims hurt their case by inflating damage estimates. “I wish the prosecution and the victims had much more realistic numbers than $80 million [in damages claimed by Mitnick’s victims], which was absolutely ridiculous,” Winkler said.

Under the terms of his release, Mitnick is barred from access to computer hardware and software and any form of wireless communications. He’s also banned from working at a company that has computers, and he can’t possess passwords, cellular phone codes or data encryption devices without permission.

Mitnick pleaded guilty earlier this year to seven counts of computer and wire fraud charges. He has been in jail since February 1995 for violating probation on an earlier conviction and fleeing from authorities.

California prosecutors have dropped remaining state changes against him.

Since his arrest in 1995 for cracking corporate and university systems and for illegally downloading proprietary software, Mitnick has been the subject of four books and an upcoming film.

A grassroots “Free Kevin” campaign decried Mitnick’s long stint in jail without a trial. Jennifer Granick, a San Francisco defense attorney who represents people charged with computer crimes, said prosecutors used the case as a warning to would-be crackers. But she said she hopes prosecutors will now deal with such cases “in a much more sober and level-headed way.”