Criticism aside, Mitnick is still a darling of the hacker underground. He was paid to write an article for Time magazine. I've kind of grown out of it. I'm not saying prison rehabilitated me. That's a crock.
All prison is is punishment.
I'm 36 years old now. Hackers tend to grow out of it in their early 30s. There is the myth of Kevin Mitnick and the reality of Kevin Mitnick. The reality is I did wrong. I broke into computers for the fun, the thrill and the intellectual challenge.