Hackers Gone Mild: 6 Rebels Turned Insiders

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Jon Lech Johansen, doubleTwist Cofounder

Norwegian programmer Jon Lech Johansen helped create DeCSS one of the first programs that could remove a DVD's digital copy protection; he was 15 at the time. Police arrested Johansen after the Motion Picture Association of America filed a complaint against him over the creation of DeCSS. Johansen was ultimately cleared of all charges, but his exploits earned him the moniker 'DVD Jon.' Johansen also reverse engineered FairPlay, Apple's DRM technology, in 2004. Three years later, Johansen cofounded doubleTwist, a mobile app development company.

Kevin Mitnick, entrepreneur

Kevin Mitnick spent more than two years running from the law as the most-wanted computer criminal in the United States before his arrest in February 1995. The notorious hacker was responsible for numerous computer crimes including theft of proprietary software belonging to Motorola, Novell, Fujitsu, and Sun Microsystems. In 1999, Mitnick pleaded guilty to four counts of wire fraud, two counts of computer fraud and one count of illegally intercepting a wire communication. Mitnick was sentenced to 46 months in prison and was released in 2000 after spending nearly five years in prison. Despite his release, authorities did not allow Mitnick to have access to the Internet until 2003. Mitnick now runs his own information security consulting firm.

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