John Markoff
termops culturesecurity
The New York Times technology reporter whose front-page coverage in the 1990s turned Kevin Mitnick into the world's most famous hacker, and who co-wrote Cyberpunk (1991) and Takedown (1996), the account of Mitnick's capture written with Tsutomu Shimomura.
His reporting is the standing case study in how press framing becomes legal reality: descriptions of Mitnick as a threat to national infrastructure fed a prosecution and years of pretrial detention that the underlying facts did not support, and the Free Kevin campaign was aimed as much at the coverage as at the courts. Markoff also chronicled the personal-computer revolution with genuine authority, which is what makes the episode a caution rather than a dismissal - accurate technology journalism and a distorted narrative can come from the same desk.
Also known as: markoff, takedown author, new york times technology