HACKER'S ANTICS SPAWN TRIAL, MOVIE; WEB-SITE PRANKS EXPRESSED SUPPORT FOR JAILED WHIZ.

Byline: Peter Hartlaub Daily News Staff Writer

Coming soon to a theater near you: the Kevin Mitnick story - a Miramax film about the San Fernando Valley hacker's three-year, cross-country run from the FBI.

Coming even sooner to a Los Angeles courtroom: the Kevin Mitnick trial, where the former Pierce College student will face 25 charges including breaking into computers and stealing software.

And already fans of the 35-year-old hacker are panning both.

On Sept. 13, a group of so-called computer terrorists shut down the Web site of The New York Times, replacing it with a pro-Mitnick manifesto. It follows a similar break-in at the Yahoo! computer directory last year, including a threat to unleash a computer virus if Mitnick is not released.

``The only thing that surprised me is that it took them so long,'' said Emmanuel Goldstein, editor of 2600: The Hacker Quarterly and predicted Mitnick supporters will infiltrate more Web sites as the Jan. 19 trial date approaches.

Further angering his fans is that Mitnick has been held at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles for three years and seven months - longer than any hacker serving a sentence or awaiting trial.

Mitnick lawyer Donald Randolph quickly responded to The New York Times incident with an online plea for peace, posted on Mitnick's Web site.

``Kevin Mitnick appreciates the support and good wishes of those who speak out against his continued incarceration,'' Randolph said the day after the incident. ``However he does not encourage individuals to engage in hacking pranks on his behalf.''

Apparently, Miramax's filming of ``Takedown'' has brought out the worst in Mitnick's admirers. The movie, based on the book by Tsutomu Shimomura and New York Times writer John Markoff about Mitnick's capture, has been shooting in North Carolina since the end of August. It is expected to be released several months after Mitnick's trial concludes.

One of Mitnick's relatives said the hacker was sent a copy of an early version of the ``Takedown'' script, and he's not happy.

``It's completely fictionalized,'' said Reba Vartanian, Mitnick's grandmother. ``Anything they wrote about something he's supposed to have done is fabricated.''

Mitnick's lawyers have been told that the movie isn't coming out until summer at the earliest. A Miramax spokeswoman did not return a call seeking comment.

The New York Times site was down for more than nine hours, spokeswoman Nancy Nielsen said, and the FBI is investigating the incident. Several of the insults were directed at Markoff, who has been accused by Mitnick's friends and family of exaggerating the hacker's alleged crimes in his book and newspaper articles.

``Do you have nightmares about helping imprison Kevin?'' the hackers wrote on the Web site.

Contacted in his San Francisco office, Markoff said he has received death threats since he wrote the book. One was from a Stockton, Calif., 16-year-old who was arrested in May 1997 after his e-mail was traced to a public library, he said.

Markoff was confused by the tactics of the hackers who penetrated the newspaper's Web site.

``I think it is ironic that they should choose this way to argue that Kevin is innocent,'' Markoff said.

Goldstein, who led a ``Free Kevin'' protest in front of Miramax's New York offices on July 16, said he hopes any hacking that takes place in Mitnick's name does not do damage.

``If there is (more hacking), I hope it's of a non-destructive nature,'' he said.

Mitnick may be upset with the movie, but he shouldn't be insulted by the casting.

Skeet Ulrich, whose poster-boy looks landed him co-starring roles in ``As Good As It Gets'' and ``Scream,'' will play the fugitive hacker. Actor Forest Whitaker and rap entrepreneur Master P have also been connected to the project.

After months of legal wrangling between prosecutors and Mitnick's lawyers, U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer ruled in July that Mitnick can view the evidence against him on a laptop computer in an attorney conference room of the Metropolitan Detention Center.

``The laptop computer shall not be equipped with a modem and shall not have the capability to connect to telephone lines, or to any other computer or computer network,'' Pfaelzer ruled.

But the judge turned down Mitnick's request to be released pending trial, despite his mother and grandmother's offers to put up their Las Vegas homes for bail.

Nine friends and family members - most living in the Valley - declared in court papers that they would be willing to act as Mitnick's custodians if he's released, driving him to and from a halfway house.

Mitnick's lawyers appealed Pfaelzer's decision all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Sandra Day O'Connor turned them down for the last time on Aug. 24.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1) no caption (Cover of ``Takedown,'' by Tsutomu Shimomura with John Markoff)

(2) MITNICK