![](http://www.clanofidiots.com//images.eurogamer.net/2018/articles/2018-01-11-13-57/off-grid-is-about-the-principles-of-hacking-1515679065545.jpg/EG11/resize/300x-1/format/jpg/1949489.jpg)
Mitnick was a 'phone freak'. By recording the sounds played by a payphone when coins were dropped in, he could then play them back to the phone to call whoever he wanted, and also use the then-extortionate internet for free. The problem, Mitnick has since claimed, is that a judge got wind of this particular talent and came to believe that, if granted access to a phone in prison, he could whistle into the receiver to launch a nuclear missile. One version of the story is that the judge actually watched War Games, wherein young Matthew Broderick accidentally hacks into a NORAD-equivalent over the phone, and was so influenced by its portrayal that he was overcome with paranoia, handing out Mitnick's overly harsh sentence as a result.
What people do agree on - at least they do now - is the fact that despite its wide reportage in the press, Kevin Mitnick never hacked into NORAD, and he had nothing to do with the inspiration for War Games. In a weird, ironic combination of rumour and sensationalism, it would appear that Mitnick spent eight months alone in prison, with no access to a phone, because a judge heard about the exploits of fictional hackers in a film he had also fictionally inspired.
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