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John Markoff
John Gregory Markoff (born October 24, 1949) is a journalist best known for his work covering technology at The New York Times for 28 years until his retirement in 2016, and a book and series of articles about the 1990s pursuit and capture of hacker Kevin Mitnick.
Markoff was born in Oakland, California, and grew up in Palo Alto, California. He graduated from Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington, with a B.A. in sociology in 1971. Additionally he received an M.A. in sociology from the University of Oregon in 1976.
After leaving graduate school, he returned to California where he began writing for Pacific News Service, an alternative news syndicate based in San Francisco. He freelanced for a number of publications including The Nation, Mother Jones and Saturday Review. In 1981 he became part of the original staff of the computer industry weekly InfoWorld. In 1984 he became an editor at Byte Magazine and in 1985 he left to become a reporter in the business section of the San Francisco Examiner, where he wrote about Silicon Valley.
In 1988 he moved to New York to write for the business section of the New York Times. In November 1988 he reported that Robert Tappan Morris, son of National Security Agency cryptographer Robert Morris, was the author of what would become known as the Internet worm.
In December 1993 he wrote an early article about the World Wide Web, referring to it as a "map to the buried treasures of the Information Age."
On July 4, 1994, he wrote an article about Kevin Mitnick, who was then a fugitive from a number of law enforcement agencies. He wrote several more pieces detailing Mitnick's capture. Markoff also co-wrote, with Tsutomu Shimomura, the book Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw about the chase.
Markoff's writing about Mitnick was the subject of criticism by Mitnick supporters and unaffiliated parties who maintained that Markoff's accounts exaggerated or even invented Mitnick's activities and successes. Markoff was also accused by Jonathan Littman of journalistic impropriety and of over-hyping Mitnick's actual crimes. Littman published a more sympathetic account of Mitnick's time as a fugitive in his own book on the incident, The Fugitive Game. Markoff stood by his reporting.
The book later became a film that was released direct to video in the United States. The film went much further, with Markoff himself stating to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2000, "I thought it was a fundamentally dishonest movie." Mitnick stated that he settled a lawsuit with distributor Miramax over the film for an undisclosed sum.
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John Markoff
John Gregory Markoff (born October 24, 1949) is a journalist best known for his work covering technology at The New York Times for 28 years until his retirement in 2016, and a book and series of articles about the 1990s pursuit and capture of hacker Kevin Mitnick.
Markoff was born in Oakland, California, and grew up in Palo Alto, California. He graduated from Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington, with a B.A. in sociology in 1971. Additionally he received an M.A. in sociology from the University of Oregon in 1976.
After leaving graduate school, he returned to California where he began writing for Pacific News Service, an alternative news syndicate based in San Francisco. He freelanced for a number of publications including The Nation, Mother Jones and Saturday Review. In 1981 he became part of the original staff of the computer industry weekly InfoWorld. In 1984 he became an editor at Byte Magazine and in 1985 he left to become a reporter in the business section of the San Francisco Examiner, where he wrote about Silicon Valley.
In 1988 he moved to New York to write for the business section of the New York Times. In November 1988 he reported that Robert Tappan Morris, son of National Security Agency cryptographer Robert Morris, was the author of what would become known as the Internet worm.
In December 1993 he wrote an early article about the World Wide Web, referring to it as a "map to the buried treasures of the Information Age."
On July 4, 1994, he wrote an article about Kevin Mitnick, who was then a fugitive from a number of law enforcement agencies. He wrote several more pieces detailing Mitnick's capture. Markoff also co-wrote, with Tsutomu Shimomura, the book Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw about the chase.
Markoff's writing about Mitnick was the subject of criticism by Mitnick supporters and unaffiliated parties who maintained that Markoff's accounts exaggerated or even invented Mitnick's activities and successes. Markoff was also accused by Jonathan Littman of journalistic impropriety and of over-hyping Mitnick's actual crimes. Littman published a more sympathetic account of Mitnick's time as a fugitive in his own book on the incident, The Fugitive Game. Markoff stood by his reporting.
The book later became a film that was released direct to video in the United States. The film went much further, with Markoff himself stating to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2000, "I thought it was a fundamentally dishonest movie." Mitnick stated that he settled a lawsuit with distributor Miramax over the film for an undisclosed sum.