Kevin Mitnick, one of the world's most famous computer hackers and the subject of an investigation for more than two years in the 1990s, died last Sunday at age 59 of complications from pancreatic cancer. His death was confirmed to The New York Times.

Mitnick was a legendary figure whose life story reads like an elaborate fiction: starting his career at age 12 in a punch card machine to get free bus passes, Mitnick graduated to telemarketing and hacking as he grew older, hacked into networks owned by companies such as Digital Equipment Corporation. The police didn't take too kindly to that, and he was sentenced in 1988 to one year in prison and three years of supervised release.

He almost made it, but just before his supervised release ended, a warrant was issued for his arrest for hacking into the Pacific Bell Telephone Company, sparking an investigation that lasted more than two years and ended with five years in prison (four and a half of which were served pretrial). According to him, he spent eight months of that sentence in solitary confinement because the police convinced a judge that he "could start a nuclear war by whistling into the phone."

Perhaps someone realized at some point how nonsensical a statement that was: after his supervised release ended in 2003, the only thing Mitnick was allowed access to for a while was a landline phone.

Mitnick's legal woes made him a bit of a celebrity in the 1990s. At the time, "Free Kevin" stickers were a common sight on bumpers and in university IT departments, and both Yahoo and the NYT were hacked with messages calling for his release. To many, he became a symbol of the state's authoritarian inability to understand the anarchic and free spirit of the Internet. But for me, it was ......." Yes, I first became aware of him through the in-game talk radio station in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

The caller was named Kevin, apparently Mitnick himself in an uncredited role, and he irritated the host about being put in solitary confinement for hacking and ranted about how he could "launch nuclear missiles just by whistling into the phone." It honestly stung to know that it was based on the absurd real-life experiences of a real person.

The world's most wanted hacker eventually came clean, and after his release in the 2000s, Mitnick became an author, speaker, and security consultant, performing penetration testing services and generally helping businesses protect themselves from people like, oh, Kevin Mitnick. He tries to help companies protect themselves from people like, oh, Kevin Mitnick.

Mitnick has a wife, Kimberly, with whom he is expecting their first child. An obituary posted at Dignity Memorial's funeral home states that his friends and family "will miss him in his remaining days, hear his voice in our hearts, and look forward to seeing him again in whatever version of the 'other world' we each believe in." It would be heaven indeed to imagine Kev greeting us with pranks and invitations to special meals and conversations."