In order to win radio station phone-in contests, former computer hacker Kevin Poulsen broke into the computers of telephone companies in the early 90's. He was able to ensure that he would be the caller with the right number to win prizes like a Porsche 944 S2 Cabriolet and $20,000 in cash by seizing control of all phone lines connecting to Los Angeles radio stations.
Poulsen fled into hiding as a wanted man when the FBI started looking for him. He was ultimately apprehended after 18 months on the run and was featured on NBC's Unsolved Mysteries. He admitted to engaging in computer fraud and was sentenced to just over 5 years in jail. It was the longest hacking sentence the United States has ever imposed at the time.
Poulsen was temporarily prohibited from accessing computers after being released from jail. He became a journalist after becoming reformed but still had the inquisitiveness that led to his hacking when he was younger. His first magazine article, published in WIRED, was about computer programmers who turned to survivalist techniques out of concern of the impending Y2K problem.
In an effort to aid in reporting, Poulsen created software that searched MySpace for registered sex offenders and found hundreds of them. An active pedophile was apprehended as a result of the article and it also caused substantial policy changes at MySpace and federal law. According to Poulsen's investigation, the FBI has been infecting criminal suspects' computers with a special spyware tool known as a CIPAV. Poulsen and a co-author broke the story that the government had covertly detained a young Army intelligence analyst in Iraq on charges that he had leaked hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents to the website WikiLeaks.
Poulsen is a contributing editor at WIRED magazine and the creator of the Knight-Batten Award-winning Threat Level blog, which has also received several other awards..

How to hire Kevin Poulsen for an event