L.A. Hacker to Waive Extradition : Computers: He was a fugitive for two years. Officials say they have yet to determine his motives or the scope of his alleged crimes.

Computer hacker Kevin Mitnick wants to waive extradition and return to California to face trial on a multitude of charges, according to authorities who said Thursday that they have only begun to determine the nature and extent of his crimes and victims.

Mitnick was being held without bail in Raleigh, N.C., where he was arrested after eluding federal authorities for two years.

“Kevin will waive his preliminary hearing,” Assistant U.S. Atty. David Schindler said in Los Angeles. “He has said, ‘I am (your) guy, and I want to go back to California as soon as possible.’ ”

Schindler and other authorities said Mitnick will agree to forgo the legal formalities that could keep him in North Carolina for weeks because he wants to be tried in California to be closer to friends, relatives and his defense lawyer, John Yzurdiaga.

Yzurdiaga had no comment on the Mitnick case.

Authorities were still uncertain of Mitnick’s motives in becoming the nation’s most-wanted computer hacker.

“It is something we will be looking at--why has he done this?” Schindler said. “Everyone wants that answer, but only Kevin Mitnick knows that. We will be looking at anything and everything.” After an intensive electronic and computer dragnet, Mitnick was arrested about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday as he talked on the phone in an apartment near Raleigh that he was renting under an assumed name.

Although federal authorities declined to discuss what they found in Mitnick’s sparsely furnished apartment in the Players Club complex, Assistant U.S. Atty. John Bowler in Raleigh said authorities found some material that would be helpful to their investigations.

He refused to comment on statements by other authorities suggesting that investigations are pointing to potential Mitnick accomplices or to conspirators who helped him evade prosecution while allegedly continuing criminal activities.

As authorities moved to consolidate and coordinate their cases against Mitnick on Thursday, more details became available regarding his capture, how his activities have affected national computer networks, and his two years as a solitary fugitive.

One suspected Mitnick victim was New York Times writer John Markoff, according to a sworn statement filed by an FBI agent. Markoff has written extensively about computer hackers, including Mitnick, and on Jan. 23 published a story about a break-in at a San Diego computer lab believed to have been committed by Mitnick.

At the time, Markoff’s computer in San Francisco had already been broken into, although he did not realize it, said Nancy Nielsen, spokeswoman for the newspaper.

“Markoff had two accounts that were broken into, both commercial on-line services, and neither one had any information on them that (was) of any importance,” Neilsen said. “John Markoff knew not to put important information on any commercial on-line service.”

The New York Times editorial computer system is “completely secure. Nothing in New York has been touched. We monitor our security regularly,” Neilsen said.

About Jan. 23, “we began to monitor our security gates even more closely at the New York Times,” Nielsen said.

The Mitnick case shows that the computer security community must move toward further protecting the Internet, according to Sid Karrin, director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center, whose personnel were cited by authorities for helping track the fugitive.

“It means that eventually we are going to have to implement strong encryption, that is, to encipher all the data so it can’t be used by anyone who picks it up. That is not the case today on the Internet, and it will have to be the case in the future.

“Another message is that it’s commercially important. We’re trying to develop this nation-global information infrastructure. It’s important that the data be secure, private, on those networks,” Karrin said.

Schindler said that federal authorities in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Colorado and other jurisdictions have been investigating Mitnick for alleged computer break-ins in their areas, and that “the nature of his (computer hacking) intrusions (is) substantial.”

The FBI affidavit filed in the case alleges that Mitnick used his hacking prowess to steal files through the Internet, including cellular phone software developed under a grant from the National Security Agency worth $500,000 to $1 million. In all, according to documents and interviews, Mitnick is suspected of stealing tens of thousands of personal credit card numbers as well.

Some law enforcement sources and private investigators who also have tracked Mitnick in recent months in Seattle and elsewhere said that they have no reason to believe that he cracked computer systems for his own financial gain, even if he did download files and other proprietary information.

They said the once-overweight only child who grew up in the San Fernando Valley lived a Spartan and solitary life, going to and from work by public transportation, eating at Taco Bell and spending most of his time by himself at a computer keyboard.

“He was not living the life of a high roller,” said Deputy U.S. Marshal Kathy Cunningham in Los Angeles, who has been tracking Mitnick. “With all his talent, all he has to show for it is a criminal record and a reputation. It’s pretty sad.”

Other authorities said it is too early to tell whether Mitnick profited from his alleged crimes, especially since he used so many aliases during his years as a fugitive.