I've known him since the time of the events in his book, and can confirm. He was (and still is) an insufferable jerk. Not only does he self aggrandize himself in his book and web site, he pointlessly denigrates and takes down and insults the intelligence of his own colleagues in order to make himself look better (but the net effect was the opposite that he intended). And his book was a work of fiction. Nobody in their right mind would still want to work with him, especially after what happened with his LED company. I know somebody who made the mistake of working with him, and the costly lawsuits and recriminations between them have been dragging on for years, but Tsutomu's clearly the one who was at fault.

His ego came through a bit in the book, but honestly that's a fairly common trait for young guys. I am also quite aware that the book only presents one side of the story and that Mitnick had quite a different perspective. I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle. My enjoyment of the book was much more about the process they used to track him down, and the detailed description of them building tools to aid in the process, rather than the people involved.

Meh. It 'ain't braggin' if it's true. Worked with Tsutomo on some projects. Dude has an extremely keen analytical mind. Mitnick on the other hand had an excellent grasp of human intellectual frailty. I was always surprised people expected Tsutomo to be some amazingly empathetic mensch and Mitnick to be some uber mentat wizzard.

Each was quite good within their speciality, and kinda crappy in the other's. And that's totally okay.