On Tuesday, 39-year-old Kevin Mitnick will log on to the Internet for the first time in eight years, during the live TechTV show "Screen Savers." Also scheduled to be on the program are Shawn Fanning, creator of Internet music downloading pioneer Napster, and Steve Wozniak, a co-founder of Apple Computer Inc.

Mitnick says he is ready to go to work, ironically, in a position where he will be helping protect companies against the kind of hacking he used to do. He has a job interview scheduled for Monday, but declines to name the company.

"What's going to be a struggle is convincing people in the security space that a lot of what was written about me is not true, and what is true, I'm sorry about," he told Reuters in an interview on Saturday. "I paid my debt to society and I'm trying to do a positive thing. I can't change the past."

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