It should be noted that Kevin Mitnick himself has repeatedly denounced Takedown's author John Markoff as a libelous opportunist whose works have been based off dubious evidence and half truths.
In fact, in a 2003 Slashdot interview1 Mitnick, in addition to the accusations listed above, accused Markoff of threatening him that "any statement made by any source would be reported as fact". Makoff's false claims have been quite extreme according to Mitnick. Markoff testified in court that a source reported that Mitnick had hacked NORAD. Mitnick denied this, pointing out that the systems in question were not even on the net.
The list goes on and on making one thing clear: John Markoff's Takedown is not an accurate source of information.
1http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/02/04/2233250&mode=thread&tid=103&tid=123&tid=172