This article is about the writer. For the professor of sociology and history, see John Markoff (professor).

John Markoff was born in Oakland, California on 24 October, 1949 and grew up in Palo Alto, California. He graduated from Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington, in 1971 and received a masters degree from the University of Oregon in 1976. Markoff is a computing and technology writer for The New York Times. He wrote a series of articles about Kevin Mitnick, who was then a fugitive on the run from a number of law enforcement agencies. He also co-wrote Takedown, which later became a film that was released direct to video in the United States.

He was accused by Jonathan Littman of journalistic impropriety, of overzealous prosecution of Mitnick by the government, of main stream media over-hyping of Mitnick's actual crimes, and of the legality of Tsutomu Shimomura's involvement in the matter. Littman, of course, chose to ignore the irony of the fact that he had profited from a sensationalized account of Mitnick's time as a fugitive, in his own book on the incident. In his book he recounts how he invited Markoff to lunch after Markoff had referred a Playboy assignment on Mitnick to Littman and then stiffs Markoff for the lunch. Further controversy came over the release of the movie Takedown, with Littman alleging that portions of the film were taken from his book The Fugitive Game without permission.

Bibliography

• The High Cost of High Tech (with Lennie Siegel ) - 1985
• (with Katie Hafner) - 1991
• (with Tsutomu Shimomura) - 1995