[gonzo]

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- This Andean highlands capital has twice felled famed hacker and security consultant Kevin Mitnick.

"I'm looking forward to getting on the first plane to the United States," Mitnick, 42, said Wednesday from his hospital room in the Colombian capital, where he said he'd been laid up for about three days with a bad flu.

On a separate visit back in May, the author of "The Art of Intrusion" and "The Art of Deception" said, he spent a day in the hospital for tests after experiencing chest pains and elevated blood pressure.

Mitnick blamed Bogota's 8,700-foot (2,650-meter) elevation and a prescription drug he was taking for that trip to the hospital.
This time it was simply a nasty flu, accompanied by a fever reaching 40 degrees centigrade (104 degrees Fahrenheit), that prevented Mitnick from attending a big weekend hacker's conference in New York.

"I tried to get to the airport to get to the plane to New York and just couldn't make it," he said.

Mitnick, in Colombia on consulting work for a client he would not name, said doctors had given him antibiotics, morphine and a penicillin shot in the rear end -- "which was the worst thing that ever happened to me."

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We wish him a speedy recovery