VAX/VMS, SunOS, netcat, ESS5, DMS100. All things I remember from my youth, I was a bit young for some of the phone tricks folks used, but reading about Kevin Mitnick's travels through a similar world was fun and refreshing. He did get the shaft repeatedly in the legal system, and procedures were not followed, but sometimes he sounds a bit whiny. He did break the law, and he knew it, even if it couldn't be proven correctly, he should have been punished.

A lead in to the modern day hackers, a guy who was out to do no more than collect information, just like many geeks do. He needed to know Stuff, just like trivia buffs, or the comic book guy on the simpsons. :)

His running from the law showed some of the holes in the system at the time that he exploited, and left room to think how the new hackers, out with evil intent can exploit holes in our current system to accomplish the misdeeds they are up to.