Thanks, this is nostalgic. I remember reading this several times back around 1996. Mitnick felt like a hero to me back then.
... why?
Why was Mitnick a hero? From what I remember about how I felt he didn't hack into systems in the traditional brute force sense. He worked his way in by social engineering. This made me think about how I could change my language, tone, mannerisms to "catch more flys with honey" if I wanted a particular result or outcome from someone.