In 1991, Kevin Mitnick was bouncing back from what was probably the lowest point of his life. He began to rebuild his life: he started working out and lost a hundred pounds, and most importantly - he was finally on the path towards ditching his self-destructive obsession of hacking. 

But just as he was in the process of turning his life around, his brother introduced him to a hacker named Eric Heinz, who told him about a mysterious piece of equipment he came across while breaking into Pacific Bell: SAS, a testing system that allowed its user to listen in on all the calls going through the telephone network. SAS proved to be too great of a temptation for Mitnick, who desperately wanted to wield the power that the testing system could afford him.