The 90's in the school's computer lab may have felt differently if you escaped any sort of punishment for exploration, but the CFAA was first enacted in 1986 and the punishment for computer crimes have been disproportional since before then, owing to societal lack of understanding of how computers actually work.

I still have the sticker somewhere.

It always amazes me that the person who effectively opens an unlocked door gets the book thrown at them while the people who left it unlocked get off scot-free.

Plus, negligence can be a crime, too.

But it's natural that someone who commits a crime receives a harsher punishment than someone who neglects to put all relevant deterrents in place.

I never used it for anything evil per se, but I did unblock the football site we were told would be unblocked, and other sites that teachers were told would be unblocked but weren't. Problem was, when you signed in there was a nice box that said "Users Online" and showed their names. One day the DTC signed in as I was online and promptly the phone rang and I was told to take my hands away from the computer and walk to the office. I had to show her what I had done, and ended up being suspended from school computers for two weeks. I couldn't imagine the things I would be accused of if it happened today. Thank god I was a straight A student and favored by everyone in the community. I also had my Starcraft 2 collectors edition USB confiscated because I had the portable onion browser on it, and my friends called it the 'stick of freedom.' Imagine if the term darkweb was as highly villainized then as it is today.

I was lucky enough to start working with the school when I was 16 (now 20.) I remember the description of the look on the regional contact from the state when the DTC told him that the district had given me a key to the school and the equivalent of domain admin in our environment. Rightfully so, but I proved myself and my worth.

Bit long of a response for something so simple, and full of nostalgia as well. It's just a shame to see that curiosity and investigation is so heavily frowned upon.

There are still resources for this CTF365 comes to mind and the Offensive Security lab for their certs. There are also awesome people putting up networks you are invited to attack for free, there was one that was part of a workshop at HOPE XI but I can't recall the site. And running even multiple VMs to practice with is something a lot of people can do today.

From poring over stuff from this milieu, I figured out how I could change grade records at my school. I never did it, so I don't know what would've happened if I got busted.

Some kid in the Bay Area just got busted for the same and is facing 14 felony charges.

Anyway. This was my first encounter with hacker culture, and it was so brain expanding even though I understood practically none of it. Now, I could barely recount more than the few sentences I just did, but that logo brings up waves of nostalgia.

> We wrote numerous search warrants to get the IP addresses of the possible phishing site email. We got it and we did good old fashioned police detective work and we narrowed it down to an address

Good old fashioned police detective work indeed.

[1] http://www.ktvu.com/news/concord-student-accused-of-hacking-...