> Off the job, Seymour found many ways to distract himself from his professional challenges. He enjoyed skiing, sailing, wind surfing, tennis, hiking and other sports. Some of his distractions were unique and formed the basis of many stories, most of them true but perhaps distorted with time. He used these distractions to clear his mind for his work challenges. One favorite pastime he had was digging tunnels for the sheer joy of digging tunnels.
> Seymour loved challenges, and digging tunnels was just another challenge for him. Even as a child, Seymour was a problem solver. His sister tells the story about when Seymour was a young boy, he rigged a Morse Code connection between his bedroom and his sister's so that they could communicate after lights out. His father became aware of the late night clicking and told Seymour to shut down the system because it was bothering the rest of the household. Seymour's solution was to convert the clickers to lights and to continue to communicate with his sister.
There was the case where a hacker who gave talks at Defcon built a tunnel, and paid someone to continue the work. The worker died and he went to prison [1]. There was some discussion about this case on HN in 2019 [2], and a Darknet Diaries episode about the whole multi-year scenario [3].
Note: The DD Episode link contains pictures
[1] https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-nuclear-bunker...