This article reminds of me of Chris Goggans' closing editorial in Phrack 48 [1] where he made a similar point about how much things had changed with regards to being able to access and learn about computers:

  "In this day and age, you really don't have to do anything illegal to be
   a hacker.  It is well within the reach of everyone to learn more, and use
   more powerful computers legally than any of us from the late 70's and early
   80's ever dreamed.  Way back then, it was ALL about learning how to use these
   crazy things called computers.  There were hundreds of different types of
   systems, hundreds of different networks, and everyone was starting from ground
   zero.  There were no public means of access; there were no books in stores or
   library shelves espousing arcane command syntaxes; there were no classes
   available to the layperson.  We were locked out."

[1] http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=48&id=2#article