This reminds me how lucky I am to be relatively successful as an adult. I could easily have spent time in juvenile detention for something stupid, and who knows how that would have turned out.
I suspect a lot of people on this board did the same (illegal) stuff as kids... We're lucky that we had the good luck to grow into productive adults. I like to think society is also lucky that it let us grow into productive adults.
Almost no one starts doing stuff like this, especially with technology at the time, because they have nefarious goals or have a crime career planned.
They are kids. They do it to push their limits and may even not be aware it is even illegal. Even if they are aware, they believe they are invincible or can get away with it. As an aside, why do adults so easy forget what it was like to be a kid?
In addition, to even begin overcoming the technical challenges involved, the amount of curiosity required over otherwise mundane detailed technical knowledge is quite high. Criminals tend to be far more motivated to seek high reward, short term activities.
Finally, the same people who have access to the knowledge and equipment to carry out activities like this, tend to also be the ones who are raised in balanced, strongly breadcrumbed environments leading them away from anything that distracts them for the path set for them, lets call them the middle classes for want of any better term.
So, nope, not luck. Just being a curious middle class kid with easy access to new technology and few upfront repurcussions.
I don't understand your post (or perhaps you didn't understand mine).
You are right that I didn't have nefarious goals when I did this stuff as a kid, though I knew it was illegal. In any case, the fact that I didn't get caught was mostly luck. If the police came to my door, my life could easily have turned out much differently.
I'm saying I (and many others on this board) were just lucky not to get caught. Certainly Jeff Atwood was lucky to get a sensible judge. I'm surprised anyone would dispute that.
Are you saying we couldn't have possibly been caught? Are you saying it wouldn't have mattered if we got caught and faced the wrong judge?
I'm sure there are a lot of people have really suffered for their kid mistakes. I'm not sure how you can dispute that I'm lucky to have gotten away with mine.
And the ones who have enough money to A) have a computer to mess around with and potentially break at home B) not have people look too hard at what they do 95% of the time and C) hire a lawyer when they got caught.
I suspect a lot of people on this board did the same (illegal) stuff as kids... We're lucky that we had the good luck to grow into productive adults. I like to think society is also lucky that it let us grow into productive adults.