I was hooked in before hacking was even illegal.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Hacking was the only entertainment that would occupy my mind - like a huge video game, but with real consequences. I could have evaded the FBI a lot longer if I had been able to control my passion for hacking.
I was addicted to hacking, more for the intellectual challenge, the curiosity, the seduction of adventure; not for stealing, or causing damage or writing computer viruses.
A lot of hacking is playing with other people, you know, getting them to do strange things.
As a young boy, I was taught in high school that hacking was cool.
My primary goal of hacking was the intellectual curiosity, the seduction of adventure.
I got so passionate about technology. Hacking to me was like a video game. It was about getting trophies. I just kept going on and on, despite all the trouble I was getting into, because I was hooked.
I get hired to hack into computers now and sometimes it's actually easier than it was years ago.
To be clear, any attempt to hack or to do anything nefarious is wrong and illegal.
My hacking was all about becoming the best at circumventing security. So when I was a fugitive, I worked systems administrator jobs to make money. I wasn't stealing money or using other people's credit cards. I was doing a 9-to-5 job.
I'm still a hacker. I get paid for it now. I never received any monetary gain from the hacking I did before. The main difference in what I do now compared to what I did then is that I now do it with authorization.