You were running a lower risk of getting caught, but if you got caught, you could easily get slammed with all kinds of outlandish stuff back then, mostly due to the general public ignorance of computing and hacking. These days, you have a way higher chance of getting caught, but the punishment is more reasonable and fair imo (even though it is still way overblown most of the time).

What instantly came to my mind was the Kevin Mitnick trial, where "law enforcement officials convinced a judge that he had the ability to 'start a nuclear war by whistling into a pay phone'"[0].

0.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick#Arrest,_convicti...

I wouldn't worry. You can still set up a computer pretending to offer a DoD login, in fact as many as you want/can afford on AWS, and you still won't go to prison. IANAL, but go ahead and knock yourself out! It'll be fun/character building/a learning experience no matter what happens.