We didn't understand that we hadn't hacked anything, and neither did our teachers. Their misplaced awe at our ability to cloak our activities in anonymity was intoxicating.
Most of my cohort then are engineers now.
I worry that as security gets better, opportunities for creativity and exploration go away, which might not bode well for future generations.
For example, I often read bug bounty write-ups, many of which are obviously written by young teenagers. Some of them are able to find issues that appear to be hiding in plain site. I kind of think that what you're describing is a matter of perspective, but boy do I miss the good old days when everything was easy to exploit.
None of my school faculty had any understanding of computers. I was even yelled at for using "Google" during a research project.
I think the bigger fear is that people cannot make mistakes anymore. Even in my local town a simple mistake went viral on social media and now the student's whole life is ruined for something that may have been a simple visit to the principle's office back in the day.
I figured out pretty quickly you could Ctrl-alt-delete to bring up the task manager and just close the client on the computer I was using.
The teacher never figured out why one of the computers vanished off the remote software management screen she was using.
If you're into real world security / reverse engineering and other stuff, then try CTFs, other strong people will ensure that you'll have enough room for creativity and hacky hacks :)
On the other hand I like how Microsoft actually seems to be giving a damn these days.
I miss having shell accounts at all the .edu’s for my egg drop bots. That is how I learned about all the us schools hah
It was almost 20 years ago and I still remember. Such a satisfying feeling when you're 14 but feel smarter than one of the biggest tech companies on the planet.