> more hunted groups than just hackers It's underappreciated just how tolerant society was, with respect to 80s and 90s hacking culture. We had the war on dru

> more hunted groups than just hackers It's underappreciated just how tolerant society was, with respect to 80s and 90s hacking culture. We had the war on drugs, but pre-9/11, secrecy and hacking were... novelties. As in, people couldn't conceptualize the worst results of bad people using bad methods. You can see this in the legal filings of early computer prosecutions. Much of it is spent trying to explain to a jury just why phone phreaking or computer hacking is bad. E.g. "Could launch nukes from a payphone!" Or Tron, WarGames, etc. Now, network intrusion brings to mind ransomware, and a hop, skip, and jump away from helping ISIS, in terms of jury sentiment. On the other hand, there's an entire white and grey hat culture that wasn't really as defined in that period, so it's fair to say there are also more legimate paths for someone deeply interested in systems.