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>Parents are warned to keep kids off the computer This point cannot be overstated. I'd never have been a hacker without vast quantities of unsupervised, unfilt

>Parents are warned to keep kids off the computer This point cannot be overstated. I'd never have been a hacker without vast quantities of unsupervised, unfiltered internet time around age 9-12. The largest enabling step for me was when I got my own laptop which I was free to break (software-wise) and free to take into my room so I could focus away from the distracting noises of the kitchen/living room. Much of even the HN community would consider this irresponsible parenting. Probably even my parents wouldn't have let a daughter talk to strangers on IRC about something they don't understand. But how else is someone with nontechnical parents supposed to get started? It's sooo much different when it's something you choose to do with your free time, rather than something half-assedly forced on you by parents or school curriculum. Especially to a kid.

weland 13y ago
Yes! Had it not been for the incredible amount of time I spent unsupervised on the Internet, I wouldn't be as good a programmer as I am today. Did I watch porn before I was of legal age? Yep, and I'm in a happy relationship with no sex problems. Break my computer often? Yep, I'd repair it every few days. I was also exposed to a variety of cultures, read about every operating system on Earth (toyed with emulated PDP-11s and VAXen and C64s for days and days) and wrote in every obscure language there is just because I was a kid and had enough time not to worry about whether spending a week to learn Forth was worth the hours I was putting into it.
sillysaurus2 13y ago
This point cannot be overstated. I'd never have been a hacker without vast quantities of unsupervised, unfiltered internet time around age 9-12. Same here. Emphasis on "vast quantities," "unsupervised," and "unfiltered." All three were required.
japhyr 13y ago
> which I was free to break (software-wise) I'm curious, were you on a linux os? Did you break your software often? It seems to me people who get on linux early might have an easier time, because they can so easily break their system and rebuild it. It seems like a kid who breaks a windows/ mac os might need to go to their parents to deal with license keys, which might cause the parents to say "no more hacking".
- superuser2 13y ago
  OSX so no license keys or activation. I had to ask where the disks were kept the first couple times but I was careful to frame it as "I know what I'm doing, I just need the disks." My parents didn't mind. Also we were covered by AppleCare and I had no problem calling in for myself. This was in the PPC days so no VMs for me. Eventually I got a used PC from my dad's office for like $45 which has probably been through 80 Linux reinstallations. WiFi was a nightmare though, and I eventually gave up on desktop linux. Still have like 4 DO boxes and have experimented endlessly on AWS. Since it is impossible to autonomously do payments on the internet before age 18, my parents' willingness to let me use their credit card (and then settle accounts each month via allowance and occasionally debits from my savings) was also crucial. No other way I would have been able to play with web hosting or actually make any projects live.
  - japhyr 13y ago
    > Since it is impossible to autonomously do payments on the internet before age 18, my parents' willingness to let me use their credit card I'm a high school teacher, and I teach some intro programming classes once in a while. I teach primarily low-income/ at-risk students, and this is one piece of the puzzle that keeps my students from gaining more real-world experience. It's a hard issue, too, because you can rack up a big bill if you think you know more than you do. So I can't really tell parents they should give their kids access to a credit card. Many parents probably don't even have a credit card. That said, there is plenty of learning you can do by building your own server. This issue is not the main thing holding my students back, but I am aware that it will be an issue as soon as I start building stronger skills in my students. Thank you for sharing your story!
    - superuser2 13y ago
      >That said, there is plenty of learning you can do by building your own server. I've thought about that, but it really seems to be more expensive and less useful. DigitalOcean is $60/year and already has a server-grade internet connection. I could build a $500 server and host it illegally on my Road Runner connection (256kbps upstream) but that'd be inferior service for a lot more money. >It's a hard issue, too, because you can rack up a big bill if you think you know more than you do. This is certainly the case with AWS and a credit card, but on (for example) Linode or DigitalOcean it's pretty hard to "accidentally" spin up a server. Cheap VPSes are so incredibly cheap though. It'd be great if e.g. middle and high schools would buy hosting for interested students. I doubt it would cost more than a couple grand a year. Also I really wish there was something like a debit card that kids could buy (without ID verification and all that) at retail stores and spend online. I understand the money laundering concern, but it could be limited to low dollar amounts or something.
shazow 13y ago
Very yes. Me as well. I got my first unsupervised access to my grandparents' computer at age 7, but with no Internet. Then at age 10-11 some foundation for underprivileged kids gifted me my own computer with free unlimited dialup and a separate phone line. This was definitely a turning point in my life. The fact that my single mother parent trusted me with my independence was a huge amplifier, too.
- Crake 13y ago
  >Then at age 10-11 some foundation for underprivileged kids gifted me my own computer with free unlimited dialup and a separate phone line. Nowadays we'd just give a scholarship to a rich PoC female.
stchangg 13y ago
I'm a female developer w/ a EE degree, but mostly self-taught wrt coding. My parents were nontechnical, but I was lucky enough to have my own computer and a good internet connection starting around 4th grade (8-9 yrs old). Feeling comfortable "breaking" my computer was another thing. I was deathly afraid of breaking things as a kid (unlike my younger brother), and I think it prevented me from coding and exploring things even earlier. I think becoming a great {coder, thinker, leader, etc.} requires internalizing that at some level, it's okay to break the rules. I eventually found my way onto IRC around age 12, where everyone posed as a 17-yr-old female from LA. I was thankfully super paranoid and fended off child molesters by pretending I was a 56-yr-old man from Texas. ;)
- jebblue 13y ago
  Ironically there was a time when a coding error could lead to physical damage to the screen, even the CPU or other electronics. Also ironically, breaking things is not only half the fun it's maybe 75% of the learning.
  - SamReidHughes 13y ago
    Read the VLC story. That time hasn't passed.
    - jebblue 13y ago
      Good point. Guess the risk is still there, makes things more interesting.
    - timje1 13y ago
      That wasn't VLC's fault, it was Dell putting a 10w sound card with a 7w speaker. It was a hardware problem.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
imsofuture 13y ago
Yep. I wouldn't be much of a technologist if not for computer games (to get me onto the computer), and vast quantities of unsupervised and unfiltered internet at a formative age.
- 10feet 13y ago
  WTF is a technologist?
  - overgryphon 13y ago
    That term really put me off in the article. Just about everyone uses technology to some degree, and I've never heard of someone separate people into "technologist" and "not technologist". It seemed very us vs. them.
simias 13y ago
I don't agree. Having unlimited access to technological resources is great, I don't think anybody is denying that. But with unlimited net access also comes extremely violent videos, social networks with all kinds of shady types hanging around etc... I really don't think it's responsible to let a 9-12 yo alone on the net in their room. Enabling them to access the net easily while still supervising what they do, giving them advice on how to use the web, find what they want etc... That sounds reasonable to me. I may be a bit bias because while I consider myself a hacker I didn't have the net before I was 18 at home. My parents didn't care for it, only when I moved to my own studio did I get an internet subscription. Before that I would use floppies (and later USB sticks) to download stuff from the high school library's computers and buying programming books. Didn't stop me from learning C and writing games on my TI calculator. Maybe I'm just a bit paranoid, but on the web you're always one click away from a video of someone being burned alive or decapitated with a chainsaw.
- krstck 13y ago
  > But with unlimited net access also comes extremely violent videos, social networks with all kinds of shady types hanging around etc... Those are all there in the real world, too. You can't protect kids from anything harmful or scary, nor should you. Stumbling across a porn or horror site is probably more traumatizing for the adult, anyway. It's like people have forgotten what it's like to be a kid! You've been told your whole life what to do, so there is nothing more amazing than the freedom to be treated like everyone else on the internet.
  - d23 13y ago
    Yup, I can honestly say that I wouldn't be the person I am today without that unfettered access. I genuinely consider the internet to have parented me more intellectually than my parents ever did (at least, beyond the age of 10 or so).
  - codygman 13y ago
    You're not really a 4 year old until you see your first beheading on the internet!
krstck 13y ago
> I'd never have been a hacker without vast quantities of unsupervised, unfiltered internet time around age 9-12. Agreed! Those were about the ages I was when I learned to program and fell in love with computers. I became too sensitive to social pressures after that. (One memory I have is of being 13 and intentionally typing slowly in a class so that people wouldn't know that I was a fast typer, and therefore a computer nerd. The horror!) But that age was key to forming my passion for programming. Did I stumble upon "age-inappropriate" material? Of course, but so does any kid that rides a school bus.
dchichkov 13y ago
> Young women don't magically become technologists at 22. It depends. There is no strict requirement onto starting at the early age. Yes, there is a correlation, but no strict requirement. I knew someone, who had really started coding only at around 22, after she had finished a computer science / engineering degree. She was not a tinkerer/nerd, just a regular bright girl, her dad was not an engineer [was an architect]. Only she was really really bright, and she really put in some effort, and just in a few years she became really really good. I've since met many good hackers [having started at 4 and now some 30 years down the line :-/], and I still consider her to be one of the best overall, starting from the love to build things, to clean code and clear thinking, to teamwork...
- hayksaakian 13y ago
  Outliers are outliers
- sillysaurus2 13y ago
  It depends. There is no strict requirement onto starting at the early age. Yes, there is a correlation, but no strict requirement. You'll be excluded by 22 if you haven't started early. Excluded by whom? By nature. It was no accident that Zuck developed Facebook only after years of being a hacker, and that he also developed it while he was relatively young. By 22 you start to take on responsibilities which hinder your ability to learn as efficiently as possible. It's perhaps an unpopular opinion, but nevertheless it seems true from the evidence.
  - erichocean 13y ago
    Well, maybe I am an outlier, but I didn't start programming until I was 20, and didn't seriously get into it until I was 24 (i.e. actually shipping something). And I sure as hell don't think Zuck is "better" at tech or being a hacker than I am. Luckier, perhaps, but not better. I guess we'll see. Also, I was married at 19, and a year later was a father. By 24, I had two children with a third shortly thereafter. So I definitely had the whole "lots of responsibility" thing dynamic, and while I do agree it slowed me down relative to what I could have done if I was single, it wasn't fatal and didn't stop me from learning, or becoming good at what I'm doing. But again, I'm probably an outlier.
quenlinlom 13y ago
It has to be said though that young girls are still significantly discouraged from computers far more often than young boys. The systematic misogyny starts from the family. But instead of addressing that, the writer of this article just waves it away as if feminism is some straw-boogey-woman who is "taking over" the IT field.
Crito 13y ago
I think that even with parents doing their best to keep kids off computers, kids will find a way to stay on computers if it is their passion. Probably about half the time as a 10-16 year old (after 16, my parents stopped caring about what I did or where I went at all) I was banned from computer use for various reasons. That didn't stop me though, I'd go to bed at 10pm, wake up at 2am, then use it until school. Was four hours of sleep every night good for me? Probably not, but kids can get away with that sort of thing. (I was also banned from having my own email address, using IRC or any sort of chat program, having my own blog... Basically my parents were deathly afraid that I would talk to any of my peers, even though they were sending me to public school. Most of my computer bans were for violations of these rules. Circumventing enforcement of these various rules was a significant driving factor in my self-education)
- herokusaki 13y ago
  I find it hard to understand those rules. What country did you grow up in?
  - Crito 13y ago
    Rural America. Conservative religious family. As far as that sort of situation goes, my particular situation was not even particularly extreme. At least they did not make an attempt to censor what books I could read.
    - Crake 13y ago
      Your family sounds like mine, except everything in my house was censored, and I didn't get to go to school, either.
- aestra 13y ago
  Not if you grew up poor like me and didn't actually have access to a computer. I didn't until I was 12 years old. >Was four hours of sleep every night good for me? Probably not, but kids can get away with that sort of thing. No they cannot. Children need sleep, perhaps more than adults. They need sleep for proper development and functioning. They also need more sleep than adults. http://www.webmd.com/parenting/guide/sleep-children http://www.webmd.com/parenting/guide/sleep-children http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-08-12-kidsleep12_ST_N.htm http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-08-12-kid... http://www.atsjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1164/ajrccm.157.4.9704080#.UvjH47TznYY http://www.atsjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1164/ajrccm.157.4.9704... http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1998.tb06149.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1998.... http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/80/5/664.short http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/80/5/664.short
kazagistar 13y ago
My parents limited my video game time, but I managed to convince them that using my game creator software or editing starcraft macros counted as a different category. "Haha, I can build games and play them under the guise of 'testing', I showed them!" Now programming is my job and my hobby. Turns out my parents are smarter then I gave em credit for at the time.
kaybe 13y ago
I'm really curious, why do you think it would be different for a daughter?
tomjakubowski 13y ago
One summer in my childhood, my parents decided to severely restrict my siblings and I's access to the internet for unspecified reasons. We were each allowed 30 minutes use of the family computer and its Internet connection, which was "locked down" by passwords on the BIOS and Windows 98 screensaver. The laptop I shared with my brother and sister was still connected to our home LAN (through one of those crazy Intel AnyPoint phoneline network adapters) so we could print out summer schoolwork and such at our leisure, but Internet access was completely firewalled off. The collaboration between my brother and I to get around these restrictions is one of the earliest memories I have of fruitful "hacking." At the time we both played (and I was obsessed with) a particular MUD, and a half hour per day was not enough playing time, so we wrote a very crude proxy server in VB6 over a week (7 hours between us) that hid in the system tray with a very "system" sounding process name and icon. That way we could connect to the MUD in secret from the laptop, hidden away in our bedroom. I think we later wrote a terrible, barely functional HTTP proxy too. We pulled a few more tricks like reverse engineering the screensaver password (it was stored as a hex string in the registry or something), which turned out to be the same as the BIOS password, before my parents caught onto what we were doing and kind of gave up (maybe they even saw it as a positive learning experience, who knows). That summer introduced me to the idea that a computer is totally malleable in the hands of a determined and motivated person equipped with the right tools. I haven't looked back since.
- girvo 13y ago
  I had the same experience. Various NetNanny-risqué applications placed on the main computer fell to deliberate corruption of their various libraries; I hooked up a tiny Bluetooth dongle to my terrible P2 laptop and the home computer and set up a PAN for access on my phone and computer... eventually the parental units gave up. I now make a lot of money building stuff instead of breaking things :)
- VLM 13y ago
  You owe your parents a beer (or whatever) as I can personally assure you its a heck of a hard job from the other side to implement that difficult enough that they learn something, but easy enough that they do not get discouraged. I started off simpler, like powering down infrastructure, moved on to cabling, then some basic trivial configuration debugging, you get the idea. Its hard work getting the balance just right so they learn something without giving up.
e12e 13y ago
>>Parents are warned to keep kids off the computer >This point cannot be overstated. I'd never have been a hacker without vast quantities of unsupervised, unfiltered internet time around age 9-12. Sure. What about ages 3 to 7? I had access to a computer for those years, but no bbs or internet access (partly it hardly existed, partly we didn't have a modem). You definetively need to parent (all) media access these days - but I generally think if you can't trust your 10 year old to mostly do the right thing you already have a problem... Then again I also think that if you aren't involved with what your (young-ish) children are doing -you're not being a very good parent.. [edit: my point is that today this is a decision that needs to be made up there with bed times, comming in at night/evening times, watchingb(which) movies.. and for non-technical parents that's a decision they'll need help makimg]
rimantas 13y ago
> This point cannot be overstated. Oh, it surely can. I got the first my own PC when I was ~24. I had no access to computers till I was almost 18. However I was very curious about them, I learned to program (with pseudo code) without them and I am still much more curious and willing to learn than many of programmers half my age. It is interest what counts. As they say, one man can lead a horse to the river but even forty won't be able to make it drink.
LinXitoW 13y ago
I think just like with condoms vs. abstinence, the big issue is lazy parenting. Teach them about viruses, about people lying, about phishing etc. , THEN leave them to their own devices. Don't just shut it off because you cant be bothered.
rahw 13y ago
>I'd never have been a hacker without vast quantities of unsupervised, unfiltered internet time around age 9-12. While starting early is obviously a tremendous advantage, it's a shame that it's often discussed in such an exclusive way. For reference, I am a female programmer who got a /relatively/ late start. I took my first cs class because I was embarrassed that I used my computer like an Internet Explorer box. Barely three years later, here I am knee-deep in code with a job offer from Google. Am I an exceptional hacker? No. Can I hold my own with the 'started-at-12' crowd? Pretty much. It saddens me that more people don't feel empowered to dive into a new field. Many people, especially high-achieving students, suffer from the misconception that to succeed in various technical fields, you must specialize early. Whenever an outsider expresses any interest in programming or math, I encourage them to try it. "It's too late for me," and "I'm just not an X person," are common responses. These attitudes are caused in part by the way we STEM folks don't bother as much with non-children. You might tell a little kid about how cool programming is, but do you even attempt a real explanation of your work with a young adult? Your uncle? If so, gold star. If not, you are only contributing to the wall between the tech-savvy and general populace. It's never too late for someone to learn. Too much stress on the early start just adds another barrier to entry for people like myself who lacked either the exposure or awareness to get started sooner. If our goal is to make the tech universe more accessible, we shouldn't be perpetuating the idea that you need a certain background to participate or excel.
- lordCarbonFiber 13y ago
  First off, congrats to you for success. I certainly agree that it's very possible to break into this space at pretty much any stage in your life. However, I think you have the cause and effect of attitudes toward non-children backwards. There is, unfortunately in my opinion, a lot of cultural pressure to develop artificial specializations early. This helps create the "I'm not an X person" mentality which in turn creates a chilling effect toward anyone trying to pass on a passion for technology. The belief in technology as unfathomable magics extends even into other scientific fields among people who are very intelligent (at least in my experience). It tends to be easier to convince a child this is not the case and efforts in technology education have followed the path of least resistance. I think there is huge room to grow in terms of expanding technology education, but I don't know how it's going to happen in an environment where "I'm not an X person" is an acceptable (even encouraged) mentality.
snarfy 13y ago
You had unsupervised, unfiltered internet access when you were 9-12, yet did not hack into banks, steal credit card information, and other crimes? But you are a hacker! Kids do not need to be warned to stay off the computer. They need to be taught right from wrong, to do the right thing, and to respect others.
htns 13y ago
This sounds so sheeple (forgive the expression). What a glorious world when we have hobbies that prepare kids for jobs

weland 13y ago

Yes! Had it not been for the incredible amount of time I spent unsupervised on the Internet, I wouldn't be as good a programmer as I am today. Did I watch porn before I was of legal age? Yep, and I'm in a happy relationship with no sex problems. Break my computer often? Yep, I'd repair it every few days. I was also exposed to a variety of cultures, read about every operating system on Earth (toyed with emulated PDP-11s and VAXen and C64s for days and days) and wrote in every obscure language there is just because I was a kid and had enough time not to worry about whether spending a week to learn Forth was worth the hours I was putting into it.

sillysaurus2 13y ago

This point cannot be overstated. I'd never have been a hacker without vast quantities of unsupervised, unfiltered internet time around age 9-12. Same here. Emphasis on "vast quantities," "unsupervised," and "unfiltered." All three were required.

japhyr 13y ago

> which I was free to break (software-wise) I'm curious, were you on a linux os? Did you break your software often? It seems to me people who get on linux early might have an easier time, because they can so easily break their system and rebuild it. It seems like a kid who breaks a windows/ mac os might need to go to their parents to deal with license keys, which might cause the parents to say "no more hacking".

superuser2 13y ago
OSX so no license keys or activation. I had to ask where the disks were kept the first couple times but I was careful to frame it as "I know what I'm doing, I just need the disks." My parents didn't mind. Also we were covered by AppleCare and I had no problem calling in for myself. This was in the PPC days so no VMs for me. Eventually I got a used PC from my dad's office for like $45 which has probably been through 80 Linux reinstallations. WiFi was a nightmare though, and I eventually gave up on desktop linux. Still have like 4 DO boxes and have experimented endlessly on AWS. Since it is impossible to autonomously do payments on the internet before age 18, my parents' willingness to let me use their credit card (and then settle accounts each month via allowance and occasionally debits from my savings) was also crucial. No other way I would have been able to play with web hosting or actually make any projects live.
- japhyr 13y ago
  > Since it is impossible to autonomously do payments on the internet before age 18, my parents' willingness to let me use their credit card I'm a high school teacher, and I teach some intro programming classes once in a while. I teach primarily low-income/ at-risk students, and this is one piece of the puzzle that keeps my students from gaining more real-world experience. It's a hard issue, too, because you can rack up a big bill if you think you know more than you do. So I can't really tell parents they should give their kids access to a credit card. Many parents probably don't even have a credit card. That said, there is plenty of learning you can do by building your own server. This issue is not the main thing holding my students back, but I am aware that it will be an issue as soon as I start building stronger skills in my students. Thank you for sharing your story!
  - superuser2 13y ago
    >That said, there is plenty of learning you can do by building your own server. I've thought about that, but it really seems to be more expensive and less useful. DigitalOcean is $60/year and already has a server-grade internet connection. I could build a $500 server and host it illegally on my Road Runner connection (256kbps upstream) but that'd be inferior service for a lot more money. >It's a hard issue, too, because you can rack up a big bill if you think you know more than you do. This is certainly the case with AWS and a credit card, but on (for example) Linode or DigitalOcean it's pretty hard to "accidentally" spin up a server. Cheap VPSes are so incredibly cheap though. It'd be great if e.g. middle and high schools would buy hosting for interested students. I doubt it would cost more than a couple grand a year. Also I really wish there was something like a debit card that kids could buy (without ID verification and all that) at retail stores and spend online. I understand the money laundering concern, but it could be limited to low dollar amounts or something.

shazow 13y ago

Very yes. Me as well. I got my first unsupervised access to my grandparents' computer at age 7, but with no Internet. Then at age 10-11 some foundation for underprivileged kids gifted me my own computer with free unlimited dialup and a separate phone line. This was definitely a turning point in my life. The fact that my single mother parent trusted me with my independence was a huge amplifier, too.

Crake 13y ago
>Then at age 10-11 some foundation for underprivileged kids gifted me my own computer with free unlimited dialup and a separate phone line. Nowadays we'd just give a scholarship to a rich PoC female.

stchangg 13y ago

I'm a female developer w/ a EE degree, but mostly self-taught wrt coding. My parents were nontechnical, but I was lucky enough to have my own computer and a good internet connection starting around 4th grade (8-9 yrs old). Feeling comfortable "breaking" my computer was another thing. I was deathly afraid of breaking things as a kid (unlike my younger brother), and I think it prevented me from coding and exploring things even earlier. I think becoming a great {coder, thinker, leader, etc.} requires internalizing that at some level, it's okay to break the rules. I eventually found my way onto IRC around age 12, where everyone posed as a 17-yr-old female from LA. I was thankfully super paranoid and fended off child molesters by pretending I was a 56-yr-old man from Texas. ;)

jebblue 13y ago
Ironically there was a time when a coding error could lead to physical damage to the screen, even the CPU or other electronics. Also ironically, breaking things is not only half the fun it's maybe 75% of the learning.
- SamReidHughes 13y ago
  Read the VLC story. That time hasn't passed.
  - jebblue 13y ago
    Good point. Guess the risk is still there, makes things more interesting.
  - timje1 13y ago
    That wasn't VLC's fault, it was Dell putting a 10w sound card with a 7w speaker. It was a hardware problem.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

imsofuture 13y ago

Yep. I wouldn't be much of a technologist if not for computer games (to get me onto the computer), and vast quantities of unsupervised and unfiltered internet at a formative age.

10feet 13y ago
WTF is a technologist?
- overgryphon 13y ago
  That term really put me off in the article. Just about everyone uses technology to some degree, and I've never heard of someone separate people into "technologist" and "not technologist". It seemed very us vs. them.

simias 13y ago

I don't agree. Having unlimited access to technological resources is great, I don't think anybody is denying that. But with unlimited net access also comes extremely violent videos, social networks with all kinds of shady types hanging around etc... I really don't think it's responsible to let a 9-12 yo alone on the net in their room. Enabling them to access the net easily while still supervising what they do, giving them advice on how to use the web, find what they want etc... That sounds reasonable to me. I may be a bit bias because while I consider myself a hacker I didn't have the net before I was 18 at home. My parents didn't care for it, only when I moved to my own studio did I get an internet subscription. Before that I would use floppies (and later USB sticks) to download stuff from the high school library's computers and buying programming books. Didn't stop me from learning C and writing games on my TI calculator. Maybe I'm just a bit paranoid, but on the web you're always one click away from a video of someone being burned alive or decapitated with a chainsaw.

krstck 13y ago
> But with unlimited net access also comes extremely violent videos, social networks with all kinds of shady types hanging around etc... Those are all there in the real world, too. You can't protect kids from anything harmful or scary, nor should you. Stumbling across a porn or horror site is probably more traumatizing for the adult, anyway. It's like people have forgotten what it's like to be a kid! You've been told your whole life what to do, so there is nothing more amazing than the freedom to be treated like everyone else on the internet.
- d23 13y ago
  Yup, I can honestly say that I wouldn't be the person I am today without that unfettered access. I genuinely consider the internet to have parented me more intellectually than my parents ever did (at least, beyond the age of 10 or so).
- codygman 13y ago
  You're not really a 4 year old until you see your first beheading on the internet!

krstck 13y ago

> I'd never have been a hacker without vast quantities of unsupervised, unfiltered internet time around age 9-12. Agreed! Those were about the ages I was when I learned to program and fell in love with computers. I became too sensitive to social pressures after that. (One memory I have is of being 13 and intentionally typing slowly in a class so that people wouldn't know that I was a fast typer, and therefore a computer nerd. The horror!) But that age was key to forming my passion for programming. Did I stumble upon "age-inappropriate" material? Of course, but so does any kid that rides a school bus.

dchichkov 13y ago

> Young women don't magically become technologists at 22. It depends. There is no strict requirement onto starting at the early age. Yes, there is a correlation, but no strict requirement. I knew someone, who had really started coding only at around 22, after she had finished a computer science / engineering degree. She was not a tinkerer/nerd, just a regular bright girl, her dad was not an engineer [was an architect]. Only she was really really bright, and she really put in some effort, and just in a few years she became really really good. I've since met many good hackers [having started at 4 and now some 30 years down the line :-/], and I still consider her to be one of the best overall, starting from the love to build things, to clean code and clear thinking, to teamwork...

hayksaakian 13y ago
Outliers are outliers
sillysaurus2 13y ago
It depends. There is no strict requirement onto starting at the early age. Yes, there is a correlation, but no strict requirement. You'll be excluded by 22 if you haven't started early. Excluded by whom? By nature. It was no accident that Zuck developed Facebook only after years of being a hacker, and that he also developed it while he was relatively young. By 22 you start to take on responsibilities which hinder your ability to learn as efficiently as possible. It's perhaps an unpopular opinion, but nevertheless it seems true from the evidence.
- erichocean 13y ago
  Well, maybe I am an outlier, but I didn't start programming until I was 20, and didn't seriously get into it until I was 24 (i.e. actually shipping something). And I sure as hell don't think Zuck is "better" at tech or being a hacker than I am. Luckier, perhaps, but not better. I guess we'll see. Also, I was married at 19, and a year later was a father. By 24, I had two children with a third shortly thereafter. So I definitely had the whole "lots of responsibility" thing dynamic, and while I do agree it slowed me down relative to what I could have done if I was single, it wasn't fatal and didn't stop me from learning, or becoming good at what I'm doing. But again, I'm probably an outlier.

quenlinlom 13y ago

It has to be said though that young girls are still significantly discouraged from computers far more often than young boys. The systematic misogyny starts from the family. But instead of addressing that, the writer of this article just waves it away as if feminism is some straw-boogey-woman who is "taking over" the IT field.

Crito 13y ago

I think that even with parents doing their best to keep kids off computers, kids will find a way to stay on computers if it is their passion. Probably about half the time as a 10-16 year old (after 16, my parents stopped caring about what I did or where I went at all) I was banned from computer use for various reasons. That didn't stop me though, I'd go to bed at 10pm, wake up at 2am, then use it until school. Was four hours of sleep every night good for me? Probably not, but kids can get away with that sort of thing. (I was also banned from having my own email address, using IRC or any sort of chat program, having my own blog... Basically my parents were deathly afraid that I would talk to any of my peers, even though they were sending me to public school. Most of my computer bans were for violations of these rules. Circumventing enforcement of these various rules was a significant driving factor in my self-education)

herokusaki 13y ago
I find it hard to understand those rules. What country did you grow up in?
- Crito 13y ago
  Rural America. Conservative religious family. As far as that sort of situation goes, my particular situation was not even particularly extreme. At least they did not make an attempt to censor what books I could read.
  - Crake 13y ago
    Your family sounds like mine, except everything in my house was censored, and I didn't get to go to school, either.
aestra 13y ago
Not if you grew up poor like me and didn't actually have access to a computer. I didn't until I was 12 years old. >Was four hours of sleep every night good for me? Probably not, but kids can get away with that sort of thing. No they cannot. Children need sleep, perhaps more than adults. They need sleep for proper development and functioning. They also need more sleep than adults. http://www.webmd.com/parenting/guide/sleep-children http://www.webmd.com/parenting/guide/sleep-children http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-08-12-kidsleep12_ST_N.htm http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-08-12-kid... http://www.atsjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1164/ajrccm.157.4.9704080#.UvjH47TznYY http://www.atsjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1164/ajrccm.157.4.9704... http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1998.tb06149.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1998.... http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/80/5/664.short http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/80/5/664.short

kazagistar 13y ago

My parents limited my video game time, but I managed to convince them that using my game creator software or editing starcraft macros counted as a different category. "Haha, I can build games and play them under the guise of 'testing', I showed them!" Now programming is my job and my hobby. Turns out my parents are smarter then I gave em credit for at the time.

kaybe 13y ago

I'm really curious, why do you think it would be different for a daughter?

tomjakubowski 13y ago

One summer in my childhood, my parents decided to severely restrict my siblings and I's access to the internet for unspecified reasons. We were each allowed 30 minutes use of the family computer and its Internet connection, which was "locked down" by passwords on the BIOS and Windows 98 screensaver. The laptop I shared with my brother and sister was still connected to our home LAN (through one of those crazy Intel AnyPoint phoneline network adapters) so we could print out summer schoolwork and such at our leisure, but Internet access was completely firewalled off. The collaboration between my brother and I to get around these restrictions is one of the earliest memories I have of fruitful "hacking." At the time we both played (and I was obsessed with) a particular MUD, and a half hour per day was not enough playing time, so we wrote a very crude proxy server in VB6 over a week (7 hours between us) that hid in the system tray with a very "system" sounding process name and icon. That way we could connect to the MUD in secret from the laptop, hidden away in our bedroom. I think we later wrote a terrible, barely functional HTTP proxy too. We pulled a few more tricks like reverse engineering the screensaver password (it was stored as a hex string in the registry or something), which turned out to be the same as the BIOS password, before my parents caught onto what we were doing and kind of gave up (maybe they even saw it as a positive learning experience, who knows). That summer introduced me to the idea that a computer is totally malleable in the hands of a determined and motivated person equipped with the right tools. I haven't looked back since.

girvo 13y ago
I had the same experience. Various NetNanny-risqué applications placed on the main computer fell to deliberate corruption of their various libraries; I hooked up a tiny Bluetooth dongle to my terrible P2 laptop and the home computer and set up a PAN for access on my phone and computer... eventually the parental units gave up. I now make a lot of money building stuff instead of breaking things :)
VLM 13y ago
You owe your parents a beer (or whatever) as I can personally assure you its a heck of a hard job from the other side to implement that difficult enough that they learn something, but easy enough that they do not get discouraged. I started off simpler, like powering down infrastructure, moved on to cabling, then some basic trivial configuration debugging, you get the idea. Its hard work getting the balance just right so they learn something without giving up.

e12e 13y ago

>>Parents are warned to keep kids off the computer >This point cannot be overstated. I'd never have been a hacker without vast quantities of unsupervised, unfiltered internet time around age 9-12. Sure. What about ages 3 to 7? I had access to a computer for those years, but no bbs or internet access (partly it hardly existed, partly we didn't have a modem). You definetively need to parent (all) media access these days - but I generally think if you can't trust your 10 year old to mostly do the right thing you already have a problem... Then again I also think that if you aren't involved with what your (young-ish) children are doing -you're not being a very good parent.. [edit: my point is that today this is a decision that needs to be made up there with bed times, comming in at night/evening times, watchingb(which) movies.. and for non-technical parents that's a decision they'll need help makimg]

rimantas 13y ago

> This point cannot be overstated. Oh, it surely can. I got the first my own PC when I was ~24. I had no access to computers till I was almost 18. However I was very curious about them, I learned to program (with pseudo code) without them and I am still much more curious and willing to learn than many of programmers half my age. It is interest what counts. As they say, one man can lead a horse to the river but even forty won't be able to make it drink.

LinXitoW 13y ago

I think just like with condoms vs. abstinence, the big issue is lazy parenting. Teach them about viruses, about people lying, about phishing etc. , THEN leave them to their own devices. Don't just shut it off because you cant be bothered.

rahw 13y ago

>I'd never have been a hacker without vast quantities of unsupervised, unfiltered internet time around age 9-12. While starting early is obviously a tremendous advantage, it's a shame that it's often discussed in such an exclusive way. For reference, I am a female programmer who got a /relatively/ late start. I took my first cs class because I was embarrassed that I used my computer like an Internet Explorer box. Barely three years later, here I am knee-deep in code with a job offer from Google. Am I an exceptional hacker? No. Can I hold my own with the 'started-at-12' crowd? Pretty much. It saddens me that more people don't feel empowered to dive into a new field. Many people, especially high-achieving students, suffer from the misconception that to succeed in various technical fields, you must specialize early. Whenever an outsider expresses any interest in programming or math, I encourage them to try it. "It's too late for me," and "I'm just not an X person," are common responses. These attitudes are caused in part by the way we STEM folks don't bother as much with non-children. You might tell a little kid about how cool programming is, but do you even attempt a real explanation of your work with a young adult? Your uncle? If so, gold star. If not, you are only contributing to the wall between the tech-savvy and general populace. It's never too late for someone to learn. Too much stress on the early start just adds another barrier to entry for people like myself who lacked either the exposure or awareness to get started sooner. If our goal is to make the tech universe more accessible, we shouldn't be perpetuating the idea that you need a certain background to participate or excel.

lordCarbonFiber 13y ago
First off, congrats to you for success. I certainly agree that it's very possible to break into this space at pretty much any stage in your life. However, I think you have the cause and effect of attitudes toward non-children backwards. There is, unfortunately in my opinion, a lot of cultural pressure to develop artificial specializations early. This helps create the "I'm not an X person" mentality which in turn creates a chilling effect toward anyone trying to pass on a passion for technology. The belief in technology as unfathomable magics extends even into other scientific fields among people who are very intelligent (at least in my experience). It tends to be easier to convince a child this is not the case and efforts in technology education have followed the path of least resistance. I think there is huge room to grow in terms of expanding technology education, but I don't know how it's going to happen in an environment where "I'm not an X person" is an acceptable (even encouraged) mentality.

snarfy 13y ago

You had unsupervised, unfiltered internet access when you were 9-12, yet did not hack into banks, steal credit card information, and other crimes? But you are a hacker! Kids do not need to be warned to stay off the computer. They need to be taught right from wrong, to do the right thing, and to respect others.

htns 13y ago

This sounds so sheeple (forgive the expression). What a glorious world when we have hobbies that prepare kids for jobs