Similar situation: I legit taught myself how to use aircrack-ng when I was like 12 because I wanted to play Mario Kart on my grandma’s Wii, but it needed internet to download an update, which she didn’t have. However, the neighbor had a WEP-encrypted network, and I was staying the night. The rest is history.
I was already really interested in computers myself. My own explosion of interest was a game called WarioWare: D.I.Y. that let you make minigames using a built-in editor.
I’m old enough you have to replace “cracking neighbors wifi” with cloning our modem and “youtube” with funny pictures from irc homies, but same. Working around internet access restrictions was a milestone between fun things I could do with computers and how they really worked
They would unplug our isp provided modem and take it to bed with them, so I tracked down another one from the manufacturer and copied the eeprom from theirs onto it. It was a simpler time :p
My son did this…
Congrats, pretty sure “mom took away my internet” is the primary entry point for IT professionals
Similar situation: I legit taught myself how to use aircrack-ng when I was like 12 because I wanted to play Mario Kart on my grandma’s Wii, but it needed internet to download an update, which she didn’t have. However, the neighbor had a WEP-encrypted network, and I was staying the night. The rest is history.
I was already really interested in computers myself. My own explosion of interest was a game called WarioWare: D.I.Y. that let you make minigames using a built-in editor.
I’m old enough you have to replace “cracking neighbors wifi” with cloning our modem and “youtube” with funny pictures from irc homies, but same. Working around internet access restrictions was a milestone between fun things I could do with computers and how they really worked
What’s the modem clone about?
They would unplug our isp provided modem and take it to bed with them, so I tracked down another one from the manufacturer and copied the eeprom from theirs onto it. It was a simpler time :p