Hacking can be like trashing. It looks like garbage or a waste of time to most, but if you keep your mind open, you can learn a lot. I should note that I've never taken a computer course, nor do I intend to. I used to make free phone calls all the time. Now, obviously, I can't do that, since I'm in the public eye, but that's not a drawback to me because I can still experiment all I want.
Nothing can change that.
For the most part I was careful while I was doing these things, but there was one time when my luck ran out. I had been using Telemail to communicate with some other people and they, unknown to us, had been looking for hackers on their system. I believe four people got indicted in that adventure. I was one of them. Bill Landreth was another.