I've done plenty of tricky things to people in my day. Before I knew how to program, I downloaded that nasty program Sub7, sent the server file to my friends via ICQ and had lots of fun (like, fetishistic fun, made their printers print stuff, had fake message boxes pop up, took control of their mouse, inverted their screen, changed their wallpaper, etc).
Once I started to learn how to program I got the passwords from the computer teachers at school by writing a keylogger. I also managed to spy on my family by augmenting my key logger to also take screenshots every minute or so, and save it to a hidden location.
It was fun and all, but I never considered it hacking. But, everything I read nowadays, regardless of how complex a scheme it is, they are referred to as 'script kiddies' or 'not real hackers,' etc. I mean, I viewed a comment someone posted on a CNN news story about some guy that stole millions of dollars via his computer that said "wow, that guy is just a script kiddy, I bet he doesn't even know how to format his own hard drive." I don't know how hard it would be, realistically, to steal millions of dollars. Granted, the guy didnt get away with it either.
Please make pretty comments on my thread. I will heart you forever.