So cool that you're on HN (and alive, of course). My interest in hacking began when I read The Cuckoo's Egg as a kid.
Now, of course, the book's antique: Arpanet? 1200 baud modems? Phone booths? If you know what those are, then you're probably worrying about 401(K)'s and Medicare."Astute" would be quite a surprise for my parents to hear, given they received a not-so-friendly letter from our ISP telling us to quit probing their network's security...