My 13 year-old cousin hacked into his school's system. What advice would you give?
sounddust: When I was in high school, I guessed the administrator password of our computer lab (it was the administrator's daughter's first name) and basically maintained the computer lab for the rest of the semester.  I never did any harm in the process.  The administrator, upon finding out what I had done, recognized that I knew what I was doing, and supported my work.  I fixed permissions that repaired apps that had been mysteriously broken for years, reset other students' passwords at their request, and lots of other helpful things..Then one day my teacher switched places with the only other person who had the admin password, and she didn't know about what I had been doing.  When she found out that I had administrator access, she was infuriated.  She called me a "hacker" and reported me to the principal.  The principal planned to give me a 0 in the class and possibly expel me from school.  The only people who were allowed to be in the "hearing" which decided my fate was the pissed off teacher and the principal.  The administrator, who vouched for me, was told that no one asked for his opinion and that it wasn't relevant.   I almost failed to graduate because of this, and it was only through being persistent and involving every teacher I knew that I managed to not fail (the principal reduced my grade to 75/100 instead of failing me).I would tell your son that most adults who have authority  (including principals, teachers, judges and police officers) do not understand technology and computers very well, and therefore it's important to not only operate within the scope of the law and rules of his school, but to also not even appear to operate outside those rules.  Computers are cheap, and in 2009 there's not much more interesting in his school's network than what he can set up on a $200 netbook.