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[Short thread] So my 9yo kid has recently become aware of the vague concept of "hackers" and "hacking things," likely via word-of-mouth from school-mates who've been sucked into some weird YouTube channels.
Since he sees me working from home regularly in my role as a Sales Engineer with a cloud security company, he then quickly reached the conclusion that I must be a hacker. I did not disabuse him of this notion, despite my total lack of any real hacking skills 😅
He has spent the past few days asking if I would "show him how to hack something." Given that he's 9 and has lived his entire life in a touch-enabled, iPad-centric world, I had to put some thought into how I was gonna approach this.
My association with the word "Hackers" is rooted in the book "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" by @StevenLevy. As a teen I read & re-read my paperback copy until it literally fell apart. Pictured is my original copy, it's more tape than paper now, and I still adore it 
In the spirit of the "Hacker Ethos" outlined in the book, I decided that it was less important that my son "make something" than it was that he make something *happen* - in other words, get him hooked by tapping into his excitement instead of bogging him down in details.
So last night before bed, I fired up a Terminal window on my Mac, set it to full screen, set the text to radioactive green, and talked him through his first TELNET session. We telnetted to "telehack.com," an awesome site that recreates a vintage 80's-era USENET service
Between the green "Hacker style" Terminal text, odd commands he'd not heard before, and general air of "doing something he maybe shouldn't be doing, but it's okay because Dad's doing it with me," he was virtually humming with barely-repressed excitement.
Once connected to telehack.com, I had him type "ELIZA" and he had his first-ever "conversation" with the same "AI" that I was playing with when I was just a little older than he is now. He was ENRAPTURED by the idea that he was "talking with the computer."
His chatter with ELIZA started out pretty polite and formal, but quickly devolved into him doing everything he could to annoy the AI. It was hilarious! He had *so much fun* and immediately asked when we could "hack into ELIZA" again. #MissionAccomplished [End Thread]
