When I was a teenager I had a realization that if I had super powers I’d probably end up a super villain instead of a super hero.

I told my dad this and he said something to the effect of “that’s why the universe didn’t give you super powers.”

In hacking meetups, there’s often a rule, “don’t hack the venue”.

They mean “don’t mess with the place hosting the meetup.”

But it’s also sort of become the rule for anywhere you hang out.

“Don’t hack the venue.”

See my problem is, I can’t NOT hack the venue.

Clarification:

I don’t want to do any damage.

I’m not trying to steal money or break anything.

But I love doing stuff like messing with the TVs with my Flipper Zero.

I like popping open the gas tank doors on every Tesla I walk by.

Even at our favorite bar, all I did was mute and unmute a TV and my best friend said “stop dude. We know people here. You can’t do that.”

At bars I don’t like, I have straight up just turned off TVs.

Walking around a $10 million dollar show house in the Vegas hills, I started messing with the smart TVs, but my dad was pretty impressed so it was fun.

I didn’t hurt anything and I made sure I got them back to normal before it would have affected anything.

I end up in these 8 to 9 figure houses every so often with my day job and it’s become a running joke that I always take a picture of myself in their server rooms.

One time the architect himself led me to it and was pretty amused with my ritual.

Were I more deserving, I’d get into a career in IoT and smart home penetration testing.

But see:

I don’t deserve these skills.

I got pretty drunk that night in the Vegas hills and I tried to lock pick our way back into the hotel later.

(That’s a different story for a different time.)

So this is why I don’t deserve nice things like hacking skills.

I guess I shouldn’t even get started on all the manipulation tactics I’ve learned during my one point five decades working in marketing.

Social engineering is a skill I’ve improved quite a bit and now need to be careful with how I use it.

But in the end:

I won’t let myself pursue a career in cyber security because I know, I KNOW, I will be the dude who just has to mess with everything because it makes me laugh.

And any professional in cyber security will agree: I should not do that.

I don’t deserve to be a hacker because I will hack the venue.