unfortunatly, law enforcement is starting to treat it as the same thing - same level crime with same level punishment. seriously, you could get prosecuted. and if you do - you will need to hire a lawyer. and no one is going to ask or care about what security patch level that server was at. all they are going to ask is what were you doing in a network where you don't belong. this is serious business.
that is correct and I think that that should not be. I mean breaking into a bank is much different than into some one personal lan. cuz if your trying to break into a bank you are or at least think you are very talented at what you do but some one just trying to break in to a personal lan is not and most likely is just a kid doing something he read about and thinks if he follows what he read about exactly that he cant get caught and will find out how wrong he was the hard way. and he will go to jail for a wile because people don’t know enough to see that all they see is a hacker that they have been taught is the devil of the internet and is someone who needs to be locked up for as long as they can put him away no matter what.