alt Hacker Newsgeohot is lucky to have grown up in proper hacker culture, doing CTFs, poking at hardware. I've only touched the surface of this from the outside. One time I got root on my network switch, but that was about it. And now I feel like I've wasted my life. Geohot made a pretty big difference to the world with his hardware hacking.
Separate thought: This new information world can be fought, but it's the war against capital and power, and that cannot be won, only resisted until the side with the capital and power becomes so incompetent and detached from reality that it collapses by itself (this is happening now, slowly; it happened already in the Soviet Union), and then we can shape what comes afterwards. But there probably won't be as much computer technology post-collapse.
The key, as I’ve been saying lately, is to begin building more local networks (meshes, IP over radio, sneakernets) that are totally disconnected from the normal internet. Put up a BBS that your friends can only get to by connecting over radio, or set up a private Reticulum chat with a functional non-Internet access path. Maybe set up a neighborhood wifi captive portal message board on an ESP32, hidden in a solar light.
If there are Bad Times ahead, it will be good to have this as a tested option. If not, you get a cozy private space to talk with people you know, outside of the surveillance grid.