alt Hacker Newsit wasn't a brag or anything, i just don't know by what means i would've been introduced to that stuff other than game cheats. 15-year-old-me definitely did not care about crackmes or malware reversing.
i did start writing code in middle school, though. php, mostly :)
you sound like me, I was a little younger though ... aimbots, wallhacks, esp, textures, radar, it was all intriguing and I hated encountering cheaters in CS 1.4 and 1.5. I also began dabbling in writing bots around this time, as POD Bot was awesome!
php had also been a thing of mine, I spent many months in DALnet and EFnet #php. Primarily around the time of v3 prior to v4's big launch...