As far as I know, if you hack a computer without changing anything, it's not illegal.

If you have control to someones computer, open a file and upload it to your computer, it's illegal. But if you just send the file with e-mail, it's not illegal =-)
At least, in my country =-P

If you want to hack, it's almost impossible if you're not a good programmer. Unless you download some hack programs from the internet. If I were you I wouldn't try to download hack programs, most of them are trojans or backdoors. And what are you going to do about it? Go to the police =-)?

Learn how to program. I think Perl, JAVA, C++, Visual Basic are good.

Byez,

Brainpower