hacking != bad; (note for non-programmers ! means not)
vandalism = bad;
My best suggestion is to buy / checkout books about networking, secuirty, operating systems, and high level programming langauges like c++. Stay away from hacking communties, most of the time they're just a bunch of script kiddies who spend to much time in irc.
You don't just read one tutorial off google and know what you're doing.