Anyone could technically. What they need is a deep understanding of a system, and knowledge in a lot of domains. Also, anon, I understand where that "stealing rats" came from, but not all hackers are malicious.
There's this thing called white hat hacker who practices ethical hacking for security improvement purposes.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.