This is hacking under federal law, as it should be. Likewise that if I break into your house by merely exploiting a weakness in the design of the lock, I am still committing a crime.
If someone charges for tours of part of their house, has two prices of tour, and you change the colour of your badge to let you access the part you haven't paid for, is that a crime?
Sounds like some form of fraud to me. What's the difference between that and simply forging a ticket to an event instead of buying one? Or forging a currency note?
OK, the better example from further down. You realise your badge lets you into areas of the premium tour, it opens all doors, not just the ones you paid for it to open.
And even if it is fraud of some kind, the bar for charging someone with fraud (instead of just suing for damages) is fairly high...
Well yes, but bandwidth is practically free anyway. I'm not actually stealing computer resources. It's more akin to looking at the Mona Lisa through one of the Louvre's windows using a pair of binoculars.