Although my views are'nt taken seriously around here as of late, Ill throw this into the mix:
Consider that when the apple guys built their first system back in 1978, I was in the 3rd grade, taking 5th grade science and 6th grade math. I became an enthusiast by 4th grade, repairing radio and televisions and stuff, usually making them work better when done.
I recieved my first computer at age 11, a timex sinclair with a tape drive. I had so many little program errors on that thing, i decided i needed to learn coding to fix the bugs in the programs. I almost consider that hacking in the sense that I was reverse engineering the programs, mostly in BASIC i believe, to repair them.
That was in 1983 (i think), before the War Games movie came out. ( I sound old now)
When the term "hacker" hit the street, the media found a new outlet to spew forth falsifications and mis-judgements. (IMHO) Therefore, people believed that the word "hacker" meant anything bad to do with computers.
The word "cracker" on the other hand, thats a new breed of people. Not the ones i remember as being the absent-minded people of the rural southeastern United States, but a type of person out for malicious activity and "snooping" for personal gains or devilish acts upon society and other things.
I believe I've added enough to this already lengthy thread.
BTW,AO-HELL has been hacking ever since version 5 software came out, yet millions of moronic, don't-know-any-better people still use it. Why?