Evulish, Jon: Thank you.
I rarely have the patience to try to explain this sort of thing, but quoting The Jargon File is pretty easy.
The Jargon File:
www.jargon.org (
http://tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/ ) is basically the Hacker's Dictionary. It's a compendium of terms (jargon), maintained by Eric S. Raymond, whom Jon mentioned in his earlier post.
The Jargon File defines a hacker as "[a] person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary." This entire definition, which I hold to be true, explains that a "hacker" is someone who enjoys learning, and being able to take full advantage of resources given to him/herself.
Further, the last definition (yes, it is a dictionary with multiple definitions per term, if the situation calls for it) in the entry for the term "hacker" is "8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence `password hacker', `network hacker'. The correct term for this sense is cracker." The term "deprecated" is used to mean "obsolete" or "unused".
Even further we travel with the definition of a "cracker", "One who breaks security on a system."
There you have it, a little clarification.
Please try not to misuse the term "hacker", for those of us who tend to identify with it, when it is misused, it's fairly offensive. Try to instead adopt the term "cracker" into your vocabulary.
Thank you for your time.