back to origin issue:

hacker / cracker !!
i totally agree with you Phat_Penguin regarding the 9/11 thing.
but since i live in the meddileeast, i have 2 views ( mine and the community )
as for me: hackers are a well educated peeps with a very high scurity skills and i respect them, unless they go for illigal actions.
if a hacker brakes into computers without informing Admins about the hole he went through, he is a cracker and no more hacker.

the community view: it's not easy to find well computer educated peeps to vary between hacker / cracker, they just hear the word hacker in a movei, news or other peeps.
thats why the def. hacker been used widly as an illigal computer scurity actions ( brakes into computers ) but regular / normal peeps don't understand.

-bimmer