Hacker or Cracker?

I was under the impression that program writers and IT security professionals were considered hackers.Individuals who break into sites or puters for malicous purposes were crackers.Lets clear this up...thx

it is like that .....or depends what kind of hacker, white hat, gray hat or black hat ?

Hacker and Cracker are diferent. However, nowadays press mix up both and everybody is using the term "hacker" as a bad adjective. No one in world can revert that :(

Please understand that this is my view.............I am not contradicting any of the previous posts.

In my day, a "hacker" was someone who could get things done, outside of the "rules"

A "cracker" on the other hand, sought access to sotware codes?

I believe that the Media have take these terms an distorted them?

just my opinion :)