What is a hacker....?

well, hackers are the backbone of computers and/or the internet, without hackers we wouldn't have irc, without hackers we wouldnt have a lot of things, hackers are good, crackers are bad. i dont believe in the black/white/gray stereotypes, look at the *most* infamous 'hacker' in history, kevin mitnick, he could have been the richest man on earth if he had wanted but instead he used his abilities to further his knowledge and understanding, that is what a true hacker does, again, hackers = good, crackers = bad.

The defintion on cyberangels.org is good. The rest of the stuff about hacking is a bunch of krud, like

Quote:

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How can I tell if my computer has been "hacked" or broken into?
Some telltale symptoms are:
-Mysterious files suddenly appearing.
-CD drawer opening and closing by itself
-Runtime errors in MS Outlook/Outlook Express.
-Finding emails in your sent items folder that you didn't send.
-Files moved or deleted unexpectedly.
-Icons on your desktop or toolbars are blank or missing.
-Mouse feels sluggish, like someone else is trying to control it.

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My favourite ignorant remark is the last one, Mouse feels sluggish, like someone else is trying to control it...That's possible in a server/trojan but highly unlikely...

For me a hacker is someone who uses his knowledge to get more knowledge...

I recently had this discussion with a couple of my friends. I hold the view that a hacker is someone that possess a great knowledge about computers and programming. They are someone who enjoy the challenge of overcoming limitations placed before them, which can be looked at either in a bad way or a good way. They also enjoy to learn excessively. I really hate the pop culture definition of a hacker because it always assumes a hacker to be someone who breaks into other's computers, sure all hackers can do this, but I believe this is where the line between hacker and cracker begins. Just my honest opinion.