Sadly, once the meeja get the wrong end of the stick with a word, that's that. In the software world, "hacker" used to be a badge of pride, and a "hack" described a bit of creative cleverness; nowadays, any act of electronic vandalism or online lockpicking gets called a "hack", and I end up shouting at the TV. It's largely careless labelling by newspaper reporters and subeditors who would themselves be offended by being called "hacks".