How about hackers everywhere give up on reclaiming this term. It's not going to happen. That way I don't have to see this post on every single story about malicious intrusion that comes up on social news sites.
Similarly a term such as "killer" may have an extremely negative connotation in the context of a grisly homicide yet the same word may have a positive connotation and a completely different meaning (dominant, superlative, desirable) in other connotations. Such is the dynamic, flexible, and adaptive nature of language (outside the realm of the pedant).
1 : one that hacks 2 : a person who is inexperienced or unskilled at a particular activity <a tennis hacker> 3 : an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer 4 : a person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers with information in a computer system
Three out of four possible Merriam-Webster definitions are negative.