Its time to accept that the meaning of the word hacker has changed.
Actually the meaning hasn't really changed at all. The original "hackers" broke into computers and networks to play pranks on their collegues in the AI lab. Later "hackers" hacked the phone system to make free long distance calls. I find Paul Buchheit's definition of "hacking" the most accurate: find and exploit differences between the perceived rules and the real underlying mechanisms of a complex system. This can be perfectly legal in some cases, and illegal in others. It is all hacking nevertheless.
Perhaps I should rather have said "The word hacker will never be fully reclaimed".
On non-hacker sites it has yes. But here on HN we can use it properly.
See my above comment. I think it is used properly here and "cracker" is superfluous ...
True, but the word has been reclaimed more than I thought it would be when I first read some screed (ESR?) on the difference between the two. Remember the breathless news reports in the late 90s showing green on black websites of "hacker groups"? It's only natural that the word Hacker has these connotations since the first crackers were hackers. Now people talk about this or that hack without worrying that they'll be arrested or kicked out of school.