What do you think of when you hear the word 'hack'? Do you think of an honest American hacking away at a freshly-felled oak? Do you think of an old-age pensioner trying to get a hole-in-one on the 18th hole? Do you think of a crazed axe murderer bludgeoning his neighbour's brains out with blow after sickening blow? No, most of you think of a lank-haired, masturbation-addicted, socially-retarded greaseball, sat naked save for a pair of semen-encrusted underwear, hunched over a flickering monitor, discussing illegal activities such as 'pinging' Microsoft web-servers, or encrypting their tarballs with gzip.
I think of hacking as the woodman. I am the woodman. My keyboard is my axe. The program is my log. The splinters are the bugs in my program that must be avoided. While I could go on a murderous rampage with my axe, slaying all before me in a bloody rampage of bodily fluids and viscera being rent asunder, I instead use my skills for good. I use the only approved and legal version of L.I.N.U.X., the Redhat operating system, which lacks many of the dangerous tools that malicious users like, such as ping, ssh, and xemacs (used to write many a nimda worm I can tell you).
While some people will attempt to skirt the whole issue with high-falutin' talk about 'hackers and crackers', there's only one thing that matters at the end of the day: ethics. Much like when you decide to buy a woman a drink rather than rape her, you must use your hacking skills for good and control any malicious impulses you may have.