"Cracker" is a very specific term that relates to those who hack static files, by breaking encryption, etc. A cracker might discover a back-door, but if they exploit it to access a running server, that's not cracking, that's hacking.
Hacker is a general term which can apply to white-hat hackers and black-hat hackers alike. It means anyone that breaks things apart to see how they work, then puts them back together in a way that does something they weren't designed to do. That could mean getting Mario to run on a Ti-83+, or getting root on someone else's server.
Unfortunately, while we have the words cracker and phreaker for particular subsets of hacking, the subset that tends to get itself a lot of negative publicity by hacking into computers doesn't have any special name associated with it.
As a hacker (in the HN sense), I don't have a problem with this. The meaning is always pretty clear from the context. All it means is if you say "I'm a hacker" to someone, you better be prepared to explain what you mean. But if you say that, you're setting yourself up for a pretty geeky conversation anyway, which many won't appreciate.
Hackers that hack into computers aren't necessarily all black hat either. It's perhaps less common nowadays, but a lot of hackers just do it to see if they can, or to see what they can find on networks, simply out of curiosity. The latter is the defining characteristic of all hackers.
"Cracker" is a very specific term that relates to those who hack static files, by breaking encryption, etc. A cracker might discover a back-door, but if they exploit it to access a running server, that's not cracking, that's hacking.
Hacker is a general term which can apply to white-hat hackers and black-hat hackers alike. It means anyone that breaks things apart to see how they work, then puts them back together in a way that does something they weren't designed to do. That could mean getting Mario to run on a Ti-83+, or getting root on someone else's server.
Unfortunately, while we have the words cracker and phreaker for particular subsets of hacking, the subset that tends to get itself a lot of negative publicity by hacking into computers doesn't have any special name associated with it.
As a hacker (in the HN sense), I don't have a problem with this. The meaning is always pretty clear from the context. All it means is if you say "I'm a hacker" to someone, you better be prepared to explain what you mean. But if you say that, you're setting yourself up for a pretty geeky conversation anyway, which many won't appreciate.
Hackers that hack into computers aren't necessarily all black hat either. It's perhaps less common nowadays, but a lot of hackers just do it to see if they can, or to see what they can find on networks, simply out of curiosity. The latter is the defining characteristic of all hackers.