wot the media classes as 'hacker' is really a cracker

a hacker is some1 who likes to write code (generally a programmer)

it becomes illegal when you access some1 elses property without their permission

white hat: cracks for good reasons, improve security, only with permission

grey hat: for gud reasons, asks for permission after gettin in the system but doesn't mess with it

black hat: bad reasons, will do something malicious

most crackers use linux though, never herd of 'red hat' used before