Hackers,
a group that consists of skilled computer enthusiasts. A black hat is a
person who compromises the security of a computer system without
permission from an authorized party, typically with malicious intent.
The term white hat is used for a person who is ethically opposed to the
abuse of computer systems, but is frequently no less skilled. The term
cracker was coined by Richard Stallman to provide an alternative to
using the existing word hacker for this meaning.The somewhat similar
activity of defeating copy prevention devices in software which may or
may not be legal in a country's laws is actually software cracking....