Bears are just as evil as "hackers" are.
In other words, hackers are not evil.
A hacker is simply a person who is interested in understanding a machine or software at a deeper level than the usual user's manual takes him.
A good analogy is people who enjoy picking locks. Are they EVIL?
It depends upon what they do with their "mad skilz", doesn't it?
Professor Richard P. Feynman was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics (he proposed the parton model). For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman, jointly with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. He assisted in the development of the atomic bomb and was a member of the panel that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
He found lock-picking to be a relaxing challenge.
On the other hand, you have bomb-throwing anarchist like Julian Asange who wish they could be hackers but lack the talent. They associate with what are known in the information technology field as "black hat" hackers, who use the knowledge gained by their curiosity to do harm.
Often, the distinction about who is a "black hat" hacker and who is a "white hat" hacker depend on who is doing the assessment.
Alan Turing was a "white hat" hacker during World War II. During the Second World War, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre. For a time he was head of Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the method of the bombe, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine.
If the Nazis had won the war, he would have been considered a "black hat" hacker.
(Yes, I know the term "hacker" was not used this way during the 1940s.)
