So it appears some of you really don't want us to use the word 'hacker' when we really mean 'criminal'
El Reg, should stop using the word hacker as a pejorative. This debate came about after infosec pro Alyssa Miller and a few others from the Hacking Is Not A Crime movement politely asked Register vultures on Twitter to quit using the h-word as a lazy shorthand for criminal. We said we'd think about it. And we thought about it, and we thought about it some more. And in the end, since we're writing for you, we decided to put it to the audience: we published an article for and an article against the proposal, and let everyone vote for whichever side they agreed with.
Source: theregister.com