"Hacking" has at least three different sides. One variety is engineering by "hacking" up potentially kludgy solutions. Another is the process of learning about

"Hacking" has at least three different sides. One variety is engineering by "hacking" up potentially kludgy solutions. Another is the process of learning about systems through hands on exploration. Yet another is exploitation of systems, typically involving the knowledge learned from the exploratory kind of hacking. There's nothing shameful about the 2nd form of hacking, it's just a form of science.