Fair enough. I could get on board with your way of delineating it. The way I see it is that modern day "hacking" and "espionage" form a venn diagram, and that

Fair enough. I could get on board with your way of delineating it. The way I see it is that modern day "hacking" and "espionage" form a venn diagram, and that particular distinction isn't important anymore when it comes to attacking and protecting businesses in digital space. Espionage based tactics for digital intrusion, including getting physical access to the digital assets, are usually fair game for pentesting and are often within the scope of the blue team.