I think the phrase "hacking contest" was how the author of the article chose to describe it. The TopCoder competition page doesn't mention the word at all: http

I think the phrase "hacking contest" was how the author of the article chose to describe it. The TopCoder competition page doesn't mention the word at all: http://www.topcoder.com/tc http://www.topcoder.com/tc ; probably exactly for the reason you describe.