Hacking behind the curve

I was invited to participate in a CTF this weekend. Initially I was excited to have the opportunity to play around legally. However, after looking through the challenges presented I have become aware just how out of practice I really am. If I said that I were lost it would be an understatement. For each challenge I knew what needed to be done, but just couldn't figure out how to do it.

* Theoretical knowledge is nothing, practice is everything. *

Gotta work on the practice...

Hacker vs Criminal

There it is again. It seems like every time a website is compromised the media pulls out the 'H' word again. "Hackers took down suchandsuch.com for five hours today and early reports are that 400 customer credit cards have been leaked; however, the representatives from suchandsuch have refused to comment." 
Why has the term hacker become synonymous with criminal? What makes a hacker a criminal exactly? I asked some people that I know and a common response was that hackers steal 'stuff' from 'computers'...
WHAT?!?!?
You cannot be serious! I explained that a hacker is nothing more than a person that doesn't except the 'norm' as the only option. I was met with blank looks from the small crowd, so I felt the need to elaborate further. Thinking for a second I came up with a very simple definition, "A hacker is a person driven by curiosity to discover new things."
So if both hacker and criminal are personality traits it can be said that a person can be a hacker, a criminal, or a hacker and a criminal. It doesn't mean that hacker = criminal!