Hackers

In the 60s, computer subcultures appeared in American university environments where the inaugurated were called hackers. The true hackers had, and still have, high ethical values:

Access to computers should be unlimited and total
All information should be free
Mistrust authority - promote decentralisation
Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race or position
You can create art and beauty on a computer
Computers can change your life to the better.

This ethic is heavily influenced by prevailing academic views on information, and the net was conceived in the intersection between these cultures.

Later, the term 'hacking' has been abused to label illegal and malicious intrusions into computer and phone systems. A better word for this is 'cracking'.