Now, I'm curious why you responded to me, but you didn't bother responding to OP who seemed to think that the only definition of hacker was essentially "someone who illicitly breaks into other people's systems".
Because that is not what they said. Their comment was “Apparently hacking is something the denizens of Hacker News disapprove of these days?”
Hacking, by one common definition, generally refers to a clever, benign, and "ethical" prank or practical joke, often challenging to execute and amusing to the community. This was certainly true at MIT.
This fits all of those characteristics. That it happened to involve doing something illegal was not the point.
Putting something on the MIT dome is also illegal; if you get caught, you’ll get charged with trespassing. But trespassing was never the point.
