A group of people exists that uses "hacker" for people coming up with creative solutions to problems, and "cracker" for any sort of malicious breaking of security, etc. But I fear that ship has sailed.

Then again, Hacker News isn't about new ways to break into boxen, so...

Bollocks. People have been differentiating between cracking and hacking since basic passwords were put on mainframes for accountancy reasons. Predates software protection by a decade or two.

I'm aware of Eric S Raymond's attempt to change the definition. It's still not correct. Nobody uses it that way other than misinformed pedants. This includes the general public, the media, security professionals, and the people who maliciously break into other sites. Just accept that "hacker" means both and move on.