Samurai: ethical hacker for hire; unlike criminal or vandalism-oriented hackers and crackers, true silicon samurai adhere to rigorous and self-imposed standards of loyalty to employers; often hired to seek out rogue employees within a corporation's technical staff.
—Keith Ferrel, "Tomorrow,net," Chief Executive, January 1, 1999

The press has associated the word "hacker" in people's mind with the nasty troublemaker who tries to steal secret information from others' computer systems. Certainly there are "dark-side hackers", those who crack into confidential files for criminal or malicious ends. Others — the "samurai" — break into files to steal information for more lawful reasons, perhaps for a lawyer pursuing a privacy-rights case.

But mostly the term "hacker" just means an enthusiastic programmer, who plays with a computer for fun rather than to fulfil a specific task.
—David Rowan, "Lingua Franca," The Guardian, November 20, 1992

—Lynda Edwards, "Samurai Hackers," Rolling Stone, September 19, 1991