While maintaining a presence in the hacking community(it is very useful in fact for preventing break-ins) is necessary to keep up with what script kiddies are doing these days...there is no excuse for testing the integrity of someone else's systems. Testing your own home computer/network is fine, and if you feel the need to hack...there are plenty of legal hack sites. Why be so rude as to break in someone else's systems? If you are asked, that is one thing, but people who pull the "good samaritan" crap, are just risking harm to other people's property. There is no adequate reasoning for this kind of behavior, and it should be punished harshly. It is a betrayal of confidence, and an invasion of privacy. A zero tolerance policy is the optimum way of dealing with this...if you must be lenient, a warning prior to a firing is always an option. But once the box is open, it is hard to close it. If you want to be the "good samaritan hacker", why not ask permission first. If you are not willing to, then chances are you are doing something wrong.

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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/columns/70/11529#11529