Just to be fair, hacking really has two different connotations in the programming world although the general public only really associates it with the negative one. Typically most people associate it with hacking into a site or another computer or some other malicious act. But in the open source community it also holds the meaning of changing things to do things they weren't intended on doing to make something better or entirely different. Most computer and technological innovation has been achieved through someone doing this.

I know a bit about hacking... *cough*

If you can gain access to the computer you're looking to hack, anything can be done. It's just a question of degree of difficulty.