Okay, you mean grey hat hacking. 

The thing is, if I pick the lock on your door and cook you breakfast and leave, I still committed the crime of breaking and entering. I entered a space you did not intend for me to enter.

nerd2ninja

I think ethical hacking/penetration testing is a dum term to define hacking. My opinion... Ethical hacking should be legal 

yrksam833

bitcoin

Ethical hacking

It is allowed (generally but maybe isn't allowed on SN specifically) what do you mean? Do you have the definition of ethical hacking misdefined? Do you mean SN specifically should have an bug bounty for ethical hackers?

Part of the ethical hacking process is getting permission from the system owner (with a defined scope of what you're going to attack). If you skip that step, you aren't an ethical hacker.