"White hat hackers" isn't a "new breed". Hacker was originally a positive word for a computer literate person finding flaws in software, and usually exposing those flaws so that they could and would be fixed. "Cracker" is a word that has been used for malicious hackers, "black hat hacker" might be a better contemporary take on it.

If you want to read about early hacking you might want to look into phreaking and books by Cory Doctorow. There is another book I have read, but I can't remember the author...