Exactly. Specifically, Linus' name for Linux was "Freax"
By himself he referred to it as "Linux" but thought it was lame. Only after the name being suggested by others did he agree. I got this "first-hand" from Revolution OS ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_OS You can watch it here ~ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7707585592627775409
"Are you a good hacker, or a bad hacker?"
The techniques and thinking styles are the same, either way.
I don't think there's a script-kiddie equivalent for phone systems.
"'brute force techniques' - mass dialing until something 'interesting' is found"
Sounds an awful lot like war dialing. Not sure what was on the other side though and what got done.
