As a computer security masters candidate, I agree with the idea of teaching the "white hats" how to think like the "black hats" and to have the same sort of skill sets.
How else are we supposed to learn how to protect against crackers if we dont know what they actually do. How are we supposed to do pen testing if we cant crack systems ourselves.
I learnt how to crack in a secure lab with no connection to the rest of the internet once we had setup the computers. We got advised before we even started learning how to pingflood a computer that if we used any of the skills we learnt outside of the room while we were still studying, we would be handed over to the federal police in Australia.