Intent is absolutely relevant in criminal law. The phrase "with the intent of" or "for the purposes of" appears everywhere in the field. Go browse through the quoted text of the CFAA here and see what you can find: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act

I'm not interested in getting involved in a philosophical discussion about whether anarchic hacking "should" be a crime. I'm saying that given the text of that article, an enterprising prosecutor could probably get a conviction for one.

Don't fuck with other people's systems. Even (and especially) when they're running shit code.