May also collect data to prove a point of discretion by private or corporate entities against public health and interests. He never uses his skills for monetary gain, but only to practice for better understanding and to gather details that could make a difference. A direct quote and explanation from him. I support this idea because it supports people who need help from people like him. This also explains the typical hacker profile that fits based on the intentions of a typical gray hat hacker. Two techniques he uses are passive data collection using open data and actively investigating a target once discovered. Passive data collection could include the use of hardware to detect and measure data from locations. For example, the Genie manufacturing plant makes a lot of noise at night, and my husband records the sound with his hardware, recording the level, tempo, and disturbance. It could easily use a Bluetooth sniffer, a Wi-Fi sniffer, or some other RF sensing device to establish a case using data flowing freely from the facility. Active probing of a target includes IP probing on networks that are not necessarily secured. For example, a Safeway or Home Depot wireless network. When it probes IPs, it can probe them for open ports in the IPs. It can fingerprint each IP to find out what kind of hardware the wireless is, giving it a clue as to how useful it is