Back years ago, when cable modems were new and computers still very insecure, I’d use port scanning tools to find other cable modem users with computers on the same LAN segment as my cable modem.

It was easy, and I didn’t mean any harm. I would just print funny things to people’s printers like, “Your computer is alive and is watching you. Put on some pants, dammit,” and other prankish shenanigans.

I just mention this to point out that what I did then was about a million times more illegal than what Aaron Swartz did. The difference being that I didn’t piss off or embarrass anyone with real power. I just did whatever I thought was funny at the time.

I wouldn’t do this now, but then I thought it to be pretty hilarious.

I could’ve done much worse – it turns out that many people store (or used to) all their credit card numbers on their computers, in plain text. Along with baking information, etc. If I had been truly malicious, I could have also installed keyloggers and all other manner of dirty tricks as well.

But even now as I no longer perpetuate such foolishness, I still use techniques like these (and will use more in the future), to preserve some privacy and security.