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Re:How a 22-Year-Old Discovered Meltdown and Spectre by godelmachine on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @09:03AM (#16167921)
>>"he just so happened to have the combination of knowledge"

He had found security glitches in his school's computers network as a kid. Also, he was hired by a security research firm while he was still an undergrad.

In addition to knowledge and resources, he also had the knack.

Re:How a 22-Year-Old Discovered Meltdown and Spectre by merb on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @09:34AM (#16168138)
He‘s german and Trust me finding a Security issue in german School Networks is not a big deal
Re:How a 22-Year-Old Discovered Meltdown and Spectre by HarryHirsch on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @10:13AM (#16168529)
That's right, when you do that in the US in any school the on-site cops come and arrest you. Initiative, competence and creativity are as a rule not prized in American education, conformity and athletic prowess are.
Re:How a 22-Year-Old Discovered Meltdown and Spectre by TomMarius on Thursday January 18, 2018 @04:49AM (#16175892)
He meant that the networks often aren't secured at all, so it's very easy to break into them.
Re:How a 22-Year-Old Discovered Meltdown and Spectre by merb on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @10:48AM (#16168820)
well I basically meant it differently, but that's bad aswell..
Re:How a 22-Year-Old Discovered Meltdown and Spectre by chisleu on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @11:04AM (#16168968)
American here. Ditto (source: kicked out of high school and college for violation of TOS^H^H^H Acceptable Use Policy)
Re:How a 22-Year-Old Discovered Meltdown and Spectre by nerdponx on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @11:46AM (#16169390)
Out of curiosity, what did you do that was so bad as to get you kicked out of school twice?
Re:How a 22-Year-Old Discovered Meltdown and Spectre by chisleu on Thursday January 18, 2018 @03:32PM (#16181102)
In High school I discovered the admin's secret account password was "god". (1995 maybe? I was 15)

In college (1997? I was 17) I downloaded the source code of the unix client for back orifice. I read some of the source because I was interested in socket programming and reading Unix Network Programming. I compiled it, and deleted it without running it.

They were on edge because "god" from high school called to warn them about me.

Re:How a 22-Year-Old Discovered Meltdown and Spectre by Apocryphon on Sunday January 21, 2018 @02:57PM (#16199649)
Did the admin literally watch Hackers and use that password as a goof
Re:How a 22-Year-Old Discovered Meltdown and Spectre by termhn on Thursday January 18, 2018 @12:19PM (#16178916)
It doesn't even have to be bad. I was very nearly kicked out of my middle school just for booting from (!) my own live Linux USB drive on a school computer.
Re:How a 22-Year-Old Discovered Meltdown and Spectre by nerdponx on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @09:20AM (#16168037)
Absolutely. Did not mean to discount his obvious natural talent!