Well the age implicitly assumes potential levels of education and sophistication. Few would be surprised to hear a 30 year old engineer designed a novel world class chip - they could easily have a PhD at that point to have the sophistication capable. For a 17 year old that would be pretty damn extraordinary. Now hacking is less than thar even to laymen who don't know how simple some holes are but 17 implies a lack of great sophistication.

The whole thing is an ageist rough proxy anyway - a developmentally disabled 30 year old hacking it would be more shameful than a 17 year old college graduate.