You're right, I shouldn't downplay his abilities, and he's definitely well over 99th percentile when it comes to results and accomplishments at the very least. I've competed in CSAW and some other CTFs and winning as a one-person team is definitely a massive achievement.
Just to counter a tiny bit, he didn't necessarily win by an enormous margin. CMU's PPP has overwhelmingly dominated every collegiate CTF since forever, and he was a CMU student and I wouldn't be surprised if he trained closely with PPP members. He got 5100 to PPP's 4800, which, to play Devil's advocate, depending on the particular point weights of the solved challenges, could potentially mean he solved one additional challenge over PPP (though possibly more; I didn't dig to find the exact breakdowns). I believe he also deeply specialized in low-level RE from a young age (as demonstrated by the iPhone and PS3 exploits), and from my perception that was less common among collegiate CTF competitors and gives you a huge leg up. But of course mastering something that difficult so young and being at CMU are itself huge achievements, as is outmatching PPP on anything at all entirely by yourself.
Obviously insanely impressive, and exponentially better than I could've done (and did do) at that age or could do today. Be it intelligence or endless drive and work ethic or all of the above, he's clearly an extremely skilled polymath. I guess I just didn't want people feeling too demotivated over genetic factors, which play a big but not a full role. He may very well be a genius, though.
Just to counter a tiny bit, he didn't necessarily win by an enormous margin. CMU's PPP has overwhelmingly dominated every collegiate CTF since forever, and he was a CMU student and I wouldn't be surprised if he trained closely with PPP members. He got 5100 to PPP's 4800, which, to play Devil's advocate, depending on the particular point weights of the solved challenges, could potentially mean he solved one additional challenge over PPP (though possibly more; I didn't dig to find the exact breakdowns). I believe he also deeply specialized in low-level RE from a young age (as demonstrated by the iPhone and PS3 exploits), and from my perception that was less common among collegiate CTF competitors and gives you a huge leg up. But of course mastering something that difficult so young and being at CMU are itself huge achievements, as is outmatching PPP on anything at all entirely by yourself.
Obviously insanely impressive, and exponentially better than I could've done (and did do) at that age or could do today. Be it intelligence or endless drive and work ethic or all of the above, he's clearly an extremely skilled polymath. I guess I just didn't want people feeling too demotivated over genetic factors, which play a big but not a full role. He may very well be a genius, though.