Let's play 33 bits on this guy, my guess is that he's German, Austrian or Swiss based on the settings for his IRC client, that should knock about 6 bits off, 27 to go.
oh I was doing that while reading the AMA. the giveaway is being the 4th customer of a bank that provides HBCI:
> My bank had around 20,000 customers using smsTAN and 3 (I was the 4th lol) using HBCI.
He is German, of college age and an early customer at one of 2 or 3 banks that provide HBCI. Consider him nailed.
I also bet he has published security related work under his real name at some point, especially since he has been applying for jobs. Most people in the security industry applying for legit work who don't have qualifications pad out their resumes with online research (or speaking at conferences, etc.).
This is fallicious. Anyone can register for an account. Knowing someone is on HN only gives enough information, that said person is in the 'HN demographic'. Just because he happened to register for an account, vs someone similar who didn't, does not give us the amount of entropy removal you implied.
> Even if 90% of those 7,200 were mined by botnets, and 100% of those mined were sold, that would represent well under 10% of the daily trading volume.
Polish nationals studying engineering in Germany should narrow it down quite a bit.
Edit: definitely not a Pole. Likely in former Eastern Germany though (lots of people there have a working knowledge of Russian / Polish, people from the Western parts not so much).
Universities in former Eastern Germany with an engineering department?
He is very familiar with the differences between C, C++ and C#. Are there any Germans that can comment of what kind of student would have that knowledge? I thought that advanced engineering the degrees in Germany are too academic for students to be familiar with the intimate details of programming, but I might be wrong.
User: rawrr69, on Reddit: "His writing style, long and nested sentences and use of commas are another hint. Plus he likes to laugh about and feel superior to other people and rectify their "mistakes" - 100% definitely German."
> Plus he likes to laugh about and feel superior to other people and rectify their "mistakes" - 100% definitely German."
well, as a German, I'd like to point out that this might have something to do with the fact that he is kind of an asshole. There are nice and well-mannered people here too.