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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.).


I really hope I never make enemies with anyone around here.


I think Hackernews has 220000 registered users. You are one of them.

You have 17 bits left. Use them wisely.


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.


Since the GGP is easily googleable he actually has 0 bits left, but you are correct about the math.


Studying engineering, there probably is a list floating around of German universities that have an engineering program.


Most German banks have been providing HBCI for over a decade, so that doesn't really narrow it down.


Well it does provide some parameters - but he claims to be a student, so unlikely to be one of the first HBCI users 10+ years ago ...

He's probably lying too.


he removed that maybe you should too


Sherlock


By '33 bits', I understand that you're referring to the minimum amount of information to identify an arbitrary person on Earth? 2^33 ~= 8.5 billion.

Interesting idiom. I hadn't heard it before, but the usage makes sense.



Yep, also he likes to use conditional tense (would) in 'if' clauses, which is a typical language trap for German native speakers.


Do you mean sentences like

> 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.

This is a perfectly correct instance of the subjunctive mood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood), I think, not a language trap.


He also mentioned that he frequents or used to frequent the forums at http://www.opensc.ws/


He says he is Polish.


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.


He mentioned he's been learning programming for about a year or so.


He also stated that he was apparently "self-taught"


A commenter on Reddit points out "I'm Polish and that's not how a Pole would spell Russian words. He's German."


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.


I seriously hope you're joking right now (due to meta-ness, not because I hate Germans)




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