

Bored 10-year-old girl hacker finds zero-day exploit in iOS & Android games - Vintern
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/bored-10-year-old-girl-hacker-finds-zero-day-exploit-in-ios-android-games-2011087/

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ttttannebaum
Edit:

"The exploit is to do with the clock used on devices running the two mobile
operating systems, and just as importantly how games use it to aid in gameplay
progression. Many of these farm-style games rely on the clock to grow crops
the player plants or by signifying general time progression. "

Oh christ, this article is just pure silliness. Ignore the below. And the
article itself.

If the hacker and intelligent human being happened to have a penis wouldn't
the title be one word shorter?

//this// is an actual real reason why people without Y chromosomes aren't as
into tech or the engineering industry; because as soon as they get in, they
are pushed into this subset of "girl hackers", "girl geeks".

I understand that it isn't "on-topic" and posts here aren't supposed to be
motivated by emotion (especially not anger), but I really expect more from
sites getting to the front page here.

~~~
gnoupi
To be honest, the whole title is silly. Apparently a kid needs to be "bored"
to do that. It's obviously an important information. "Zero-day exploit" is
also an amazing way to call "changing the hour to make the crops grow faster".

The whole title is a click bait, as we expect some kind of hacker kid prodigy
(after all, he was "bored", not actively hacking) who would have found a
severe exploit in iOS and Android.

The article can be summed up by "a young kid changes the hour on her device to
make the crops grow faster in the game".

 _(heck, I was changing the date to make my sharewares work longer at the same
age and nobody wrote about me)_

~~~
dromidas
The inevitability in the movie Idiocracy is manifesting itself by having "set
the clock forward" being considered an incredibly devious hacking technique
and labeled as a 0day :P It's good to see that even when everyone born these
days are morons that there are still going to be a small subset of people who
are more creative and intelligent than the rest.

~~~
gnoupi
Let's not exaggerate. Just because the article is silly and obviously trying
to make something bigger than it actually is doesn't mean that "everyone born
these days are morons".

Also, <http://xkcd.com/603/>

------
CaveTech
Congrats to the girl for giving a presentation at age 10, but in all honesty
this is nothing new. I'm positive that this is pretty much common knowledge to
anyone who has ever played a time based game. Also, calling it an "exploit"
makes it seem like it's some sort of security risk; when in reality it's about
on par with turning off a device before saving to erase unwanted actions.

~~~
palish
She's 10, and she figured it out on her own. Let her have her 5 minutes.

~~~
CaveTech
Not to seem rude, but I was probably at a similar age when I figured it out
myself. While it does deserve some level of praise, it's not exactly news
worthy.

~~~
palish
The more people hacking, the better IMO. It's something that should be
praised.

------
Cushman
...with 1 weird trick!

Seriously, what's going on with this title?

------
Andrex
Eh, who _didn't_ do this in Animal Crossing?

~~~
ttttannebaum
Anyone who didn't want weeds and actually cared ;(

(sly little plug to my time-based animal crossing wild world bug/fish
checklist because this is the best place to plug it that I may ever find on HN
<http://wild-world-clock.googlecode.com> )

