>has basically zero options with which to pursue his interests in a controlled environment
No way, he could easily get his own lab in AWS and probably for not much cost since he is in Uni. Hell, buying used stuff from ebay or some other auction site and hacking those for legitimate research would also be a path. Medical devices are probably low effort, high reward.
I definitely get where he's coming from with not having peers interested in security. Message boards and chats only do so much, but there's ample knowledge out there to build a plan for how you want your life to go from this upbringing. Going to a few conventions (even alone) would probably do wonders for him in terms of making connections but those can be expensive.
I wholeheartedly agree! And you put it way better than me.
Maybe we're missing something here, but I got the impression that this is an incredible time for talented people.
I've learned all about hacking online - kernel hacking, remote exploits, DEP/ASLR bypass techniques, Kali Linux for penetration testing, exploit-db.com and Metasploit for inspiration, the great tutorials of corelan.be and other great minds and so much more - it's all there, readily available for free.
You don't even need a big budget to build a controlled environment - Raspberry Pi's, maybe some cheap routers and computers and you're ready to go.
No way, he could easily get his own lab in AWS and probably for not much cost since he is in Uni. Hell, buying used stuff from ebay or some other auction site and hacking those for legitimate research would also be a path. Medical devices are probably low effort, high reward.
I definitely get where he's coming from with not having peers interested in security. Message boards and chats only do so much, but there's ample knowledge out there to build a plan for how you want your life to go from this upbringing. Going to a few conventions (even alone) would probably do wonders for him in terms of making connections but those can be expensive.