Mozilla Gives 12-Year-Old $3000 for Discovering Major Firefox Security Flaw

by Amar Toor on October 25, 2010 at 09:15 AM

Today's 12-year-olds don't just know more than we do -- they're also a lot richer than we are. Case in point: seventh grader Alex Miller, from San Jose. Alex, you see, recently discovered a critical security flaw in the latest versions of Firefox -- something to do with an overflow bug in 'document.write.' That may sound like Chinese to most of the human population (minus the Chinese), but it didn't to Alex (who, coincidentally enough, spends his spare time studying Mandarin. And playing badminton. And listening to NPR.). The prepubescent prodigy immediately notified Mozilla, and, as a result, made some serious bank.

In a show of gratitude to the not-yet-teenage wunderkind, Mozilla paid Alex a full $3,000. Three grand, of course, won't pay for this kid's inevitable Cal Tech education, but it's still a pretty handsome income for relatively little work. According to the San Jose Mercury, Miller spent about 90 minutes a day for 10 days searching for the bug -- which, as Download Squad points out, means that he made $3000 for 15 hours of work. That's $200 an hour. That kind of paper definitely places him at the top of the 12-year-old income bracket, but we're ~~fairy~~ fairly confident that he'll make way more money once he's of legal working age.

http://xml.channel.aol.com/xmlpublisher/fetch.v2.xml?option=expand_relative_urls&dataUrlNodes=uiConfig,feedConfig,entry&id=669435&pid=669434&uts=1288033209

http://cdn.channel.aol.com/cs_feed_v1_6/csfeedwrapper.swf

10 Tech Whizzes Under 20

Getty Images

10 Tech Whizzes Under 20

The tech world is filled with young superstars in their 20s, but there's another generation on the way up. All of these wunderkinds are making a big splash, even though many haven't even finished high school. Some are already millionaires. Others have venture capital firms supporting them. They've all established strong reputations at a very young age. Sure beats cutting lawns during the summer for extra cash.

Ashley Qualls (19)
At age 14, the founder of Whateverlife.com began creating MySpace layouts for other teens, supported only by advertising. Two years later, she rejected a $1.5 million takeover offer. Today, with a net worth of $4 million, she owns her own home and counts mom as an employee.

Ben Gulak (19)
This MIT student invented the Uno, an electric motorcycle that seems more like a Segway than a Harley. Popular Science chose it as one of the top 10 inventions of 2008. Also last year, Gulak was awarded $1,250,000 of venture capital while appearing on a Canadian TV show. Not bad for what started out as a science fair project.

-- Chris Morris

Catherine and David Cook (19, 20)
Unhappy with their high school yearbook, this brother sister team began brainstorming their ideal creation, then took it online. Today Myyearbook.com has over 5 million members and adds 20,000 per day. Meanwhile, these siblings have a net worth of $10 million.

Arjun Mehta (14)
How many 12-year-olds can raise $6.5 million in venture capital? Mehta did so two years ago with PlaySpan, giving game publishers the ability to set up micropayment systems. Dad Karl runs the day to day operations, but Arjun still contributes.

Michael van Poppel (19)
The founder of BNO News has managed to beat major news outlets on several stories by staying lean. He has 800,000 Twitter followers, several international employees and a new iPhone app that charges a monthly fee – for other people's headlines!

Anshul Samar (15)
Science textbooks can be boring, so Samar created Elementeo, a role-playing game that combines chemistry with battling bad guys. A half-dozen venture capitalists reached out to him, but he wanted to work at his own pace. Today, he's selling plenty of copies.

Jake Jarvis (17)
This coding wizard has launched several successful applications on Facebook, including one for Last.fm that tracks what you listen to online and displays it in your profile, and Courses, allowing students to connect with others taking the same classes.

Andrew Sutherland (19)
It was a French test that inspired the founder of Quizlet to create an online study application (and, eventually, Web site). Today, that tool has been used more than 12 million times – and the topics are a lot more diverse.

Daniel Brusilovsky (16)
Kids often find themselves booted from new media outlets because of their age. Not at TeensinTech.com, Brusilovsky's social network for high schoolers. He's also helping set up events and conferences for influential tech blog TechCrunch.

Tags: bugs, firefox, flaw, genius, kids, Mandarin, middle school, MiddleSchool, money, mozilla, mozillafirefox, prodigy, security, top, web

via: Download Squad
source: Mercury News

Comments

WaltOct 25th 2010 2:31PM

Neutral

Now the cats out of the bag. The kid made $3,000.00. obama will be sending in IRS to collect "his" share.

Dislike

Report

ShannonOct 25th 2010 2:43PM

Low Ranked

@(Unverified) LMFAO!!!

Dislike

Report

Thomas HoustonOct 25th 2010 2:37PM

Neutral

maybe, just maybe, let's try to stay on topic.

Dislike

Report

sdfghjkl2Oct 25th 2010 2:42PM

Highest Ranked

$3,000, he deserved way more than that. Cheapskates!

Dislike

Report

tannerNov 15th 2010 5:22PM

Neutral

@(Unverified)
Hey, it WAS $500 up until about 2 months ago.

Dislike

Report

DavidOct 25th 2010 2:50PM

Neutral

What a great story until the part where he listens to NPR ......the poor kid is ruined.

Dislike

Report

pjchildsOct 25th 2010 4:18PM

Neutral

Sounds like a smart kid. I'm sure listening to the boring blather on NPR kept him from being distracted by anything that would take his mind off his research. Pretty ingenious when you think about it.

Dislike

Report

makoredeyesOct 25th 2010 5:40PM

Neutral

Homonym typo on the last sentence. 'we're "fairy" certain' ...was that "Fairly" or "Very"?

Dislike

Report

JTOct 25th 2010 5:43PM

Neutral

Typo in the last sentence. 'but we're fairy confident that'-was that "Fairly" or "Very"?

Good to know a 12 year old is smarter than this article's editor too.

Dislike