Teen hacker is top young scientist
Saturday January 13 2007
A TEENAGE hacker last night won the BT Young Scientist of the Year Award.
Somalian-born Abdusalam Abubakar (pictured right), a third year student at CBS Synge Street, Dublin, has constructed a new way of beating the RSA encryption system, used to protect military and financial data worldwide.
The 16-year-old is the second overall winner from the Dublin school in the past three years.
According to the judges, Abdusalam, who has an Irish-born father, "mastered enormously complex mathematics which limit the security of encrypted digital and internet messages".
More than 3,000 students from all over the country entered 1,278 projects in the prestigious competition.
