The qualities that make a great developer and a great professional security researcher are about the same.
Both involve taking hardware, a programming language, an API, an application or something else that someone in the computing industry had one purpose for, and bending it in a way to produce a rather unexpected, very unique result.
A great developer builds Web 2.0 with something as novel and limited as JavaScript and HTML.
A great security researcher made your toaster catch fire from a different continent (didn't they always say our toasters would be internet connected?).
I, personally, think the latter is more fun provided it doesn't cause any actual damage (and I think that was demonstrated ... a whitehat makes his own toaster catch fire and sometimes tells everyone who has that model of toaster how to fix it).
Both involve taking hardware, a programming language, an API, an application or something else that someone in the computing industry had one purpose for, and bending it in a way to produce a rather unexpected, very unique result.
A great developer builds Web 2.0 with something as novel and limited as JavaScript and HTML.
A great security researcher made your toaster catch fire from a different continent (didn't they always say our toasters would be internet connected?).
I, personally, think the latter is more fun provided it doesn't cause any actual damage (and I think that was demonstrated ... a whitehat makes his own toaster catch fire and sometimes tells everyone who has that model of toaster how to fix it).
Nicely done.