In the book The Deep Rig, I spoke of an amorphous  posse of "white hat hackers" with whom I rode trail from August 2020 until January 2021. They were volunteers with impressive backgrounds: one had quickly risen to an significant position at No Such Agency (its nickname before its existence was acknowledged publicly); several were CEOs or executives of tech and cyber firms; retired  military officers including a colonel; a FEMA-orbit federal specialist in biowarfare; working network engineers and technical guys with certifications in matters forensic and an understanding of chain-of-custody and other matters that makes them capable of court-worthy work, and who were actively managing significant projects for law enforcement…. I met them as they came and went, and there were no slouches.

Among them there was another by whom they all were impressed and several awed. A quiet person, with a background completely unlike any one would expect in that field. "Weaponized Autism" was the moniker. Someone who had demonstrated excellence in other fields before turning to matters cyber. Not only certified but trained by the best, and becoming, all others seemed to agree, a case apart. "Gifted" was a word that some of the other cyber people used.