Teen saves Gates from hackers, gets nothing

A teenager who discovered a security hole in Windows and worked with Redmond for six months to fix the problem has received his reward from the multi-billion dollar company: a mere note of thanks on its website.

19-year-old Matt Thompson from Aberdeen was newly employed with a local IT firm after leaving college when he discovered the security hole in the Jet Database Engine - which if exploited would have let hackers take control of a user's PC and given virus writers reason to smile.

He stumbled across the error while working on a database project for a client and, after crashing a server, realised something was amiss.

After several calls to various helpdesks with Thompson explaining that he wasn't a domestic user with a toolbar problem but had actually found a security error that needed fixing, Microsoft took his complaints seriously.

Half a year of code-swapping and collaboration later and the problem was sorted, with Thompson being sworn to secrecy over his security sleuthing achievements.

Gates and co issued the now-customary update and let customers know, but when the dust had settled, instead of bunging the teenage boffin a few quid from the bulging Microsoft coffers for his work, the software firm took a more low-key approach to their security saviour's work.

It added his name to the list of special acknowledgements on the corporate site.

While, according to reports, Thompson is quite chuffed to have worked with the software giant, many people have been left wondering if a company that can absorb a €497m fine without breaking stride could have given the tech whizzkid a cash sum for his trouble.