Reverse engineering silicon seems to have become the new "hacking". Everyone's doing it. Perhaps its time to come up with a term to describe the hardware equivalent of "script kiddie" ?
Yes, this here is clearly no more sophisticated than downloading some random php-file off the net and brute-forcing access to a couple of wordpress blogs. /sarcasm
To be more constructive: I don't even understand what you mean? I'd say this is more on par with implementing one's own OS kernel, than what I associate with being a "script kiddie". Sure, it's easy. Just a bit of C and assembler, and you can copy an existing design. Anyone with half a brain can do it...
If you look at the silikiddies bespoke services they are shilling customized hardware side channels. 5 Eyes Alliance already has shady engineers to do this, so I imagine all their customers are in the fields of bank fraud, insider trading and putting down rebellions in middle east Kingdoms.
To be more constructive: I don't even understand what you mean? I'd say this is more on par with implementing one's own OS kernel, than what I associate with being a "script kiddie". Sure, it's easy. Just a bit of C and assembler, and you can copy an existing design. Anyone with half a brain can do it...