I'm gonna violate my tech-only posting sabbatical for this one, to point out something that nobody else has (verbally) realized yet:

There's no proof anywhere that this guy actually is 13. He could be 20, 30, 40, or 7. All we have is his own "word" and the word of another hacker that discussed him with Mr. Gibson. Now if it's dead easy for you or me to set up a fake internet personality, then how is that supposed to give your average hacker trouble doing it too?

(In fact, we have no proof of any of this stuff, we are all taking Mr. Gibson's word for it all anyways... Not saying I don't believe it myself, but you get the point)