Yeah, "pioneered" was too strong of a word. I'm sure there's no way he could've been the first person to come up with the idea. He was just the one who widely popularized the attack and released a convenient tool for it.
For anyone who remembers it, "Firesheep" also had a big impact, too. It didn't do anything special or novel whatsoever, but it was a really easy-to-use tool that drove home to the average person just how dangerous plaintext HTTP was. Lots of people immediately started using it in school classes and logging into everyone else's Facebook and Twitter accounts. I'm not sure if it was the direct cause, but I know not long after that, all the big services began switching to HTTPS for everything rather than just login and payment pages.
There's probably some startup lesson buried in there...
For anyone who remembers it, "Firesheep" also had a big impact, too. It didn't do anything special or novel whatsoever, but it was a really easy-to-use tool that drove home to the average person just how dangerous plaintext HTTP was. Lots of people immediately started using it in school classes and logging into everyone else's Facebook and Twitter accounts. I'm not sure if it was the direct cause, but I know not long after that, all the big services began switching to HTTPS for everything rather than just login and payment pages.
There's probably some startup lesson buried in there...