Peiter “Mudge” Zatko
Mudge hacked the government! He opened up DARPA funding to hackers, allowing talented people to be paid government money to do groundbreaking research and keep their own IP. It also showed people used to the capabilities of the defense industrial base what real security experts could do, drastically changing what they expected of all researchers they funded afterwards. Over 100 projects were funded, and the results of many of them were subsequently released publicly.