News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

March 1, 2007

security

Maynor brings MacBook hack back

Posted Mar. 1, ’07, 6:33 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Security

MacBook hack Last year, I was getting tired of the endless drama that was the wireless MacBook hack. In fact, I was a little relieved. Now I’m so desperate for Mac news that I was excited to see that Maynor was back, confirming a Mac OS X vulnerability, and threatening to release the source.

Maynor said he will release code that will cause a Mac OS X 10.4.6 system to crash, but not to “own” it, or take root control. He’ll show the control part in a future presentation. This would ostensibly be the code that he and Ellch had created last summer. I would like to assert that Maynor is speaking the truth here based on facts I have been asked not to disclose.

While Glenn is purposely being vague for the time being, he’s a man I feel we can all trust and believe. It’s looking like Lynn Fox’s statements might have been at the very least inconsistent, at worst outright lies.

At the end of this presentation, Maynor notes in passing that even after he received the mail he disliked from Fox, he provided information to Apple about a significant Bluetooth vulnerability, one that hasn’t yet been fixed. Maynor said this experience has led him to have no interest in providing information to Apple again about security flaws. That’s to all our detriment.

All hurt feelings aside, I’m hoping for the straight story with all kinds of information to back it up soon. Otherwise, I’ll be clamoring for the end of this again.


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