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Apple Cracker Breaks Silence
David Utter
Staff Writer
2006-09-05
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
It appears that the duo who claimed to be able to break into a MacBook through its wireless connection are being muzzled from discussing an Apple vulnerability.
 | | Apple Cracker Breaks Silence |  |
Jon Ellch, also better known as Johnny Cache especially since his appearance with David Maynor at the Black Hat conference, has started to discuss the actual issues they were able to exploit to crack an Apple MacBook. Linux.com writer Joe Barr revealed Cache's comments on the DailyDave security mailing list.
Cache hinted that he and Maynor are being prevented from discussing the issue publicly by their employer, SecureWorks. They have been heavily criticized because their presentation at Black Hat, which included a video of the break-in to a MacBook, did not involve an Apple driver being exploited.
Instead, their video noted that the targeted MacBook had a third-party wireless driver in use instead of the Apple-native version, causing many vocal critics in the Mac community to decry their presentation as a fraud.
"Secureworks absolutely insists on being exceedingly responsible and doesn't want to release any details about anything until Apple issues a patch," Cache wrote. "Whether or not this position was taken after a special ops team of lawyers parachuted in out of a black helicopter is up for speculation."
He hits back at the various critics, saying that they "lack the technical skills required to understand this problem." Cache also took issue with the accusation that he and Maynor somehow manipulated the media with their presentation:
You know, of all the comments I see, the ones that 'we played the media' make the least sense. Have you ever seen me in the news before? No. Have I ever talked to a reporter before? No. Am I doing a very good job of winning this PR smear campaign lynn fox ignited? No. If I was so deft at manipulating the media, would I be explaining myself on dailydave praying that a few technically competent people will actually get it?
Cache does describe the context of the exploit, but in terms of Intel's Centrino rather than Apple. He provided a pair of links in his message post, one to an unsuccessful attack on a Centrino, the other to a successful exploit.
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Tag: Apple
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About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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