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MacBook Wi-Fi Hijack Details Finally Released
Wick3d Gam3s writes "Hacker David Maynor attempted to put the strange tale of the Macbook Wifi hack to rest, and offered an apology for mistakes made. All this and a live demo of the takeover exploit was made at a Black Hat DC event yesterday. Maynor promised to release e-mail exchanges, crash/panic logs and exploit code in an effort to clear his tarnished name. Said Maynor: 'I screwed up a bit [at last year's Black Hat in Las Vegas]. I probably shouldn't have used an Apple machine in the video demo and I definitely should not have discussed it a journalist ahead of time ... I made mistakes, I screwed up. You can blame me for a lot of things but don't say we didn't find this and give all the information to Apple.'"
This is the same bullshit please-connect-the-dots-for-me reasoning that Maynor has come up with all along. The question at issue is not whether there was a bug that allowed remote code execution. Yes, Apple has said as much. The question is whether Maynor had actually discovered such a bug. So far he has done nothing to dissuade objective observers that he's anything but an attention-grabbing fraud.
Doesn't it strike you as the least bit shifty that Maynor, eager to clear his name and prove that he was right, suddenly doesn't "feel the need" to demo the hijack he originally claimed? Oh, but don't worry, he could hijack the MacBook if he really wanted to! According to Maynor, Apple has been lying and covering up through this whole ordeal, but now we are supposed to essentially take Apple's word for it that his crash demo = hijack. Please.
Let's apply Occam's Razor here. Did Maynor fail to demo a hijack -- despite the fact that it would restore at least some his credibility -- because he thought it was just as convincing to piece together circumstantial evidence from Apple press releases? Or did he fail to demo a hijack because he can't? Are we supposed to believe that after all this time and humiliation, Maynor really doesn't "feel the need" to back up his inflammatory words? I don't buy it, and I don't see how any rational observer can.
As the GP said, the proof is in the pudding -- all we've got here is a box that says "pudding mix, really!" and a promise from Maynor. Same as before. The guy is a charlatan.