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Mac Worm Author Gets Death Threats
StonyandCher write(s) to spread news about the strange story of the reported Apple OS X worm, which is growing stranger by the day. The blog of the researcher who claimed to have created the malware reportedly received death threats. The blog was then hijacked, according to the researcher, who calls him/herself InfoSec Sellout. InfoSec blamed David Maynor for hacking the blog. For his part, Maynor apparently unmasked himself as "LMH" and InfoSec as Jon Ramsey. The post to the Fuzzing mailing list has not been independently confirmed.
Update: 07/19 13:48 GMT by KD : David Maynor wrote in and denies that he is LMH.
Update: 07/19 13:48 GMT by KD : David Maynor wrote in and denies that he is LMH.
Don't cross a mac fanboy....
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
He would have been better off picking a weaker target such Islam. You don't want to mess with those Mac zealots.
Now we know the real reason there is less malware for the Macintosh.
Well, that's one way to keep an OS safe, I guess. Just think how secure Windows would be if Bill Gates focused his vast resources on killing every malware author. Ballmer would probably do the dirty work cheap ... just for the thrill of it all.
Why, Bill might even have a few million bucks left over at the end of the day.
Wasn't there some stories about religious zealots threating professors who taught evolution recently? It all begins to make sense now...
If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.
[fuzzing] The truth Lance M. Havok:
>br> "Since the cover is becoming more difficult to maintain, I've decided to stop this. It simply can't stand anymore and I can't let this harm my company and its customers.
I am David Maynor. I made up the LMH identity for bashing Apple and appearing on the media while I was preparing for launching Errata Security with Robert. Since my credibility was severely damaged after the wireless driver exploit, I needed a sock puppet. The idea of LMH and the Month of Apple Bugs came a while after I resigned from SecureWorks."
You're assuming he hosts his own blog and you know what they say about assuming. Beyond that, why is his message less credible? if he can prove the worm works, the message is still the same, even if his blog is hacked. Perhaps the person responsible for hacking his blog is simply a much better hacker? There are so many variables to consider that your comment seems ridiculous when you even begin to look at even a tiny fraction of them.
Wait, so someone who claims, without providing proof, that they found/created a vulnerability in an operating system is now claiming to have received death threats and claiming that their blog was hacked? Again, without providing any real proof?
Uh, yeah. Count me skeptical.
Can anyone say "attention whore."
Cognitive dissonance is truly a funny thing. It's fascinating the lengths the human brain will go to in order to protect its version of reality.
PC: Hi, I'm a PC.
Mac: And I'm a Mac. PC, who are all those people smacking you in the head and rifling your pockets?
PC: [Sigh] Those are viruses and worms. Even though I scream "DENY! DENY!" as loudly as I can, they keep smacking me in the head and rifling my pockets. You know how it is.
Mac: Actually, I don't. You see, with a Mac...
[One of the worms moves sinisterly toward the Mac. A man in a black suit appears suddenly from the right and collars the worm, shaking it roughly.]
Man In Black Suit: Listen, woim. If you takes one more step taword da Mac kid, I'm gonna whack you and yer whole family, see?
Worm: Uh... uh... I'm just a proof of concept.
MIBS: Concept shmoncept. Not only will I whack you and yer family, I'm going to hack yer blog so bad it'll look like AintItCool.com.
Worm: [panics, runs away, screaming]
MIBS: [Claps hands as though rubbing dirt off. As he leaves to the right, Mac slips him a small paper sack.] Tanks, kid.
Mac: As I was saying, with a Mac, there are no viruses.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Sheesh.
... and recipes and utilities for disabling both have been around for years.
Now we have unverified claims of death threats to add credibility to unverified claims of worms attacking a deep flaw in mDNSresponder... a flaw so subtle that Apple wouldn't be able to fix it without the help of said anonymous researcher who's allegedly received death threats over it.
Now this could all be true, but then SCO could really have thousands of lines of Linux code copied from UNIX they're still hiding so they can bring it out in a dramatic eleventh-hour release and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
I don't doubt that there's flaws in mDNSresponder. I don't doubt that you could write a worm to exploit them. I don't doubt that Apple is capable of fixing one symptom of a flaw rather than the cause... they've done it before. But there's nothing new here... schemes like Rendozvous/Bonjour/Zeroconf and the superficially similar "Universal Plug and Play" in Windows are a compelling target for potential attacks and have been criticized in the past. They're not needed for the normal operation of the system, and should be disabled unless you actually know you need them and are on a known secure LAN
But there is no way that any legitimate security professional would proceed in the manner that the people alleged to be involved in have been behaving over the past several months. The whole presentation of this affair seems almost designed to discredit the security community in the public eye.
Notify Apple, then release the details. There's no other ethical course of action.
The problem here is that the death threats need to be translated from blog-speak to their real world equivalents.
Blog-speak: thats dumb
Translation: I respectfully disagree on that point.
Blog-speak: ur a fuckin loser noob go eat shit
Translation: I strongly disagree, and hold you in low esteem.
Blog-speak: im gonna come find ur house and chainsaw you into pieces and feed u 2 my dawg
Translation: I find your opinions reprehensible and I see no value in continuing this discussion.
I don't know if it is even possible to express a legitimate death threat in blog-speak. Perhaps with punctuation it could be done.
"None of the claims have been substantiated, neither the alleged worm itself, nor the alleged threats."
You mean like all of Maynor's other allegations?
I've posted to his blog a few times, especially the ones where he is claiming that he is being censored (??? I can't say what I'm saying on my own blog because they won't allow me to say what I'm now saying, but I'm saying it, but I'm really not because of a world conspiracy) -- but surprisingly, my comments never show. Only the comments where others are obviously blowing him get through. Of course, I'm not going to claim censorship -- thats bullshit -- only a government can censor, where as you have every right to disallow contrary thought in your own living room.
But everything about this man smacks of sensationalism. For instance:
"It was a great experiment to see how the industry could handle some honesty, which they can't. They are quick to attack the credibility of others in order to hide their own flaws."
What? Someone announces a flaw, but says they won't talk about it, hints that they will sell it to the highest bidder, and the company doesn't want to deal with you??? And then when they don't bite, claim that you were actually pre-compensated for writing this virus from someone else (now who would gain from this? Spammers? Scam Artists? Mafia? Microsoft? The only ones that would gain are the scum of the earth and he has no problem claiming to take money from them).
And finally:
"I made up the LMH identity for bashing Apple and appearing on the media while I was preparing for launching Errata Security with Robert. Since my credibility was severely damaged after the wireless driver exploit, I needed a sock puppet."
Admitting that he was manipulating the media, and has an ulterior motive to bash Apple, solely for bashing Apple. The guy lied in the first apple hack, he manipulated the media, worse yet -- academic dishonesty through his publication of the 'hack' at a conference with a setup that was guaranteed to work, even when they later claimed even if it did work, it would take a few hundred attempts to even crash a machine, and far more than that to weaponize it (i.e., nearly impossible).
AND HE ACTS SHOCKED THAT HIS CREDIBILITY IS DAMAGED AND BLAMES 'FANBOYS' WHO HE PREVIOUSLY STATED HE WANTED TO STICK CIGARETTES IN THE EYES OF AS THE REASON FOR HIS LACKING CRED.
What an idiot. I hate to give the man any more air time, but I hope this is the final straw. From what I understand, he use to be a pretty good security analyst...now its just all about the publicity and not actually doing any real work. I wish there was some real and credible persons working to find holes in OS X. I use it as my daily computer. I know one member of my team found one hole a few years ago and reported it to one of the developers and it was fixed quickly (and they were properly credited for it). I know there are holes in the system, like any system, and they need to be found. And unfortunately, the only ones working on finding anything are more interested in the sensationalism than anything else.
Apple betters Microsoft once more.
Dispatch Tuesday is so much cooler than Patch Tuesday.
From the dictionary
Dispatch == To put to death summarily.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz