Two Black Hat Talks On Apple Security Cancelled

An anonymous reader writes "Two separate Apple security talks have been nixed at the last minute from next week's Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. The Washington Post's Security Fix blog reports that Apple researcher Charles Edge was to present on flaws in Apple's FileVault encryption plan, but asked Black Hat to cancel the talk, citing confidentiality agreements with Apple. Then on Friday, Apple pulled its security engineering team out of a planned public discussion on the company's security practices — which would have been a first for Apple. 'Marketing got wind of it, and nobody at Apple is ever allowed to speak publicly about anything without marketing approval,' a Black Hat spokesman said."

Comments

Marketing?

[KDR_11k]

Sounds like the marketing policy is "pretend there are no security issues". Hey, it seems to work.

Re:Marketing?

[Bloodhound Alpha]

The Marketing policy, not the company's policy. Obviously the company releases patches, but marketing, in relation to the public, pretends there are no issues. Quite a difference really.

Re:Marketing?

[falcon5768]

Well the issue is from a marketing perspective it DOES look bad, but from USER perspective it looks good, but only to those of us in the industry who care, which is NOT who marketing is going after.

Re:Marketing?

[billcopc]

When product issues come up, auto makers must make their shortcomings public

Um, no. Recalls are a business strategy like any other. The lawyers sit down with the accountants, figure out total costs for a recall and a class-action lawsuit, and pick the cheaper of the two.

You'd be shocked to find out how often the lawsuit actually ends up cheaper. That's largely because class-action settlements have a very narrow scope, and only a small portion of the customer base will actually join the class.

Re:Marketing?

[Goaway]

Apple is quiet about everything. This is not a case of Apple trying to cover up security problems, it's merely that Apple talkes about nothing, ever, and that includes security policies.

Re:Marketing?

[Bloodhound Alpha]

Indeed, that is their strategy. It does serve though, to cover up security problems, and get people used to them acting secretive because, well, they are secretive.

Re:Marketing?

[Achromatic1978]

Shades of MS my ass. Cite, please: "last time MSFT pulled a security talk from a conference".

Idiot.

Re:Marketing?

[Truekaiser]

thats because job's is a egomaniac. any flaw means there was a mistake and egomaniacs think they never make mistakes.

Re:Marketing?

[porcupine8]

The question is - do you know this to be true from personal industry experience, or are you just quoting Fight Club?

Sounds very logic to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

From a managements and sharehold perspective I think it's quite normal and understandable of Apple creating such a policy.
A self-acclaimed public spokesperson respresenting your company about a subject without prior permission?

You must be a veteran here but new on the job market.

Re:Sounds very logic to me.

[vertinox]

From a managements and sharehold perspective I think it's quite normal and understandable of Apple creating such a policy.

For a term holder then yes, but if you are a long term, then bad PR like this isn't desirable for company image over the course of several years.

Besides, just because you don't disclose the exploit, doesn't mean it goes away.

Re:Sounds very logic to me.

[lostmongoose]

The problem is not that they need permission. The problem is that they need permission from *marketing*. This should be the legal team's job. When you let marketing make these decisions, management (not the engineers, obviously) have effectively said "There are no flaws in our product and if you say there are then we're wrong and we all know we're never wrong."

Shhh, if we don't admit anything

[CrypticSpawn]

I guess, Apple is still very much old school; when it comes to admitting their mistakes. Or they just might believe in security thru obscurity. Either way this move, put them in the lime light even more. Great work marketing. Someone deserves to be fired...

The sad thing is

[ILongForDarkness]

Apple makes pretty good products. But in some ways their business practices are worse than Microsofts. They are so secretive that it is scary. They add to it by attacking the PC industry and saying how their product is better but all they will give you for information is press releases. At least MS is finally being more open with want is going on in the background with things like Channel 9 and versus blogs. There is a line where you have to protect company interests but it shouldn't compromise the customers' ability to make an informed choice.

Re:The sad thing is

[ScrewMaster]

I'd say it's more like Apple is dependent upon the consumers in their chosen market segment being (to a certain degree) computer illiterate. And let's face it, computer illiterates aren't likely to make an informed choice when it comes to buying a computer or choosing an OS. All they can do is follow marketing fluff about simplicity and ease-of-use.

Now, that's no dig at Apple's products ... by and large they deliver on what their market-droids promise. It's just that Apple made the conscious choice to target people who are often really too stupid to use a computer.

Re:Steve is not impressed

[Smurf]

My points were that if Apple is really more secure than Vista, Apple would welcome a thorough investigation of its OS.

Probably. But do take into account that the engineers (i.e., the people who actually KNOW the technical details) WANTED to have the discussion.

The decision to cancel it came from marketing, those who don't understand the technical details but are reasonably afraid that someone might pull a rabbit from their hat and make Macs look bad.