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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."

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  1. Steve is not impressed by bxwatso · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This must be bitter sweet for Steve B., since Apple likes to tout that it's software is more secure than Vista. I wonder if Walt Mossberg is taking note of this.

    I think Steve J.'s brand of evil is about the same as MS's, but because they are perceived as underdogs, people don't care as much.

  2. Re:Marketing? by fortyonejb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's somewhat of a sad fact that this has been considered as fair and normal practice in the industry. Maybe because no real "safety" issues can be dragged into the mess, people who are not in the know simply do not care.

    Just to make sure i'm /. approved, lets use the highly venerated auto industry. When product issues come up, auto makers must make their shortcomings public, and even issue recalls to fix said problems.

    Just because my PC doesn't explode when hit from the rear, doesn't mean the shortcomings are any less valid. While of course marketing does not want anyone to know anything bad could ever happen with a Mac, it would be better for the company and its clients to have a more open dialog. Pretending there are no holes does not fill them.