Some in the Mac space even one of the editors here on GNC think the recent MacBook hack was not fair, but I think the follow up post on the Washington Post is pretty clear why they used a third party wireless card, its because Apple pressured them not to show that the Mac’s own wireless cards are hackable!
From the Washington Post:
“During the course of our interview, it came out that Apple had leaned on Maynor and Ellch pretty hard not to make this an issue about the Mac drivers — mainly because Apple had not fixed the problem yet. Maynor acknowledged that he used a third-party wireless card in the demo so as not to draw attention to the flaw resident in Macbook drivers. But he also admitted that the same flaws were resident in the default Macbook wireless device drivers, and that those drivers were identically exploitable.”
Knock Knock Indeed :) [Washington Post]
Todd this makes no sense.
The people conducting this hack wouldn’t or couldn’t even show this hack live. They had to show a video of the hack.
They claim the reason they had to use a third-party wireless card instead of the built-in wireless provided by Apple was because Apple supposedly “pressured” them into not showing the exploit being done with Apple hardware. Just how credible can these hackers be if they wilt under “pressure” from Apple? They then claim that the exploit can be done with native Apple hardware, thus doing the exact damage that Apple pressured then NOT to do.
The way you have been handling this story is the exact reason you have a reputation as being a Mac basher. You actually seem to be demonstrating unabashed glee over this story. Knock knock jokes and smiley faces? All the while seemingly ignoring red flags that you should be noticing. Think of all the advertising dollars you are missing out on by taking every opportunity to bash Mac computers. There might be some advertisers that fear you alienate their customers that might own a Mac. The same thing applies to AOL. You insensibility bash AOL and Time Warner, even though Time Warner is one of the few companies that is willing to experiment in podcasting advertising. I don’t see how you can expect to get Time Warner to buy advertising on Blubrry if you are advising people to sell all their Time Warner stock.