Mac worm designer threatened, leaves blog
updated 10:25 am EDT, Thu July 19, 2007
Mac worm maker
One researcher's revelation that he had developed a new worm for Mac OS X has had unintended repercussions, reports say. The author of Information Security Sell Out says that following the worm announcement, he was at first bombarded by insults, mainly asking for proof of the worm and his identity. This quickly escalated however, leading to death threats, although their seriousness is unknown. "You are lucky you are anonymous or I would put a bullet in your head for this," read one anonymous comment at ISSO.
By Tuesday night the situation had peaked, the blog having (apparently) fallen prey to a hacker who deleted all posts and changed the title to "Security Information." Accused of complicity is Dave Maynor, another researcher who in 2006 became embroiled with Apple over a wireless hack demonstration at the Black Hat security conference. Maynor has denied this, but is rumored to have charged ISSO with being involved with January's "Month of Apple Bugs," and a part of a malicious hacking collective.
ISSO's writer now says that the blog is effectively dead, a victim of a "great experiment to see how the industry could handle some honesty." Others doubt that the site was hacked however, notably Metasploit developer H.D. Moore. Having used a text analysis utility called Unmask, he became "70 percent" sure of the party behind ISSO; Moore claims that the blog was altered shortly after he contacted his suspect.
bullet?
07/19, 10:30am reply
why spill a bullet on someone who already seems to have a worm in his head...
tortenteufel
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Joined: Jul 2007
Good...
07/19, 10:55am reply
Seriously, who feels bad for this guy. It's one thing to develop these kinds of things to enhance security and an altogether different thing to profit from people using it maliciously. If you read this guys site, it sure didn't seem like he was on the up-and-up. The way I figure it, these guys deserve what they get. When you walk the thin line between hurting and helping (as many of these anonymous hackers do) you're asking for it. Maybe he shouldn't be getting death threats, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to be attacked back when you initiate an attack...
QualleyIV
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Joined: Aug 2001
Me Thinks...
07/19, 11:01am reply
... this was all FUD and social engineering in the first place.
This dork expects us to believe that he was capable of pulling off a worm for Mac OS X (and we are supposed to take him for his word while he is acting like a complete jerk), then claims to have fallen prey to someone hacking his blog.
Whatever.
gskibum3
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Joined: Nov 2006
Hoax Hacker Harrassment
07/19, 11:13am reply
I think all the posts on his blog were HIM to begin with.
This guy must have a vendetta against Apple, and is obviously just trying to whip up some anti-Apple frenzy among the hacker community to try to get them to attack Apple stuff.
He's doing it by trying to socially *hack* the hackers with some made-up worm, imaginary death threats, and totally fabricated Mac-fanatic lunacy.
He obviously has been trying to "make" his "Worm" for a long time and is failing... perhaps it is just too small. (;
gregarios
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More to Add
07/19, 11:30am reply
Now we're supposed to believe that this dork developed a Worm for OS X, received death threats, and hasn't now released it into the wild? And there are no reports of infections in the wild.
gskibum3
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Joined: Nov 2006
duh
07/19, 11:38am reply
so the security expert
can't host his blog
on a secure platform??
death threats?? gee, lots of passion in this world
hardly worth the effort when the faux worm is unable to breech the mac's firewall... so who ever labeled it a worm is really frankinstein..
why does anyone take this guy seriously??
do we all secretly wish for mac anarchy??
highly unlikely
just a bad career move then
hokizpokis
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*sigh*
07/19, 11:41am reply
fanboys.
broohaha22
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broohaha22
07/19, 12:23pm reply
So you actually believe that he was able to develop a worm of this nature and yet he can't even keep his blog secure?
*sigh* BillBoys
gskibum3
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A Link
07/19, 12:37pm reply
Here's something to tie the threads together:
sgs123
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A Link (again)
07/19, 12:38pm reply
http://www.whitestar.linuxbox.org/pipermail/fuzzing/2007-July/000399.html
(retrying w/o angle brackets)
sgs123
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