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Johnny Cache Breaks Silence On Wi-Fi Exploit
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Sep 04, 2006 01:05 PM
from the lawyers-from-black-helicopters dept.
from the lawyers-from-black-helicopters dept.
Joe Barr writes, "Johnny Cache — aka Jon Ellch — is chafing under the cone of silence placed over him and co-presenter Dave Maynor about the Wi-Fi exploit they presented at Black Hat and DEFCON last month. So he has finally broken his silence on NewsForge in hopes of ending the personal attacks coming from what he implies is a smear campaign started by Apple." (Newsforge and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.)
Johhny Cache writes, "If you're going to post a news story that is a rehash of my post to a mailing list, I would much prefer it if people actaully just read the post in its entirety."
Johhny Cache writes, "If you're going to post a news story that is a rehash of my post to a mailing list, I would much prefer it if people actaully just read the post in its entirety."
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chafing (Score:2)
So..? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Of course not. There's no exploit. If there was, he'd be walking away with a free Macbook.
Re:So..? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I mean, MacBooks are overpriced, but not that overpriced.
Re:So..? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure John Gruber's blog is extremely important to John Gruber, but if some guys who are clearly dealing with a mountain of legal issues right now choose not to meet him at the mall, you can't take that as evidence of anything -- except that Gruber's pretty clever at diverting attention to himself.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
He's making a great argument - I'd say that the fact that you don't know what a strawman is stopping you from understanding it.
Re:So..? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's always fun to look for bad guys in situations like this, but both Apple and Mr. "Cache" here are wearing white hats. You want both of them to be doing what they're doing, and it's lame to make it into a flame war. You want Mr. Cache breaking drivers, because then they get fixed, and your Mac doesn't get 0wned when you're down at Starbucks watching YouTube videos.
And you want Apple to try to dissuade him from publishing his hack, because you want them to fix it before every random hacker figures it out, and the sooner he publishes, the sooner the black hats will have an exploit. So if Apple doesn't get him to stop talking, maybe your Mac will get 0wned down at *$$.
But you still want Apple to be paranoid about the information getting out, so that they release the bug fix quickly, not slowly. And so what he's done with this article is useful, because he's basically said how the hack works, and now presumably the black hats are working on trying to duplicate the hack. And Apple knows this, and so the patch release will probably come sooner. And so your laptop won't get 0wned at *$$. W00t!
What I don't see here is bluster. This isn't high school. People don't get up on stage at defcon and claim to have hacked something they didn't really hack. The reason they do these hacks is to improve security, not to count coup. You owe the guy your thanks, not your hopes that his reputation is ruined.
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Re:So..? (Score:4, Insightful)
The way these things work is that when someone hacks your hardware, you get an injunction to stop them from talking about it. If they talk about it, they go to jail for contempt of court. If you were to RTFA, you might get the very strong impression that he's under an injunction of this type.
Instead of letting us infer the facts, why not just say "because of a court order, we can't talk about it"? It happens all the time [google.com].
If there is a hack, I want to know. I'm not looking for details, I just want the answer to Jon Gruber's question [daringfireball.net]: "Have Maynor and Ellch found a vulnerability that affects MacBooks using Apple's built-in cards and drivers?"
If the answer is "yes" or "no" just say so! If they're under a gag order, just say "We're under a gag order." Asking us to read between the lines isn't cutting it.
Not to mention that the ad-homs aren't helping his credibility...
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, the point of the Blackhat/Defcon talk was actually not about proving Macs are vulnerable--it was a
This guy really is full of himself (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
You make it sound as if that would be a bad thing.
Re:This guy really is full of himself (Score:5, Insightful)
An attack on his personality doesn't invalidate that.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The only difference is most of us don't need a rigged demo to break into a Windows machine...
Article text (Score:4, Informative)
Monday September 04, 2006 (01:07 PM GMT)
By: Joe Barr
Jon Ellch -- aka Johnny Cache -- was one of the presenters of the now infamous "faux disclosure" at Black Hat and DEFCON last month. Ellch and co-presenter Dave Maynor have gone silent since then, fueling speculation that the entire presentation may have been a hoax. Ellch finally broke the silence in an email to the Daily Dave security mailing list over the weekend, and one thing is clear: he is chafing under the cone of silence which has been placed over the two of them.
Ellch explains their silence since the presentations in his email by saying:
Secureworks absolutely insists on being exceedingly responsible and doesn't want to release any details about anything until Apple issues a patch. Whether or not this position was taken after a special ops team of lawyers parachuted in out of a black helicopter is up for speculation.
He also went on to explain that while the debate was centered in the Mac blogger community, it made no sense to discuss it because most of them wouldn't understand the explanation if he gave it, adding, "Since this conversation has moved into a venue of people who can actually grasp the details of this, I'm ready to start saying something."
Ellch then breaks down the elements of the vulnerability and possible exploits, but in the context of Intel drivers rather than Apple's, asking and then answering the obvious question of why he did so when he wrote: "Why am I switching the subject from Apple's bug to Intel's? Because it's patched, and Secureworks has no influence over what I say regarding this one."
He buttressed his explanation of how he crashed the Intel Centrino driver by creating a race condition by flooding it with UDP packets and disassociation requests with links to dumps of crashes he caused using this technique.
Ellch notes that a crash caused this way doesn't guarantee a successful exploit, saying "If you're lucky, your UDP packet will end up on the stack. If you're less lucky, a beacon packet from a nearby network will end up on the stack. In the case where I successfully overwrote eip (Extended Instruction Pointer), the UDP packet was 1400 bytes."
He also responded to criticisms that he and Maynor have simply been "playing the media" instead of reporting an actual vulnerability and exploit, saying:
You know, of all the comments I see, the ones that 'we played the media' make the least sense. Have you ever seen me in the news before? No. Have I ever talked to a reporter before? No. Am I doing a very good job of winning this PR smear campaign lynn fox ignited? No. If I was so deft at manipulating the media, would I be explaining myself on dailydave praying that a few technically competent people will actually get it?
I contacted Ellch by email after reading his post and asked if he was claiming Apple is the cause of their silence. He replied:
Let's just say its pretty obvious I'm not happy about being silent. So much so that i'm releasing non-apple bugs to convince people that we do in fact know what we're talking about.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
In any case, I think he's really not being forthcoming with respect to what the hack entails, and maybe that's due to Apple's aggressive lawyers. In any case I'd like to see more details.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
*engage nutjob conspiracy theories*
Cheers.
It's not tech details, it's proving it works (Score:5, Interesting)
The article above states, "He also went on to explain that while the debate was centered in the Mac blogger community, it made no sense to discuss it because most of them wouldn't understand the explanation if he gave it, adding, "Since this conversation has moved into a venue of people who can actually grasp the details of this, I'm ready to start saying something." "
Thanks for the condescension! It's not necessary. I will note that no one sensible, including myself (over at wifinetnews.com) has asked for the code. Rather, we've asked for Maynor and Ellch to either state that they mislead Brian Krebs, that Apple lied when they stated the company wasn't presented with credible evidence, or that they have material that Krebs saw and Apple hadn't seen yet.
John Gruber did a face-off, not asking for the code, but asking for a simple demonstration with a $1,099 plus sales tax prize.
How does Gruber not understand the technical details when he isn't asking for them? He's asking for a black-box showdown.
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Exploit is in the centrino driver (Score:3, Interesting)
Note that for this exploit to work, the network needs to be active (ie: both cards need to be joined to a base station). Why? Because you can't send UDP packets to something with no IP address...unless they're blasting WiFi cards directly, which seems unlikely.
"Implies" my fanny. He says it right out. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:"Implies" my fanny. He says it right out. (Score:4, Funny)
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Apple probably looked at these guys and laughed.
Next thing you know, these guys will be "discovering" cold fusion.
Re:"Implies" my fanny. He says it right out. (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple probably looked at these guys and laughed. </blockquote>
Silly rabbit! What the author is inplying, very transparently, is that they found an exploit in the Apple driver that is very similiar to the one in Intel's driver.
Due to his NDA with his company he can't say what he might know about Apple's driver, but he can certainly point out a similar bug and exploit with a similar Intel driver and let you infer what you will... namely that a very similar bug exists in the Apple driver.
Now, whether that's true or not... that's another story.
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How is it "obvious" ? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's blatantly obvious that Apple's lawyers have come down on him like a ton of bricks
If Apple's lawyers wrote a nastygram to these guys, don't you think we'd have seen it by now? The first thing anyone in a public situation like this does when they get pressure from the big players is to publicize the legal threats.
At the moment all we have is the word of someone who cast aspersions at Mac users, disingenuously claimed that he was exploiting Apple security flaws, and now claims (not so subtly) that Apple's lawyers are the reason he can't come clean.
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Re:How is it "obvious" ? (Score:4, Interesting)
If he doesn't feel okay about releasing details until they've patched the driver that's one thing. But insinuating that the big bad lawyers have silenced you is quite another. The only circumstance I can think of where they could actually be legitimately silenced is: they are/were being paid to do pen testing for Apple, they submitted this bug, they blabbed about it at a conference when they were under a contractual NDA, they're now claiming they didn't say enough violate the NDA and are remaining mum until the rest of the details go public.
Given the nature of this scenario (i.e. that they'd have to have violated an NDA to wind up where they are insinuating they are now), I'm not overwhelmed with trust for the researchers who are positing this security hole's existence. On the other hand, I was led on and on by Apple waiting for them to release a patch for my earlier security issue that had a similar attack vector and security impact to this posited new security hole. If these researchers are actually waiting, we may all have to sit around for a good long while before the proof is actually shown.
This dilemma is more evidence of why full disclosure [wikipedia.org] is a good idea.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps to you. To others, it's "blatantly obvious" that he has some weird issue with Apple and enjoys spreading FUD. His "clarification" provides no support either way.
He states that the ONLY reason he's saying something now is because he's talking about Intels drivers, not Apples
Or maybe that's all he actually has an exploit for. I don't know, and neither do you.
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Black helicopters? Even in metaphor? (Score:5, Insightful)
What a schmuck.
It took all of 2 paragraphs to go ad hominem... (Score:3, Interesting)
That's the way to prove your point.
As someone said, show this on a "bog standard" Mac from and I'll pay attention.
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Most Mac users insult their own intelligence.
I have a Mac and it's great. Unfortunately the majority of Mac users are an embarrassment. I sometimes cringe when I read the comments on Mac blogs - the Mac users make Linux fans look humble and Windows users look intelligent.
I work in the IT security industry and I'm perfectly willing to accept that this exploit is for real. The pattern of events is not abnormal: the exploit will be demonstrated at a conferenc
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I work in the IT security industry and I'm perfectly willing to accept that this exploit is for real. The pattern of events is not abnormal: the exploit will be demonstrated at a conference but because of NDA the details remain under wraps until the manufacturer releases a patch.
I am a mac user and work in security as well. Let me show the ways in which this "exploit" is unusual and dubious:
So don't demo on a Mac! (Score:5, Insightful)
Is the exploit real? Who knows, I've seen video of someone cracking a Mac through a wireless driver. Then again I've also seen video of a virus written on a Mac taking down a fleet of invading alien spaceships...
It's all so obvious (Score:3, Funny)
Cache doesn't really say anything (Score:3, Insightful)
It should be noted that Cache still didn't come out and say whether Macs with Apple's AirPort cards are vulnerable. Gruber Specifically asks him about this on the list [immunitysec.com], and he doesn't answer it [immunitysec.com]. He does say that he expects a patch from Apple, which clearly implies that AirPort cards are vulnerable, but he doesn't say it, instead claiming that Apple is legally threatening him and running a "PR smear campaign" against him - again without giving any specifics.
This whole episode is just insane. If Macs are vulnerable out of the box, why not say so (especially if you're "waiting for an patch from Apple")? If they aren't, why implying that they are?
It's entirely possible that Macs are vulnerable. Macs aren't magically secure and save from bugs. The issue with this whole thing isn't that Mac users believe that Macs can't possibly be hacked. The issue is that the people who ostensibly found the security problem don't seem to be capable of telling us what the heck they actually found and whether Macs are vulnerable, instead making vague accusations and implying stuff without giving any specifics or even a demonstration.
Re: (Score:2)
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All kinds of fun places.
Not code on the stack since OS X uses the NX bit on the stack by default
So, is NX support enabled on kernel pages?
Some code in a buffer? How do you find the address of the buffer? How do you inject the code into the buffer in the first place?
Right, so you want to know some basic buffer overflow exploitation techniques. I think I've got a book somewhere that some friends and I wrote, it covers that...
Apple threw dirt at him? (Score:4, Interesting)
before they only threw dirt to make him look unreliable
Point me to the link where Apple threw dirt at him.
There are plenty of bloggers who did the research on their own and asked the right kind of questions, but I've never seen anything from Apple attacking him. Maybe you're referring to Apple pointing out [macworld.com] that he used a third party USB device and didn't disclose any info to Apple about the exploit? I wouldn't exactly call that throwing dirt.
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Apple has done nothing (Score:3, Informative)
They state they won't say anything until Apple patches the problem? It would speed up the process of getting it patched if they would tell Apple about it!
From what I can tell, they are pretending Apple is pressuring them because it makes them look more important.
Addtional note, what is this stuff about Intel's drivers? Apple doesn't use Intel's chipset, they use an Atheros or Broadcam WiFi chipset. Additio
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Funny. I was thinking of Madonna in the 80's.
Mac Jihad... (Score:3, Funny)
It's very common for them to lash out at everyone because of their true feelings of inferiority and lack of understanding as to why everyone doesn't see the world like they do.
Case in point - I'll be modded -9 Troll in about
Re:Mac Jihad... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no "inferiority complex" in the middle east. They aren't emo kids running around threatening to slit their wrists. It just so happens that their standards of living are ridiculously low compared to the standards of living of "the west," not directly due to us, but partially. If you grew up there, you'd be looking for someone to blame, and their government provides "the great satan" as a convenient scapegoat. Further proving their point, "the great satan's puppet in the region," (aka israel) has just rampaged through lebanon, destroying civilian targets like bridges, hospitals, and airports, further degrading their quality of life. it's lack of understanding of the kind that you have just demonstrated that has brought us into the current situation in iraq and afghanistan, as well as the US unspoken nod to israel to rampage across the middle east.
this in no way relevant to the situations of mac users, who just happen to have a different OS preference. your above statement would be like saying that whenever an african american person acts stereotypically black (whatever you might define that as) they are acting out of a feeling of self-inferiority.
think about it.
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Re:Macjihad (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't about a perpetual motion machine or an entropy reducing device, or even P vs. NP or Riemann's Hypothesis. This is code. This isn't world changing. Bugs happen, then they get fixed. If they want to stay silent to dodge liability let them. If there is a bug it'll be patched, if there isn't they'll fade into obscurity.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the thorough lack of details and crummy reporting mixed with derogatory comments that makes it hard to discern if there is an exploit to speak of at all. I know I'd have nothing to worry about if the guys would have presented their exploit neutrally (without shit-flinging Mac users for "being smug"), been detailed in exactly what the target of the attack is (they can do that without revealing details on the exact nature of the exploit) and told us that they're working with Apple
Re:Honestly weird (Score:5, Informative)
Quite simply; the Intel card is, in both cases, doing things like UDP and TCP offload from the main system. This means the card and driver together have an internal state in software to manage it, and (due to the asynchronus nature of networking) you can get the hardware and driver software's core into a situation where they don't agree on the state.
The small glue layer that deals with the OS hooks is a static translation layer that wouldn't be involved. The SB Live! and Audigy drivers in Linux are the same driver as the Windows Creative driver (well, they were about 6 years ago when they contributed the code). nVidia uses the same driver code on all platforms as well. For anyone who's written a driver, this is easy to understand.
"- why use this stupid external card? what are the chances it did have the same chipset as the internal one?"
He uses it because it's a timing race, and because it's easier to demonstrate with 2 cards in the system. With a 4000 microsecond delay, this means it's likely taking a bit longer for the OS to service the interrupts between the two cards; enough that the driver bug can show itself. There are likely other ways to tickle this bug that don't require multiple cards, but then you'd have to have something running on the OS. Still, If you setup a machine to throw packets around, you could make an intermittent crash bug appear on an OS -- that's not cool.
"- and odds are the bug is a buffer overrun... does it take a SO LONG for apple to fix a stupid memory overrun?"
A stupid memory overrun? Man, you haven't programmed ever, have you? A timing related bug in device driver code is probably the second hardest bug you'll ever encounter to debug (the first would be the core of the OS itself). Concurrent programming is difficult [computer.org].
It's responses like these that show why this person had been light on detail. Most people lack the technical background in OS design to understand this issue.
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Re:Honestly weird (Score:5, Insightful)
Deliberately withholding information because of some nebulous "threat" that has never been proven smacks of misdirection and just more "shell-game" antics by some folks who have a personal beef with Apple.
I don't really care if they hate Apple's userbase with all the bile of Hell... if they're serious about this and are not just faking the results to be pissy children, then come out with it. Otherwise, they just need to STFU.
Claiming that he won't reveal details because "no one understands" sounds like HE doesn't understand most likely.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps both drivers are derivd from the same codebase? Or perhaps the developers of both drivers made the same faulty assumtion that leads to this bug?
- This guy did overrate some minor problem in a misleading way for Apple laptops. Oh.. a third party driver with a bug. Or it's Apple driver with only a thirdparty card. In that case, he's discredited in the domain of security for the rest of his life.
What if the third-party driver is behaving exact
Checking driver security (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider a video-card driver. That's blasting several hundred megabytes of data across the bus at any one time (say you're playing a full-screen MPEG4 with no gfx-card support for decode). Would you want the OS to validate and check every one of those transactions ? Whoops, there goes the frame-rate. Still, slow-motion is fun...
Or a SCSI-driver, con
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I can make my Mac crash too! (Score:4, Informative)
Hint to everyone: RTFA for yourself and ignore uninformed slashdot comments masquerading as authoritative ones.
as install two wireless cards
He speculates that triggering the race condition with a single NIC is possible, two NICs makes it easier. He was just telling the community what he found, and that steps should be taken by the vendors to fix it (and they did, if you read his message). Just because he couldn't trigger it with a single NIC, doesn't mean 1) We should ignore the issue 2) someone else can't
and a netcat listener.
The exploit would work on a machine that has any sort of UDP listener running on the interface being attacked. Netcat is merely useful for demonstration purposes, otherwise we'd have people concerned that e.g. a bug in Skype (if that UDP service was targeted instead) is the real vector for the exploit rather than the Intel NIC driver.
I'm sure Apple will fix it asap.
And if you had read his message, you'd see that 1) Apple has patched it already, 2) it's an Intel bug, not Apple's.
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