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Jim Thompson adds second MacBook to Gruber's Wi-Fi hack challenge

by David Chartier Sep 6th 2006 at 8:30AM

Maynor and Elich's rewards just doubled, though the odds remain the same: Jim Thompson, a blogger who has been doing a knock-out job of dissecting this MacBook Wi-Fi hack fiasco, has offered a second MacBook on top of John Gruber's challenge to the dynamic duo. After all, what are two guys going to do with one MacBook?

In an update post, Mr. Gruber announced the doubled prize for the challenge (which hasn't been accepted yet, by the way), and apparently had to publicly explain why he believes the challenge is actually fair. Check out the post for some key snippets that lay the breadcrumbs for what could likely be one of the most significant security-related showdowns of Mac OS X's career - if the visiting team ever actually makes it to the field, that is.

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Maynor and Elich's rewards just doubled, though the odds remain the same: Jim Thompson, a blogger who has been doing a knock-out job of...
 

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Sherman Homan

The conditions of this "hack" are absurd. Modified kernels, third-party drivers and third-party WiFi cards. Seems to me that if you want to expose a Mac to a hacker, you would have to practically rebuild the thing to allow that hacker in. The irony will be that this hack will prove just how secure the Mac really is.

September 29 2006 at 10:10 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Wry Cooter

Even with the black box nature of the challenge, The hackers will continue to claim that the NDA due to security firm they work for, and Apples knowledge of the situation, prevent them from accepting. You will not hear anything from them except excuses amongst themselves on the board why they cannot give the challenge any attention. Cop out fingerpointing mudsling.

If they did break the built in wifi drivers, and could repeat such an action for the macbook prize, I think they would need more time than John is giving them. They would also probably need a macbook actually trying to log on to a wifi network, rather than just passively noticing its existance. A tad of social engineering too.

September 06 2006 at 9:38 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MacBookOwner

I am still interested in the outcome. I have a MacBook, and want to know if its as easy to hack as they claim, out of the box. And, I'm curious to see how reliable the Black Hat hackers are, and how reliable the Washington Post's Security blogger, Krebs is on reporting the event, and how unbiased ZDNet's George Ou is on Apple products. And whether Gruber knows what he's talking about at all. So, keep up the reporting, TUAW. ultim8Fury, feel free to ignore the posts about it if you don't care. Its easy; just keep scrolling.

September 06 2006 at 1:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ultim8fury

Is this still going on ? aren't these people starting to get the picture that everybody went home while these people are still arguing when the arena lights have been turned out. Look around spot how many people are rushing to post in this thread. Give it up. No one cares.

September 06 2006 at 12:13 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Bungle

God I'm so bored of this debate already....

September 06 2006 at 10:33 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jeff

I noticed it was up there about seven minutes ago. The event scheduled for next week definitely seems as though it will be the movie download service with the increased screen size.

September 06 2006 at 9:00 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Peter Leif Hansen

New iMac 24" is online at Apple !!

September 06 2006 at 8:55 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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