Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The security of the Apple ecosystem is miles ahead of others. cough iMessage, hardware backdoors cough
That's a bit disingenuous. Can you substantiate your claims?
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A Reverse Engineer's Anatomy of the macOS Boot Chain and Security Architecture
41–50 of 52 posts
Re: A Reverse Engineer's Anatomy of the macOS Boot Chain and Security Architecture
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's basically all AI-generated. There are significant omissions and errors for any flow that hasn't previously been reversed engineered. The launchd stuff has details that are just wrong.
Do you know of a much more accurate deep dive? I'd love to learn all this from a source that is actually trustworthy/authentic.
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Re: A Reverse Engineer's Anatomy of the macOS Boot Chain and Security Architecture
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's basically all AI-generated. There are significant omissions and errors for any flow that hasn't previously been reversed engineered. The launchd stuff has details that are just wrong.
Do you know of a much more accurate deep dive? I'd love to learn all this from a source that is actually trustworthy/authentic.
If you're new to the topic, this is a good place to start https://support.apple.com/en-lamr/guide/security/welcome/web
Re: A Reverse Engineer's Anatomy of the macOS Boot Chain and Security Architecture
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The security of the Apple ecosystem is miles ahead of others. cough iMessage, hardware backdoors cough
That's a bit disingenuous. Can you substantiate your claims?
"In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information," the company said in a statement. "Now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests."
“At Apple, we are always working to defend our users against even the most complex cyberattacks. The steps we’re taking today will send a clear message: in a free society, it is unacceptable to weaponise powerful state-sponsored spyware against those who seek to make the world a better place,”
"The app in question is called “LassPass Password Manager” and lists Parvati Patel as the developer. The app attempts to copy our branding and user interface..."
Re: A Reverse Engineer's Anatomy of the macOS Boot Chain and Security Architecture
#45The security of the Apple ecosystem is miles ahead of others. Every time I reverse engineer some component of their OS, it is very different from what I've seen before. I always find myself surprised by their thoughtfulness and engineering craft. Recently I've taken on their code signing component. The concepts they've created, such as identifying applications by their "designated requirements" is a stroke of genius.…
> The security of the Apple ecosystem is miles ahead of others. cough iMessage, hardware backdoors cough
There are not any hardware backdoors.
Re: A Reverse Engineer's Anatomy of the macOS Boot Chain and Security Architecture
#46Will this enable someone who buys an apple laptop to boot directly into a third-party OS, from a thumb drive? Last I heard, they were still too locked down to allow it.
The bootloader doesn't even have a USB stack capable of reading external storage.
If you have kernel access you can do an OS-to-OS takeover from the original OS. That's how MkLinux worked on old Macs.
Re: A Reverse Engineer's Anatomy of the macOS Boot Chain and Security Architecture
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
The bootloader doesn't even have a USB stack capable of reading external storage.
If you have kernel access you can do an OS-to-OS takeover from the original OS. That's how MkLinux worked on old Macs.
Or you can just sign your Linux kernel from macOS recovery mode, which is what the Asahi Linux installer does already. No need for weird hacks.
You also don't have "kernel access" in macOS. After boot, the memory region corresponding to the macOS kernel is marked as read-only at the memory controller level.
Re: A Reverse Engineer's Anatomy of the macOS Boot Chain and Security Architecture
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you have kernel access you can do an OS-to-OS takeover from the original OS. That's how MkLinux worked on old Macs.
Or you can just sign your Linux kernel from macOS recovery mode, which is what the Asahi Linux installer does already. No need for weird hacks. You also don't have "kernel access" in macOS. After boot, the memory region corresponding to the macOS kernel is marked as read-only at the memory controller level.
> Or you can just sign your Linux kernel from macOS recovery mode, which is what the Asahi Linux installer does already. No need for weird hacks.
Does that work for USB boot?
> You also don't have "kernel access" in macOS. After boot, the memory region corresponding to the macOS kernel is marked as read-only at the memory controller level.
You can turn that off from recovery mode. (see `bputil`) It's needed to use dtrace.
Re: A Reverse Engineer's Anatomy of the macOS Boot Chain and Security Architecture
#49The security of the Apple ecosystem is miles ahead of others. Every time I reverse engineer some component of their OS, it is very different from what I've seen before. I always find myself surprised by their thoughtfulness and engineering craft. Recently I've taken on their code signing component. The concepts they've created, such as identifying applications by their "designated requirements" is a stroke of genius.…
> The security of the Apple ecosystem is miles ahead of others.
Have you heard about Qubes OS?
Re: A Reverse Engineer's Anatomy of the macOS Boot Chain and Security Architecture
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a bit disingenuous. Can you substantiate your claims?
"In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information," the company said in a statement. "Now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests." - Apple addressing Senator Wyden's accusation of Push Notification backdoors ( https://www.macrumors.com/2023/12/06/apple-governments-surve... ) “At Apple, we are always working to defe…
Those aren't iMessage hardware backdoors.