Jonathan Zdziarski

Apple Confirms “Back Doors”, Downplays Their Severity

Apple responded to allegations of hidden services running on iOS devices with this knowledge base article . In it, they outlined three of the big services that I outlined in my talk. So again, Apple has, in a traditional sense, admitted to having backdoors on the device specifically for their own use.

OnStar Begins Spying On Customers’ GPS Location For Profit

I canceled the OnStar subscription on my new GMC vehicle today after receiving an email from the company about their new terms and conditions. While most people, I imagine, would hit the delete button when receiving something as exciting as new terms and conditions, being the nerd sort, I decided to have a personal…

AI is just someone else's intelligence

It’s been a long time since I’ve worked in the field of ML (or what some call AI), and we’ve come a long way from simple text classification to what’s being casually called generative AI today. While the technology has made many advances, the foundational concepts of machine learning have remained analogous over time…

My Take on FBI's “Alternative” Method

FBI acknowledged today that there “appears” to be an alternative way into Farook’s iPhone 5c – something that experts have been shouting for weeks now; in fact, we’ve been saying there are several viable methods. Before I get into which method I think is being used here, here are some possibilities of other viable…

An Example of Forensic Science at Its Worst: US v. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair

In early 2014, I provided material support in what would end up turning around what was, in their own words, the US Army’s biggest case in a generation, and much to the dismay of the prosecution team that brought me in to assist them. In the process, it seems I also prevented what the evidence pointed to as an…

An open letter to Steve Jobs about approving the amber alert application