14 DAY TRIAL // Despite all kinds of speculation, questions and going back and forth, there has been no additional light shed on the MacBook Wi-Fi exploit, and, as time passed it looked like the story would slowly slip away out of the public's attention. However, some people are just not going to let it go until it is cleared up whether MacBooks are indeed vulnerable or they are not.
In order to clear things up, John Gruber of Daring Fireball has issued a challenge to David Maynor and Jon Ellch: "If you can hijack a brand-new MacBook out of the box, it's yours to keep."
The conditions of the challenge as well as Gruber's motivation for the move can be found on Daring Fireball, however, as Gruber himself mentions, this challenge is likely to go unanswered. Gruber writes, "I don't expect to lose this particular bet - but I don't expect to win it, either. I expect to be ignored. I don't think Maynor and Ellch have discovered such a vulnerability in the default MacBook AirPort card and driver, and so, if I'm right, they certainly won't accept this challenge. I think what they've discovered - if they've in fact discovered anything useful at all - is a class of potential Wi-Fi-based exploit, which they demonstrated on a rigged MacBook to generate publicity at the expense of the Mac's renowned reputation for security, but that they have not found an actual exploit based on this technique that works against the MacBook's built-in AirPort. If I'm wrong, and they have discovered such a vulnerability, they may or may not choose to accept this challenge. But it's a bet that they'll only accept if they can win," Gruber writes. "It comes down to this. If I'm wrong, it'd be worth $1099 to know that MacBook users are in fact at risk. And if I'm right, someone needs to call Maynor and Ellch on their bullshit."