Ziphone author claims to have new remote execution bug for OS X
Italian systems engineer Piergiorgio Zambrini won fame and money last year when he created "Ziphone," the first widespread application that unlocked iPhones to run on mobile carriers other than AT&T. Now he's making another bid for the spotlight by revealing a bug that can crash the iPhone and, he says, other devices including iPods and Apple computers.
Zambrini planned to publish news about the bug Monday--although he's saving the technical details for Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ), he says--at least for now. The 38-year-old security expert praises Apple's marketing prowess and calls Steve Jobs a genius. But there are chinks in Apple's software--and Zambrini is determined to uncover them.
The bug Zambrini found is in the audio portion of Apple's video format. Knowing the bug exists, someone could write a program that incorporates the bug into a video file and trigger a crash whenever an iPhone attempts to run that file. The bug, which is located in a shared code library that is used across most Apple operating systems and some Linux ones as well, doesn't appear to cause any permanent damage, but immediately sends the device into a panic that leads to a lengthy reboot.
