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Reverse Engineering

Personal blog · reverse.put.assecuritysystems

Reverse Engineering is a personal blog at reverse.put.as about security and systems. Since 2010, 50 different Hacker News readers have linked it 61 times, most often “Measuring OS X Meltdown Patches Performance”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-21, and you can follow it by feed.

Visit the blog
61mentions?
50HN people?
2010–2026first – last linked?
Links on Hacker News per year · peak 13 in 2015

Too few sampled comments (17) to say how often HN recommends it.?

Why HN links it

HN readers link this blog for reverse engineering and macOS security posts, such as sandboxing, EFI firmware writability and syslogd analysis. Commenters cite it as background for Apple security topics.

Summarised by Claude from a sample of 17 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.

Reverse Engineering and Security for fun!

Most-linked posts?

  1. /wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Apple-Sandbox-Guide-v1.0.pdf
    6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2017-05-18
  2. Measuring OS X Meltdown Patches Performance
    4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2018-01-09
  3. Your Mac firmware security is completely broken
    4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2015-05-29
  4. Reverse Engineering HackingTeam's Latest OS X Malware
    3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-02-29
  5. A very detailed guide to reverse engineering OSX Applications
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-03-09
  6. Apple EFI firmware passwords and the SCBO myth
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-06-25
  7. Reverse engineering and exploiting a critical Little Snitch vulnerability
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-07-26
  8. Patching what Apple doesn’t want to
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-10-31
  9. How to fix rootpipe in Mavericks and call Apple’s fix bullshit bluff
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-04-13
  10. Reversing Apple’s syslogd bug
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-01-23

What Hacker News says?

  1. lioeters · 2020-05-22
    In the Apple Sandbox Guide v1.0 [1], it mentions Dionysus Blazakis' paper [2] presented at Blackhat DC 2011. In the latter, Apple's sandbox rule set (custom profiles) is called SBPL - Sandbox Profile Language - and is described as a "Scheme embedded domain specific language". It's evaluated by libSandbox, which contains TinyScheme! [3] From what I could understand, the Scheme interpreter generates a blob suitable fo…

    Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Apple-Sandbox-Guide-v1.0.pdf

    on “MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?”
  2. efge · 2024-05-25

    Submitted Abusing Go's Infrastructure as a story · 381 points

    HN discussion
  3. derefr · 2020-05-22
    Apple replaced the very simple (i.e. function fits in a cache line; inputs fit in a single dword) BSD user/group/other filesystem privileges system, with a Lisp interpreter (or maybe compiler? not sure) executing some security DSL[1][2]. [1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Sandbox/OS_X_Rule_Set [2] https://reverse.put.as/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Apple-Sand... This capabilities-ruleset interpreter is what Apple uses the t…

    Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Apple-Sandbox-Guide-v1.0.pdf

    on “MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?”
  4. hkr_mag · 2016-06-25

    Submitted Apple EFI firmware passwords and the SCBO myth as a story · 177 points

    HN discussion
  5. chris_wot · 2016-04-18
    :-) all good - I'm more curious to know how Apple updates their operating system. Evidently it's possible to modify these protected files, I'm now curious how they do it. Best I can find is the following article: https://reverse.put.as/2015/10/12/rootfool-a-small-tool-to-d...

    Comment linking /2015/10/12/rootfool-a-small-tool-to-dynamically-disable-and-enable-sip-in-el-capitan/

    on “Remote code execution, git, and OS X”
  6. davikrr · 2021-12-26

    Submitted Knock Knock Who's There? – An NSA VM as a story · 157 points

    HN discussion
  7. imglorp · 2024-11-08
    SBPL (sandbox profile language) is interesting. Some details here: https://github.com/0xbf00/simbple I'm curious if there's a Scheme interpreter somewhere as part of macos that consumes these? PS looks like it's "sandbox-exec" that does this. Ref: https://reverse.put.as/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Apple-Sand...

    Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Apple-Sandbox-Guide-v1.0.pdf

    on “Multiple new macOS sandbox escape vulnerabilities”
  8. adamnemecek · 2016-01-23

    Submitted Reversing Apple’s syslogd bug as a story · 96 points

    HN discussion
  9. johncolanduoni · 2017-05-18
    You can allow access to a unix socket via things like: (allow network-outbound (remote unix-socket (path-literal "/private/var/run/syslog"))) Similarly you can allow use of shared memory: (allow ipc-posix-shm) Most of the rule types are documented here[1]. Even for the ones that aren't, the error message in the logs uses the same syntax (e.g. if a unix socket is blocked you'll get a complaint about "network-outbound…

    Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Apple-Sandbox-Guide-v1.0.pdf

    on “A Case of Stolen Source Code”
  10. mafuyu · 2014-02-15

    Submitted AppleDoesntGiveAFuckAboutSecurity iTunes Evil Plugin Proof of Concept as a story · 85 points

    HN discussion
  11. Kristine1975 · 2016-04-17
    Here's a rather technical article on what they are apparently up to: https://reverse.put.as/2016/02/29/the-italian-morons-are-bac... HackingTeam latest sample is a very fresh sample compared with what we got in the past, it is a sample created post July 2015 hack, and it’s using the same code base as before. HackingTeam is still alive and kicking but they are still the same crap morons as the email leaks have shown…

    Comment linking /2016/02/29/the-italian-morons-are-back-what-are-they-up-to-this-time/

    on “Phineas Fisher's account of how he took down HackingTeam”
  12. mirceasoaica · 2015-05-29

    Submitted Your Mac firmware security is completely broken as a story · 31 points

    HN discussion
  13. inkyoto · 2022-05-02
    > The thing is, you cannot harden it even more. Yes, you can. You seem to have never used Trusted Solaris implementing the B1 TCSEC level and running on the certified hardware where all system objects are labelled and MAC is enforced at the kernel level. That is an example of a much more locked down system, which you are conjuring up OS X to be but the OS X is nowhere near to being that locked down nor controlled. T…

    Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Apple-Sandbox-Guide-v1.0.pdf

    on “Why Jony Ive left Apple to the ‘accountants’”
  14. 2bluesc · 2014-05-05

    Submitted About the processor_set_tasks() access to kernel memory vulnerability as a story · 16 points

    HN discussion
  15. finchisko · 2018-05-24Recommends
    macOS has sandbox based on TrustedBSD MAC framework. However official documentation is non existent and implementation looks like unfinished product, but I've tried it and it worked. Recommend you to read "Apple's Sandbox Guide" pdf. https://reverse.put.as/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Apple-Sand...

    Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Apple-Sandbox-Guide-v1.0.pdf

    on “OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out”
  16. 2510c39011c5 · 2015-04-13

    Submitted How to fix rootpipe in Mavericks and call Apple’s fix bullshit bluff as a story · 9 points

    HN discussion
  17. amenghra · 2017-11-17
    Reminds me tricks people used to crash debuggers. E.g. https://reverse.put.as/2012/01/31/anti-debug-trick-1-abusing... , http://blog.ioactive.com/2012/12/striking-back-gdb-and-ida-d... and https://xorl.wordpress.com/2009/01/05/more-gdb-anti-debuggin...

    Comment linking /2012/01/31/anti-debug-trick-1-abusing-mach-o-to-crash-gdb/

    on “A Sampling of Anti-Decompilation Techniques”
  18. heyalexej · 2014-06-27

    Submitted Shakacon #6 presentation: Fuck you Hacking Team, From Portugal with Love. as a story · 5 points

    HN discussion
  19. pascal_cuoq · 2014-11-13
    > Expanding this business to the private sector might have positive effects. Corporations could buy the "zero days" in their own products in order to fix them. I should point out that some companies are already getting vulnerabilities reported to them for free (in the best case, for the price of a symbolic bounty program) and fail to fix them. See http://reverse.put.as/2014/10/31/patching-what-apple-doesnt-... for o…

    Comment linking /2014/10/31/patching-what-apple-doesnt-want-to-or-how-to-make-your-old-os-x-versions-a-bit-safer/

    on “The Mercenaries: Ex-NSA hackers are shaping the future of cyberwar”
  20. notmine1337 · 2025-09-21

    Submitted Exploiting the GPU and the 90s crypto wars to crack the APT code signing keys as a story · 4 points

    HN discussion
  21. chrisfosterelli · 2015-06-30
    The current version has a _very_ serious vulnerability, where when the system wakes from suspend on pre-mid-2014 models the entire UEFI BIOS is writable [0]. This could lead to wipe-proof rootkits. It initially appeared that their advice was going to be "buy a new macbook", so I'm very happy to see they bundled firmware updates along with this :) [0] https://reverse.put.as/2015/05/29/the-empire-strikes-back-ap...

    Comment linking /2015/05/29/the-empire-strikes-back-apple-how-your-mac-firmware-security-is-completely-broken/

    on “About the OS X Yosemite v10.10.4 Update”
  22. Khaine · 2025-04-08

    Submitted Clownpertino – A simple macOS debugger detection trick as a story · 4 points

    HN discussion
  23. m_eiman · 2018-01-10
    Seems like syscalls are a lot more expensive, which may or not affect your daily work. https://reverse.put.as/2018/01/07/measuring-osx-meltdown-pat...

    Comment linking /2018/01/07/measuring-osx-meltdown-patches-performance/

    on “Performance Impact of Spectre and Meltdown Mitigations on Windows Systems”
  24. m_eiman · 2018-01-10

    Submitted Measuring OS X Meltdown Patches Performance as a story · 4 points

    HN discussion
  25. rjzzleep · 2012-09-14
    reminds me a bit of the gdb bugs they had for a very long time. http://reverse.put.as/2008/11/28/apples-gdb-bug/ well it's lldb nowadays, but anyway

    Comment linking /2008/11/28/apples-gdb-bug/

    on “My love-hate relationship with development on Macs”
  26. zeeshanm · 2015-11-16

    Submitted Practical iOS Apps Hacking (2012) [pdf] as a story · 4 points

    HN discussion
  27. jackjeff · 2013-05-15
    Security http://krebsonsecurity.com http://www.schneier.com http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/ Apple http://www.marco.org http://daringfireball.net http://www.mondaynote.com http://reverse.put.as Programming http://blog.barthe.ph http://herbsutter.com http://thedailywtf.com http://www.sealiesoftware.com/blog/ http://mrale.ph Other http://torrentfreak.com http://googleresearch.blogsp…

    Comment linking /

    on “Ask HN: What are the small to medium size blogs you go to daily?”
  28. Cieplak · 2015-07-20

    Submitted The Empire Strikes Back: how your Mac firmware security is completely broken as a story · 4 points

    HN discussion
  29. miles · 2016-06-25
    Looks like you might be in luck! Apple EFI firmware passwords and the SCBO myth https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11974806 https://reverse.put.as/2016/06/25/apple-efi-firmware-passwor... The site is under heavy load at the moment; here is a cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...

    Comment linking /2016/06/25/apple-efi-firmware-passwords-and-the-scbo-myth/

    on “Apple bricked my MacBook and there's nothing I can do about it”
  30. noondip · 2015-07-01

    Submitted Reversing OS X: EFI suspend/resume 0day as a story · 4 points

    HN discussion

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