David Maynor admitted to making mistakes, two of them quite significant: he chose a MacBook for the demo, and he chose to preview the set-up to a journalist looking for a career-making sensational news item. This made the whole thing zoom in on Apple.

He wouldn't be in such deep funk if he and Ellch had focused instead on spreading their original message - that the exploit could work on ANY platform, that indeed it is not a function of the operating system per se, that it is not a critique of operating systems in fact but rather of wireless networking technology.

What I don't understand, though, is this: why doesn't he just go back to the original premise? Why not do a demo on three laptops - running XP, Linux and OS X? That would, in my opinion, take the heat off him which is being applied doggedly by the Mac community.

Perhaps it's because he CAN in fact do what he originally said he coud do on Windows and Linux but hasn't quite figured it out yet on a Mac? And that's why he needs a few more months to get it? God only knows. But taking a year to prove that he can do what he said he could do doesn't do wonders for his credibility.

Even if he were to show the working exploit after this people would still be saying that he'd merely reverse-engineered Apple's own security patches to get it. Either way, his reputation is screwed. At least with the mainstream world that's been watching.

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