macOS & iOS: History and Security
© 2017 by Harry Moulton, iTOUK
All rights reserved, No part of this work may be reproduced in any form including, but not limited to, photocopying, recording or reselling without the permission of the author.
Credits
- Sohaib Ali - For doing absolutely nothing
- Billy Ellis - For his book, his Youtube and proof reading this book
- Zistooshort - Co-Founder of iTO, also proof reading
Version 1.0
About me
My name is Harry Moulton, but i use the alias h3adsh0tzz. I'm a 16 year old iOS developer and i'm very interested in cyber security. Over the past year, i have created multiple iOS app's, created a website for ipsw downloads, co-founded a software development team, attended the CyberFirst: Futures cyber security course organised by GCHQ and NCSC and achieved an A in computer science at GCSE, and somehow pulled a B in Maths from somewhere and I'm currently taking A level computer science.
I'm particularly interested in the inner workings of the XNU and Linux Kernels, iOS/macOS security, how computers actually work and general computer science. After my time at CyberFirst: Futures i wrote quite a lengthy blog post on ncsc.gov.uk about my experience there and i hope to attend CyberFirst: Advanced next year.
On October 5, 2017, I co-founded Is This On? (iTOUK) with @zistooshort as a software development and security research team.
Purpose of this book
I'll be the first to admit, I'm not a security expert. The reason for this is so i can demonstrate my knowledge, have a source for my information and my own research and to let others learn from someone in the same position as me wanting to learn about security.
In this book i will discuss the history of Darwin/macOS/iOS, the security systems implemented in those systems, the XNU kernel, iBoot, Jailbreaking and may even dwell into the world of hackintoshing. Reading into the lengths that Apple have gone to trying to create secure products is quite interesting, and its even more interesting reading the creative ways that researchers break these security systems.
Reading this book i'd expect that you already have an interest in cyber security, have poked around the XNU and/or Linux source, regardless if you understand what everything is or not, and have some basic programming skills in Objective-C, C or C++. If you know assembly, great, hit me up on Twitter and help me out.