Apple hires respected forensics and security expert Jonathan Zdziarski for its Security Engineering and Architecture team
I'm pleased to announce that I've accepted … Chris Mills / BGR : Apple quietly hires renowned iPhone security expert Mudit Mohilay / The Tech Portal : iOS expert and privacy proponent Jonathan Zdziarski joins Apple Denisse Moreno / International Business Times : Apple Hires Security Expert That Helped Company During FBI San Bernardino iPhone Dispute Tyler Lee / Ubergizmo : Apple Hires Jailbreak Expert To Improve iPhone's Security Gina Hall / Silicon Valley Business Journal : Apple hires security researcher who aided when FBI asked to hack iPhone Kate Conger / TechCrunch : Apple hires security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski Zac Hall / 9to5Mac : Apple hires Jonathan Zdziarski, an active forensics consult & security researcher in the iOS community Paul Morris / Redmond Pie : Jailbreak Developer And iOS Security Researcher Jonathan Zdziarski Now Works For Apple Alex Heath / Business Insider : Apple hired the guy who helped it fight the FBI's order to hack the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone Buster Hein / Cult of Mac : Apple hires renowned iPhone jailbreaker to help protect privacy Christian Zibreg / iDownloadBlog.com : Apple hires iOS security researcher and former jailbreak developer Jonathan Zdziarski Evan Selleck / iPhone Hacks : Apple Hires Security Researcher Jonathan Zdziarski Mike Flaminio / Insanely Great Mac : Privacy/security blogger joins Apple Axios : Apple hires well-known iOS security researcher Gary Ng / iPhone in Canada Blog : iOS Security Expert Jonathan Zdziarski Joins Apple's Security Engineering Team Rene Ritchie / iMore : Jonathan Zdziarski goes to Apple April Glaser / Recode : Apple hired respected iPhone security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski MacDailyNews : Apple hires security guru Jonathan Zdziarski Dan Pye / iLounge : Well-known forensic scientist and iOS security advocate hired by Apple Andrew Orr / The Mac Observer : Apple Just Hired iOS Security Researcher Jonathan Zdziarski Mike Wuerthele / AppleInsider : Hacker, iOS researcher Jonathan Zdziarski hired by Apple's device security department Jonathan Vanian / Fortune : Apple Just Hired This High-Profile Security Expert Jon Fingas / Engadget : Apple's latest hire proves privacy is more important than ever Tweets: @svbizjournal : Apple has hired the security researcher who helped it when the FBI asked to hack San Bernardino shooter's iPhone http://www.bizjournals.com/... Casey Newton / @caseynewton : It's pronounced “ZDZIARSKI” http://twitter.com/... Rob Pegoraro / @robpegoraro : Looking for Jonathan Zdziarski's helpful infosec views here? His Twitter account didn't survive Apple hiring him. http://www.zdziarski.com/... http://twitter.com/... Joseph Cox / @josephfcox : Jonathan Zdziarski's blog on joining Apple. “Privacy is sacred; our digital lives can reveal so much about us"pic.twitter.com/nEy0bx0TyN Evan Dekhayser / @erdekhayser : Really great to see Jonathan Zdziarski is joining Apple's security team. I'm just sad we won't be hearing from him on Twitter anymore. Charlie Miller / @0xcharlie : This is the first time I remember Apple hiring an Apple security researcher. Congrats! http://twitter.com/... Mike Masnick / @mmasnick : Good hire, but unfortunate that we may lose much of his public analysis of stuff. http://twitter.com/... not Jony Ive / @jonyiveparody : The importance of this cannot be *overstated*. Apple takes privacy & security very seriously & JZ will make an excellent addition to Apple. http://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Jonathan Zdziarski is best known in this corpus for one thing: advising Apple during the FBI's San Bernardino request to hack an iPhone. His move from independent researcher to Apple's Security Engineering and Architecture team continues a pattern of Apple pulling outside security talent in-house, alongside structures like the New Product Security team created after a major iPhone 5c leak.
First-order effects
- Apple gains a respected forensics and iOS security practitioner inside its own engineering organization, deepening the bench it can draw on when facing government access demands like San Bernardino.
- The hire removes an independent critic-researcher from the outside ecosystem — Zdziarski's public jailbreak and forensics work now serves the platform he used to probe.
Second-order effects
- With more adversarial expertise in-house, Apple is better positioned for clashes with external researchers and regulators — a posture visible later in its accusation that Google's Project Zero stoked fear with a false impression of mass exploitation.
- Rivals courting security-minded buyers face an Apple whose privacy positioning is backed by named, credentialed hires rather than marketing alone.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, major platforms will keep absorbing independent security researchers into staff roles, shifting the industry's trust model from external auditing toward in-house capability — exactly the tech-expertise-in-institutions question the ACLU's Jon Callas, himself formerly of Apple, raises in a Q&A on tech expertise in policymaking.
The trend: Platform vendors are converting independent security researchers into in-house staff as encryption disputes with governments and researchers intensify.