About Me

View my O’Reilly Author Profile

  
“Jonathan Zdziarski is considered, worldwide, to be among the foremost experts in iOS related digital forensics and security. As an iOS security expert in the field, Jonathan’s research into the iPhone has pioneered many modern forensic methodologies used today, and has been validated by the United States’ National Institute of Justice. Jonathan has extensive experience as a forensic scientist and security researcher specializing in reverse engineering, research and development, and penetration testing, and has performed a number of penetration tests and forensic examinations for government agencies, the military, and the private sector. Jonathan frequently consults with law enforcement agencies and military on cases and assists law enforcement agencies internationally with investigations and training. Also an author for O’Reilly Media and NoStarch, Jonathan has written several books related to the iPhone including iPhone Forensics, iPhone SDK Application Development, iPhone Open Application Development, and his latest book, Hacking and Securing iOS Applications.”

• … Forensic scientist, defensive security expert, and software engineer, focusing on iOS and macOS security and forensics technique.
• … Author of many books about the iPhone and Machine Learning, and heavily involved in reverse engineering, security research, forensic tools development, and penetration testing.
• … Pioneered the suite of first iOS Forensics Tools, which have been validated by the National Institute of Justice, and were, for a long time, used by law enforcement agencies worldwide (I have also provided a large amount of consulting to various law enforcement, government, and military agencies for various types of cases)
• … Educator, having trained a number of hands-on forensic science and penetration classes to law enforcement, government, military, and the private sector internationally.
• … Former member of the iPhone Dev-Team, and worked on a number of jailbreak exploits between 2007-2009 ranging from the very first jailbreak of v1.0 to about 3.1.3, after figuring out how to dual-boot an iPhone.
• … Subject matter expert and key contributor to the CompTIA iOS Secure Developer Certification
• … Author of many popular App Store apps including Ballistic (now acquired) and iErase (now unnecessary)
• … Author of Nestopia for iOS, a port of the popular Nintendo emulator
• … Original author of the popular DSPAM adaptive language classifier
• … Former member of IACIS, HTCC, and InfraGard
• … That guy who got to shoot Al Capone’s Machine Gun, shoot hand guns in Canada, stay up all night working on murder cases with a bunch of canucks, and do other cool things.

On Hacking

I’ve been hacking on things since I was around eight, and have come to develop very strong interests in reverse engineering, forensics, machine learning, and many other geek-worthy projects. My first PC was a TRS-80 with a cassette deck and 128×48 B/W resolution. As a kid, I spent a lot of time bootlegging cheezy games from other TRS-80s at school, but usually forgot about the lead track on the tape, and ended up with mostly worthless cassettes. My first Apple was an Apple ][gs, followed by a PowerBook 180c, with flying toasters and lawnmower men.

Several years went by doing my own research and coming up with my own new ideas, some of which I’ve had the pleasure of teaching or writing about. I began touching government around 2008, when I released a suite of forensics tools for the iPhone, and in December 2009, accepted an engineering position with an FFRDC. Today, I work on the Security Engineering and Architecture team at Apple.

On Writing

When you’re young, nobody ever tells you when you’re good at things, or at least you don’t take them to heart, and so I never wrote much until much later in life. I was approached several years ago about writing a book covering the inner-clockwork of statistical spam filters like my DSPAM, and decided to give the pen a try. It seemed to turn out alright, and shortly thereafter I became inspired to write again on a more regular basis. One of the things I noticed was that good writers seemed to enjoy writing, whether or not they became famous for it. This philosophy seems to work for just about anything else in life too: if you enjoy it, spend a lot of time doing it, regardless of whether it makes you famous or pays the bills.

On Musicking

Music (noun): brief interruptions between bass solos

The bass guitar entered the scene at around 18, which came about by some cosmic accident when a so-called friend of mine tried to dump his gear on me for some cash. It was a beat up Peavy Foundation, and I spent several months with bleeding fingers figuring out how the stupid thing worked. Eventually started to enjoy it, and have been playing bass on and off since. While hackers and painters are a more well known combination, hackers and musicians have more fun. They say music is sound that makes sense; I like Vic Wooten’s philosophy that music is a “language”, and like any other language, the most important thing is “having something to say”; having something written on your heart to express in music is an intimate thing, which is one way musicians differ from hackers in some ways, yet share together in others. My musical inspirations have included Abraham Laboriel, Victor Wooten, Bootsy Collins, Marcus Miller, John Patitucci, Tommy Sims, Richard Bona, Felix Pastorius, and Jaco of course. Recommended tracks: Parliament, James Brown, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Herbie Hancock, Snarky Puppy, and anything with Metropole Orkest playing. On a Sunday, you’re more likely than not to find me playing in a church somewhere.

On Christianity

One thing I am undeniably certain about is my Christian faith. My former interests pale in comparison. I’ve spent years studying the Greek language, theology, and history, so I could read many manuscripts on parchment and see just how we derived theology.

“Who I am” can’t possibly be expressed adequately without sharing my Christian faith, as it’s not only shaped my character but brought a new level of insight into my life.