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"90% complete" can mean a very wide range of things. If it means having bypassed 9 out of 10 security layers, there's no guarantee it'll ever work. If it means
by tlb 9y ago
"90% complete" can mean a very wide range of things. If it means having bypassed 9 out of 10 security layers, there's no guarantee it'll ever work. If it means that the system works in the lab and they're adding UI and documentation, then it's reasonable to be confident. I've heard situations both worse and better described as "90% complete".
I would guess that coming from a company selling security solutions to law enforcement, it'd be more like the latter (ie, it basically works and needs polishing).
- mannykannot 9y agoOn the other hand, as the immediate goal was to decrypt one specific device and it was regarded as urgent, I would guess that the former is more likely. Your alternative scenario would amount to what would have been possibly the first time ever a software product was completed before it was released.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- tedunangst 9y agoIn the case of developing an exploit, one might reasonably claim that getting 0xdeadbeef in %rip is 90% done. A lot of researchers would stop at that point, because it's sufficient to demonstrate that it's exploitable. Some years ago, before various mitigations, you'd just have to polish up the payload and then you'd be 100%. But today, there might be a fair bit of work turning a demo crasher into a weaponized exploit.