7 ms·

Users should have full control over their own machines. System Integrity Protection is obnoxious paternalism at best, and at worst, it's just another step towar

Users should have full control over their own machines. System Integrity Protection is obnoxious paternalism at best, and at worst, it's just another step toward iOS-ification. If Apple keeps this up, I expect a revival of Linux desktop distributions.

rimantas 11y ago
Yeah, iPhone a very very unpopular for this reason, right? You have the same amount of control, this is an option you can disable if you need to. I think the amount of people who need that is very small, even among technical crowd.
cmdkeen 11y ago
They do have full control - see the bit about being able to disable/enable via recovery mode. I for one am very happy to have moved on from an era where desktop security was abysmal and compromises lurked around every corner.
stock_toaster 11y ago
Isn't the goal to prevent malware from modifying core system files? How different is this than a simple mandatory access implementation? As long as it is possible to disable it, should I choose to, I am not outraged.
jawngee 11y ago
Yes, 2016 might very well be the year of the Linux desktop.
hamstergene 11y ago
The common problem of today OSes is that shall malware breach security at least once, it can hide in the system and you will have no idea that you have it. SIP is a good step towards fixing that problem.
Osmium 11y ago
> Users should have full control over their own machines. Agreed. > System Integrity Protection is obnoxious paternalism at best Couldn't disagree more. The user maintains full control: you can disable it at will, temporarily or permanently. Protections like this are becoming essential as a result of current malware threats. Thanks to System Integrity Protection, we're now much more protected against rootkits and similar attacks. This is a good thing. I feel like I have to keep defending it because it's perceived as this removal of user freedoms, when it's factually just not the case–you can still do everything you could do before, you just have to restart into recovery mode to do so (to be able to do this without the restart into recovery mode would undermine the security this technology provides). System Integrity Protection is closer in spirit to something like SELinux than anything.
- sneak 11y ago
  Many of the "I want full and complete control of my system at all times!" people mostly just mean "I want to continue doing it the way I have done it for the last fifteen years and will resist any change to that traditional method on principle". See also: Android
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    Obnoxious changes ought to be resisted. For me as a sysadmin who doesn't need their hand held, this is just one more annoyance to deal with.
- umanwizard 11y ago
  Well, if we somehow knew for sure that you'll always be able to disable it, sure, this feature is fine. But Apple can't be trusted -- they sell two very popular lines of computers (iPhones and iPads) that are completely locked down. It's not unreasonable to be worried that they'll try to move towards locking down their other lines also. Not to mention that they're a remarkably developer-hostile company and probably wouldn't care much about the outcry it would raise from the HN crowd.
  - Osmium 11y ago
    It seems a little unfair to judge a company against their hypothetical future actions. I agree that if they do remove the option to disable it in future then that's a problem, of course. > they sell two very popular lines of computers (iPhones and iPads) that are completely locked down. Note that iOS is less locked down now than it has been in the past. Previously, you had to enroll in the $99/year developer programme to run your own code on your device, but now you just need to register for a free developer account. So they're moving in the right direction, even if this is still too restrictive for some.
    - umanwizard 11y ago
      I'm not judging them based on hypothetical future actions. I'm not really judging them at all; I'm just uneasy and worried. I'm predicting that the probability of hypothetical future actions for which I'd judge them is too high for my comfort. I'm also judging the hell out of them for their past and current action of keeping iOS locked down. The developer program thing, IMO, is a bit of a red herring; everyone who can buy an iPhone can also pay $99, so pragmatically there is nothing you can do now that you couldn't before, unless you're a student and your parents bought you your phone. Sure, it's a step in the right direction or at least not negative, but I don't think it's particularly meaningful.
massysett 11y ago
I think SIP gives me more control over my machine, not less. I don't want programs installing junk into my system directories. Don't mess with what my distributor shipped me. I've had this same complaint on Linux and OS X for years: to install system wide, you are typically asked to become root, and then some random installer has free reign to wreak absolute havoc. It turns out Haskell Platform was installing symlinks in /usr.[0] Why? There was no need for that and no easy way to get it out or even know it was doing that in the first place. So as a solution people had "uninstaller" programs that would look for gunk like this left by other programs? Ridiculous. I'm glad Apple is locking this down. If you don't like it turn it off. [0] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2015-October/121554.html https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2015-October...
- eggie 11y ago
  It's an unusual linux installer these days that requires root. Programs aren't going to write junk into your system directories on linux unless you give them permission to. I'm not sure how adding an additional layer of complexity on top of this will solve anything. Now, rather than asking for root, your random installer would be asking you to open up SIP permissions for it.
  - quesera 11y ago
    Privilege escalation is a real problem. SIP fixes it.
mickronome 11y ago
A couple of year ago I made a prediction that Apple is going to try to throw out OSX long term. While I thought it would proceed at a greater pace, gradually locking down things because of "security" can easily have double utility. I hope I'm wrong, I like my OSX machines ...
outworlder 11y ago
> System Integrity Protection is obnoxious paternalism at best As is ASLR? Users should always know what addresses their libraries are loaded at in their own machines! While we are at that, let's remove file permissions. That's paternalism - users should know what they are doing.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

rimantas 11y ago

Yeah, iPhone a very very unpopular for this reason, right? You have the same amount of control, this is an option you can disable if you need to. I think the amount of people who need that is very small, even among technical crowd.

cmdkeen 11y ago

They do have full control - see the bit about being able to disable/enable via recovery mode. I for one am very happy to have moved on from an era where desktop security was abysmal and compromises lurked around every corner.

stock_toaster 11y ago

Isn't the goal to prevent malware from modifying core system files? How different is this than a simple mandatory access implementation? As long as it is possible to disable it, should I choose to, I am not outraged.

jawngee 11y ago

Yes, 2016 might very well be the year of the Linux desktop.

hamstergene 11y ago

The common problem of today OSes is that shall malware breach security at least once, it can hide in the system and you will have no idea that you have it. SIP is a good step towards fixing that problem.

Osmium 11y ago

> Users should have full control over their own machines. Agreed. > System Integrity Protection is obnoxious paternalism at best Couldn't disagree more. The user maintains full control: you can disable it at will, temporarily or permanently. Protections like this are becoming essential as a result of current malware threats. Thanks to System Integrity Protection, we're now much more protected against rootkits and similar attacks. This is a good thing. I feel like I have to keep defending it because it's perceived as this removal of user freedoms, when it's factually just not the case–you can still do everything you could do before, you just have to restart into recovery mode to do so (to be able to do this without the restart into recovery mode would undermine the security this technology provides). System Integrity Protection is closer in spirit to something like SELinux than anything.

sneak 11y ago
Many of the "I want full and complete control of my system at all times!" people mostly just mean "I want to continue doing it the way I have done it for the last fifteen years and will resist any change to that traditional method on principle". See also: Android
- Karunamon 11y ago
  Obnoxious changes ought to be resisted. For me as a sysadmin who doesn't need their hand held, this is just one more annoyance to deal with.
umanwizard 11y ago
Well, if we somehow knew for sure that you'll always be able to disable it, sure, this feature is fine. But Apple can't be trusted -- they sell two very popular lines of computers (iPhones and iPads) that are completely locked down. It's not unreasonable to be worried that they'll try to move towards locking down their other lines also. Not to mention that they're a remarkably developer-hostile company and probably wouldn't care much about the outcry it would raise from the HN crowd.
- Osmium 11y ago
  It seems a little unfair to judge a company against their hypothetical future actions. I agree that if they do remove the option to disable it in future then that's a problem, of course. > they sell two very popular lines of computers (iPhones and iPads) that are completely locked down. Note that iOS is less locked down now than it has been in the past. Previously, you had to enroll in the $99/year developer programme to run your own code on your device, but now you just need to register for a free developer account. So they're moving in the right direction, even if this is still too restrictive for some.
  - umanwizard 11y ago
    I'm not judging them based on hypothetical future actions. I'm not really judging them at all; I'm just uneasy and worried. I'm predicting that the probability of hypothetical future actions for which I'd judge them is too high for my comfort. I'm also judging the hell out of them for their past and current action of keeping iOS locked down. The developer program thing, IMO, is a bit of a red herring; everyone who can buy an iPhone can also pay $99, so pragmatically there is nothing you can do now that you couldn't before, unless you're a student and your parents bought you your phone. Sure, it's a step in the right direction or at least not negative, but I don't think it's particularly meaningful.

massysett 11y ago

I think SIP gives me more control over my machine, not less. I don't want programs installing junk into my system directories. Don't mess with what my distributor shipped me. I've had this same complaint on Linux and OS X for years: to install system wide, you are typically asked to become root, and then some random installer has free reign to wreak absolute havoc. It turns out Haskell Platform was installing symlinks in /usr.[0] Why? There was no need for that and no easy way to get it out or even know it was doing that in the first place. So as a solution people had "uninstaller" programs that would look for gunk like this left by other programs? Ridiculous. I'm glad Apple is locking this down. If you don't like it turn it off. [0] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2015-October/121554.html https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2015-October...

eggie 11y ago
It's an unusual linux installer these days that requires root. Programs aren't going to write junk into your system directories on linux unless you give them permission to. I'm not sure how adding an additional layer of complexity on top of this will solve anything. Now, rather than asking for root, your random installer would be asking you to open up SIP permissions for it.
- quesera 11y ago
  Privilege escalation is a real problem. SIP fixes it.

mickronome 11y ago

A couple of year ago I made a prediction that Apple is going to try to throw out OSX long term. While I thought it would proceed at a greater pace, gradually locking down things because of "security" can easily have double utility. I hope I'm wrong, I like my OSX machines ...

outworlder 11y ago

> System Integrity Protection is obnoxious paternalism at best As is ASLR? Users should always know what addresses their libraries are loaded at in their own machines! While we are at that, let's remove file permissions. That's paternalism - users should know what they are doing.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]