6 ms·

It would be nice if macOS had the same permissions models as iOS, and then some. A permission before apps can access the camera, or access what keys are held do

by dannyw 9y ago

It would be nice if macOS had the same permissions models as iOS, and then some. A permission before apps can access the camera, or access what keys are held down when the app isn't in the foreground - that would block this case.

sametmax 9y ago
This would effectively kill innovation. There is a reason you can't do half the things you do on a laptop on a phone unless you root said phone.
- zaksoup 9y ago
  I'm not sure I buy that requiring user opt-in to camera access is why the Mac app ecosystem is is much larger than that of iOS. Can you elaborate on what apps/innovations would become impossible because of a mandatory opt-in? I cannot think of any...
  - kmbriedis 9y ago
    Keyloggers which don't require any permissions, apparently
  - icebraining 9y ago
    The problem with an opt-in system is that you have to sandbox the whole app (otherwise, evading the opt-in would be trivial) and therefore lock out any advanced access not explicitly listed as an opt-in permission. If you want an example, there's F.lux, which doesn't work (without rooting) on Android and iOS.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    Everything that is either very low level or is used for deep introspection of other parts of the system. I'm not against sandboxing, but if there should be a way to say i know what i'm installing, go with it. Otherwise you will say good bie to new ways of debugging, alternative drivers, unusual way of routing network packets, innovative UI interactions that are not part of the standards widgets, or anything you haven't think of yet. The computing experience you have today is the result of all the stuff we fiddle with for the last 30 years because it was allowed to. It would be foolish thz big players invented most of it.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- ClassyJacket 9y ago
  The idea is not to prevent programs doing those things, it's to prevent programs doing those things without user permission.
  - oblio 9y ago
    Is there (or was there every) any OS app store that allowed an app to go trawling through another apps's memory? Or if you don't want to be that radical, one that at least allows overlays. I don't know of any.
    - pluma 9y ago
      Plenty of apps on Android are allowed to draw over other apps (e.g. Facebook messenger, Lux Auto Brightness). There are also apps that use the accessibility APIs to determine what the user is seeing (e.g. LastPass with AppFill enabled). I think both of these features require explicit manual permissions (i.e. having to go to the system settings and whitelist the app) to be enabled. Also Android permission dialogs refuse to pop up if there is an untrusted screen overlay (which meant that my experience with Lux when with other apps' permission dialogs involved either manually disabling the virtual screen brightness adjustment or having it automatically disabled temporarily, which resulted in unpleasant surprises while using the phone at night).
  - sametmax 9y ago
    That's not the problem. The problem is that the whitelist of permissions is limited, fixed, i have no control over it and i can't easily work around it. I can't create a great way to batch install/update/migrate my phone because everything requires manual approval. I can't use my own browser or sms app on ios cause it's not allowed by the permissions system. I can't install a new driver on my phone. Remember the bs update apple did that broke the home button, forcing people to buy a new phone ? I can't prevent that either. I'm actually for permissions and sandboxes for most apps. But i want a manual override when i need one.
    - BoorishBears 9y ago
- sneak 9y ago
  There is also a reason I can do 99% of the things I do on a laptop on my (totally sandboxed, not rooted) iPad Pro.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    No you can't. You just have a very limited way to use it. Even with the same screen size, give me a laptop os and i'll be more productive, with a factor of 10. It's not a figure of style. Phone os are terribly limited.
    - walterbell 9y ago
      Depends on workflow and apps. iPad OS has made steady progress. If Apple allowed advanced users to manually override permissions, they would gain data to help the OS to evolve much faster. See landscape architects’ experience with human foot paths.
      - sametmax 9y ago
        That's actually my point.
    - sneak 9y ago
      You’re objectively wrong, and likely have significantly outdated understanding of what is possible on a “terribly limited” “phone os”.
      - sametmax 9y ago
        So, without rooting or plugging your phone into a real computer you can: Run a database ? (good luck running postgres with the OS killing processes all the time) Run docker ? Taking screen captures anywhere ? (this one actually got me yesterday while trying to screen capture netflix on my one plus 3) Run f.lux ? Run one virtual machine with windows on it ? Capture 3G traffic with wireshark ? Install a driver to read a USB key in another partition format not allowed by the OS ? Bypass DRM ? Resize partitions to get a dual boot ? Run Wine ? (and they tried hard. Since fosdem 2014 at least) Install patches as soon as a vulnerability is discovered, and not waiting on your phone seller to wake up ? And if you just consider iOS, it's way, way worse. At least on android you have access to part of the filesystem. The thing is, in computing, nothing works exactly right. And with my laptop, I have always a way to work around problems. With phones, I'm just stuck with it. Multitasking sucks. Automation is terrible. You may install a GNU env, but it has access to so little you can't script your way out of anything.
rubatuga 9y ago
The permission model on the Mac is that it is up to the user. Don’t run software that you don’t trust, end of story!
- ben_w 9y ago
  I believe that was the problem.
LoSboccacc 9y ago
Funny, I wish it was the other way around. The current model makes far to easy to impersonate elevated dialogs in iOS.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Is it hard to impersonate elevated dialogs on macOS?
nfoz 9y ago
Yes, it would be very nice if operating systems had a sane (let alone user-friendly!) way to properly, thoroughly sandbox userland applications. It's a large reason why "web applications" became a thing -- it gives you sandboxed remote programs (and easy-access to boot!) Even if the web-browsing sandbox is flawed, it's been a convenient band-aid over a fundamental OS feature that, sadly, still doesn't properly exist.
- NiveaGeForce 9y ago
  Like UWP on Windows.
- Gaelan 9y ago
  macOS has sandboxed apps, with the same underlying model as iOS (not sure if it asks for camera permissions and such, but apps declare a list of “entitlements” and are granted only those). It’s required for App Store apps, but other than that it’s opt-in. Outside of the App Store, basically it’s just something like DEP or ASLR: a mitigation that isn’t really visible to users unless they look for it.
tinus_hn 9y ago
Most applications can’t offer the functionality you expect without a great amount of permissions. New apps in the Mac App Store have to run in the sandbox and they are quite severely limited.
- pkamb 9y ago
  And permissions do not exist for many common and expected behaviors of Mac apps, leaving the Sandbox/Mac App Store pretty unviable.
PhisherPrice 9y ago
However, macOS gives the user root access. This allows malware to elevate privileges by using a vulnerability or phishing for the password or elevation prompt. Once root, everything can be keylogged, even passwords.

by dannyw 9y ago

sametmax 9y ago

This would effectively kill innovation. There is a reason you can't do half the things you do on a laptop on a phone unless you root said phone.

zaksoup 9y ago
I'm not sure I buy that requiring user opt-in to camera access is why the Mac app ecosystem is is much larger than that of iOS. Can you elaborate on what apps/innovations would become impossible because of a mandatory opt-in? I cannot think of any...
- kmbriedis 9y ago
  Keyloggers which don't require any permissions, apparently
- icebraining 9y ago
  The problem with an opt-in system is that you have to sandbox the whole app (otherwise, evading the opt-in would be trivial) and therefore lock out any advanced access not explicitly listed as an opt-in permission. If you want an example, there's F.lux, which doesn't work (without rooting) on Android and iOS.
- sametmax 9y ago
  Everything that is either very low level or is used for deep introspection of other parts of the system. I'm not against sandboxing, but if there should be a way to say i know what i'm installing, go with it. Otherwise you will say good bie to new ways of debugging, alternative drivers, unusual way of routing network packets, innovative UI interactions that are not part of the standards widgets, or anything you haven't think of yet. The computing experience you have today is the result of all the stuff we fiddle with for the last 30 years because it was allowed to. It would be foolish thz big players invented most of it.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
ClassyJacket 9y ago
The idea is not to prevent programs doing those things, it's to prevent programs doing those things without user permission.
- oblio 9y ago
  Is there (or was there every) any OS app store that allowed an app to go trawling through another apps's memory? Or if you don't want to be that radical, one that at least allows overlays. I don't know of any.
  - pluma 9y ago
    Plenty of apps on Android are allowed to draw over other apps (e.g. Facebook messenger, Lux Auto Brightness). There are also apps that use the accessibility APIs to determine what the user is seeing (e.g. LastPass with AppFill enabled). I think both of these features require explicit manual permissions (i.e. having to go to the system settings and whitelist the app) to be enabled. Also Android permission dialogs refuse to pop up if there is an untrusted screen overlay (which meant that my experience with Lux when with other apps' permission dialogs involved either manually disabling the virtual screen brightness adjustment or having it automatically disabled temporarily, which resulted in unpleasant surprises while using the phone at night).
- sametmax 9y ago
  That's not the problem. The problem is that the whitelist of permissions is limited, fixed, i have no control over it and i can't easily work around it. I can't create a great way to batch install/update/migrate my phone because everything requires manual approval. I can't use my own browser or sms app on ios cause it's not allowed by the permissions system. I can't install a new driver on my phone. Remember the bs update apple did that broke the home button, forcing people to buy a new phone ? I can't prevent that either. I'm actually for permissions and sandboxes for most apps. But i want a manual override when i need one.
  - BoorishBears 9y ago
sneak 9y ago
There is also a reason I can do 99% of the things I do on a laptop on my (totally sandboxed, not rooted) iPad Pro.
- sametmax 9y ago
  No you can't. You just have a very limited way to use it. Even with the same screen size, give me a laptop os and i'll be more productive, with a factor of 10. It's not a figure of style. Phone os are terribly limited.
  - walterbell 9y ago
    Depends on workflow and apps. iPad OS has made steady progress. If Apple allowed advanced users to manually override permissions, they would gain data to help the OS to evolve much faster. See landscape architects’ experience with human foot paths.
    - sametmax 9y ago
      That's actually my point.
  - sneak 9y ago
    You’re objectively wrong, and likely have significantly outdated understanding of what is possible on a “terribly limited” “phone os”.
    - sametmax 9y ago
      So, without rooting or plugging your phone into a real computer you can: Run a database ? (good luck running postgres with the OS killing processes all the time) Run docker ? Taking screen captures anywhere ? (this one actually got me yesterday while trying to screen capture netflix on my one plus 3) Run f.lux ? Run one virtual machine with windows on it ? Capture 3G traffic with wireshark ? Install a driver to read a USB key in another partition format not allowed by the OS ? Bypass DRM ? Resize partitions to get a dual boot ? Run Wine ? (and they tried hard. Since fosdem 2014 at least) Install patches as soon as a vulnerability is discovered, and not waiting on your phone seller to wake up ? And if you just consider iOS, it's way, way worse. At least on android you have access to part of the filesystem. The thing is, in computing, nothing works exactly right. And with my laptop, I have always a way to work around problems. With phones, I'm just stuck with it. Multitasking sucks. Automation is terrible. You may install a GNU env, but it has access to so little you can't script your way out of anything.

rubatuga 9y ago

The permission model on the Mac is that it is up to the user. Don’t run software that you don’t trust, end of story!

ben_w 9y ago
I believe that was the problem.

LoSboccacc 9y ago

Funny, I wish it was the other way around. The current model makes far to easy to impersonate elevated dialogs in iOS.

icebraining 9y ago
Is it hard to impersonate elevated dialogs on macOS?

nfoz 9y ago

Yes, it would be very nice if operating systems had a sane (let alone user-friendly!) way to properly, thoroughly sandbox userland applications. It's a large reason why "web applications" became a thing -- it gives you sandboxed remote programs (and easy-access to boot!) Even if the web-browsing sandbox is flawed, it's been a convenient band-aid over a fundamental OS feature that, sadly, still doesn't properly exist.

NiveaGeForce 9y ago
Like UWP on Windows.
Gaelan 9y ago
macOS has sandboxed apps, with the same underlying model as iOS (not sure if it asks for camera permissions and such, but apps declare a list of “entitlements” and are granted only those). It’s required for App Store apps, but other than that it’s opt-in. Outside of the App Store, basically it’s just something like DEP or ASLR: a mitigation that isn’t really visible to users unless they look for it.

tinus_hn 9y ago

Most applications can’t offer the functionality you expect without a great amount of permissions. New apps in the Mac App Store have to run in the sandbox and they are quite severely limited.

pkamb 9y ago
And permissions do not exist for many common and expected behaviors of Mac apps, leaving the Sandbox/Mac App Store pretty unviable.

PhisherPrice 9y ago

However, macOS gives the user root access. This allows malware to elevate privileges by using a vulnerability or phishing for the password or elevation prompt. Once root, everything can be keylogged, even passwords.