6 ms·

So apps need to ask for location but not to see everything you do? WTF

amerine 9y ago
I imagine a world where every application that wanted to read and write to displays was required to go through an authorization-flow before it worked? That sounds terrible. This behavior is how desktop applications are meant to work. I’m surprised this surprised anyone.
- eropple 9y ago
  A desktop application has need to instruct the OS to draw its window. That can be reasonably unprivileged--an app owns its windows, this is easy. Most applications have no need to read raster data from its window. Even fewer have need to read raster data from the desktop itself. Desktop applications are not "meant to" have access they don't need. They sometimes have that access as an accident of history, but they are not "meant to"; we've known about the principle of least privilege for a long time. And the MacOS sandbox (which, to be honest, doesn't work very well, but that's neither here nor there) is intended to enforce application privileges and reduce escalation.
- igloofoo 9y ago
  Please humor me, why in the world does an app need to read/write your screen? It is provided a window for that. If it doesn't need to read/write your screen in order to provide its features, and then does it, wouldn't you agree that something is fishy? Wouldn't you like to know when fishy things are going on? What is the point of security if any app you download can see everything you do?
  - badsectoracula 9y ago
    > Please humor me, why in the world does an app need to read/write your screen? The most obvious answer would be to take screenshots, like GIMP's "Create from screenshot" command or a dedicated program like the snippet tool in Windows. Many graphics tools offer that functionality, even some that you can run from the command line. Other, similarly widely available functionality, is to record the desktop - a common functionality needed for screencasting and video streaming (think Twitch) programs. This also need to capture audio. Also a more niche tool is to create captures directly to GIF files (i have such a tool both in Windows and Linux). Of course less commonly implemented but still very useful functionality is for remote access/remote desktop (in which case you also need to also capture input events but also create fake input events indistinguishable from the user's events). Finally several utilities also benefit from being able to read the screen, like utilities to magnify and perhaps enhance part of a screen (that can be useful for people with sight issues, or for developers to inspect the output of a graphics program at the pixel level without flattening their face on the monitor) or utilities like color pickers or even just funny toys that manipulate the screen contents (i've seen a game at the past grab a screenshot of your desktop and then zoom it out when you launch it). > What is the point of security if any app you download can see everything you do? I'd turn that around: what is the point of security if the apps you download cannot do their job because of it? At the end of the day computers need to be useful, not to be burned and buried in a waste disposal field (where they'd be in their most secure state).
    - igloofoo 9y ago
      So if it needs it to implement its features, you would like to know about it. Otherwise you inevitably get spyware.
      - badsectoracula 9y ago
        I'd like to know about it indeed, what i wouldn't like is to be spammed with annoying UAC-like questions every time an application needs to do something or even worse: not being able to do it. And no, i wont get spyware, i never got spyware in the three decades i use software when desktop systems were at the apex of their popularity and i used the most popular of them - i doubt i'll get any sort of spyware today, especially when i'm not even using an OS that spyware authors would even bother with.
        igloofoo 9y ago
        The very article of this post is an instance of spyware that any developer can implement. In effect, if you're using a Mac, any app can be spyware and you will never, ever know.
        badsectoracula 9y ago
        I didn't say that it is impossible to create spyware, i said that I wont get spyware. I am careful about what sort of software i download and i don't do it from shady places, at least not without first trying it in a controlled environment. Note that i am not against such environments, quite the opposite, although i tend to prefer VMs like VirtualBox instead of OS sandboxes because - as the linked article shows - they are not as safe as VMs (yes i know that VMs can also be compromised but it is much harder and way more rare). I believe that applications that run locally in my computer should be able to do whatever they please (if bugs wouldn't make it impractical, i'd also like it if they could read and write each other's memory), but a consequence to such a setup is that you need to be careful for what applications end up in the computer. So i am very thankful for any tool that does that - as long as it remains a tool and not impose itself without my will.

I imagine a world where every application that wanted to read and write to displays was required to go through an authorization-flow before it worked? That sounds terrible. This behavior is how desktop applications are meant to work. I’m surprised this surprised anyone.

eropple 9y ago
A desktop application has need to instruct the OS to draw its window. That can be reasonably unprivileged--an app owns its windows, this is easy. Most applications have no need to read raster data from its window. Even fewer have need to read raster data from the desktop itself. Desktop applications are not "meant to" have access they don't need. They sometimes have that access as an accident of history, but they are not "meant to"; we've known about the principle of least privilege for a long time. And the MacOS sandbox (which, to be honest, doesn't work very well, but that's neither here nor there) is intended to enforce application privileges and reduce escalation.
igloofoo 9y ago
Please humor me, why in the world does an app need to read/write your screen? It is provided a window for that. If it doesn't need to read/write your screen in order to provide its features, and then does it, wouldn't you agree that something is fishy? Wouldn't you like to know when fishy things are going on? What is the point of security if any app you download can see everything you do?
- badsectoracula 9y ago
  > Please humor me, why in the world does an app need to read/write your screen? The most obvious answer would be to take screenshots, like GIMP's "Create from screenshot" command or a dedicated program like the snippet tool in Windows. Many graphics tools offer that functionality, even some that you can run from the command line. Other, similarly widely available functionality, is to record the desktop - a common functionality needed for screencasting and video streaming (think Twitch) programs. This also need to capture audio. Also a more niche tool is to create captures directly to GIF files (i have such a tool both in Windows and Linux). Of course less commonly implemented but still very useful functionality is for remote access/remote desktop (in which case you also need to also capture input events but also create fake input events indistinguishable from the user's events). Finally several utilities also benefit from being able to read the screen, like utilities to magnify and perhaps enhance part of a screen (that can be useful for people with sight issues, or for developers to inspect the output of a graphics program at the pixel level without flattening their face on the monitor) or utilities like color pickers or even just funny toys that manipulate the screen contents (i've seen a game at the past grab a screenshot of your desktop and then zoom it out when you launch it). > What is the point of security if any app you download can see everything you do? I'd turn that around: what is the point of security if the apps you download cannot do their job because of it? At the end of the day computers need to be useful, not to be burned and buried in a waste disposal field (where they'd be in their most secure state).
  - igloofoo 9y ago
    So if it needs it to implement its features, you would like to know about it. Otherwise you inevitably get spyware.
    - badsectoracula 9y ago
      I'd like to know about it indeed, what i wouldn't like is to be spammed with annoying UAC-like questions every time an application needs to do something or even worse: not being able to do it. And no, i wont get spyware, i never got spyware in the three decades i use software when desktop systems were at the apex of their popularity and i used the most popular of them - i doubt i'll get any sort of spyware today, especially when i'm not even using an OS that spyware authors would even bother with.
      - igloofoo 9y ago
        The very article of this post is an instance of spyware that any developer can implement. In effect, if you're using a Mac, any app can be spyware and you will never, ever know.
        badsectoracula 9y ago
        I didn't say that it is impossible to create spyware, i said that I wont get spyware. I am careful about what sort of software i download and i don't do it from shady places, at least not without first trying it in a controlled environment. Note that i am not against such environments, quite the opposite, although i tend to prefer VMs like VirtualBox instead of OS sandboxes because - as the linked article shows - they are not as safe as VMs (yes i know that VMs can also be compromised but it is much harder and way more rare). I believe that applications that run locally in my computer should be able to do whatever they please (if bugs wouldn't make it impractical, i'd also like it if they could read and write each other's memory), but a consequence to such a setup is that you need to be careful for what applications end up in the computer. So i am very thankful for any tool that does that - as long as it remains a tool and not impose itself without my will.