38 ms·
And so that's why I never liked nor trusted this whole idea of code signing with non-self-signed certificates, especially on desktop OSes. This notarization mec
by grishka 6y ago
And so that's why I never liked nor trusted this whole idea of code signing with non-self-signed certificates, especially on desktop OSes. This notarization mechanism introduced a single point of failure: Apple. And now there is concrete evidence of how exactly this is bad.
On a device I own, there should be no parties that are trusted more than myself. It's ridiculous I even have to write this.
- rabidrat 6y agoRichard Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for this very reason. You might think it's ridiculous but the fight for the right to modify the software running on devices you own has been raging for 35 years and is bigger than ever.
- bsaul 6y agoIt hasn’t been a quarter in which i haven’t told myself how richard stallman was right, and a visionary, and how much we were fools to consider him an extremist.
- beering 6y agoAnd many of the things that we thought he was pointlessly complaining about, instead grew into big issues a few years later affecting all of us.
- romanoderoma 6y agoThat's why he was kicked out by people the like of Garreth who named him "enemy of the FSF" and mocked him on Twitter calling Stallman "bad" but he's a former Google employee...
- ngngngng 6y agoSometimes he's off his rocker, but a lot of the time he's right. We can have both.
- gerbler 6y agoI was riding my bicycle and stopped for Stallman at a pedestrian crossing; he grunted positively in my general direction.
- dreamcompiler 6y agoStallman is a difficult person to like and he is wrong about many things, but not about this, the central issue of his career.
- Waterfall 6y agoWhat do you find him wrong about?
- cool_dude85 6y agoThe detritus between your toes is not, in fact, a tasty treat.
- Waterfall 6y agoMaybe you haven't had the full emulsified flavor of the Sweet Stallman Skin Sap. It's better than usual toe jams from other free software activists.
- Ericson2314 6y agohttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/scientists-create-toe-belly-button-cheese-from-human-bacteria/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/scientists-create-toe-belly-but... Stallamn should sell some Camembert.
- VectorLock 6y agoHis public image has been degraded from toe-jam eating and supposedly outrageous riders for speaking engagements (which I think everything in was pretty level headed but some people think it was 'nuts')
- sciurus 6y agoFor anyone who hasn't read the rider: https://github.com/ddol/rre-rms/blob/master/rider.txt https://github.com/ddol/rre-rms/blob/master/rider.txt
- lolsal 6y agoHe is an extremist and he is also a visionary.
- fermienrico 6y agoI am fine with this for most things except my phone. I trust Apple more than any party in the world. Even the government. Fortnight devs, Epic, whatever are not even on the same radar. They'll sell your privacy in milliseconds if they can get 2.5 cents for it. I would never ever own an open source phone. Not because the operating system is open source (probably good that it has eyes on it) but there is no way to control third-party apps. Even the os builds can get hacked and I cannot trust it. I have so much personal stuff on my phone on it that I cannot afford to entertain Richard Stallman and his righteousness.
- throwaw4y-plate 6y ago>I trust Apple more than any party in the world. That opinion is likely to be a bit of an outlier, heh.
- fermienrico 6y agoI honestly do. Who would you trust more?
- wizzwizz4 6y agoMyself. If not for IME, I could have a computer under my control, running software guaranteed to be free from the Trusting Trust attack, right now.
- fermienrico 6y agoI respectfully disagree in my case. I don't consider myself a security expert at anything, especially at computers. This is probably 99.999% of the Apple customers. People like yourself can probably manage their own security, have a secure NAS, multiple firewalls, etc. Do you see it from the perspective of average Joe (or me)?
- ptx 6y agoI trust Debian to supply and maintain the software on my machine. But, at any moment, I can choose to add other trusted parties, or remove the Debian repositories, or add my own patched version of some app. I usually choose to trust them, because it's convenient and because they probably know better than I do. But my trust in Debian is completely voluntary, non-exclusive and revocable.
- marcan_42 6y agoRichard Stallman has been way off the rails and a detriment to his own cause for years. I'm not talking about the pedophilia comments, the sexual harassment of women in tech, or the toe jam. All those are well documented and don't need restating. No, if you look at the FSF's recent policies regarding software freedom, they are also bass-ackwards. The FSF had a "respects your freedom" certification which is designed to encourage devices to be less free, thanks to a concession for blobs and proprietary firmware. Effectively, they know that it's impossible to build modern hardware without blobs, so instead what they did is require those blobs to be hidden, immutable, un-freeable, un-auditable. That way they can claim, for all the clueless free software evangelists, that the devices are 100% Free (because there are no closed blobs in /lib/firmware! They're just... elsewhere, where you can't see them, audit them, touch them, or actually replace them with a free version). I wrote up the story in this Twitter thread, it's crazy: https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1040626210999431168 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1040626210999431168 Then there is also the AGPL, which isn't a Free Software license, but rather an end-user license agreement (EULA), because it violates Freedom Zero: the freedom to use software however you want. All free software licenses only impose restrictions on distribution, making them copyright licenses - you can use original or modified versions of e.g. GPLed software at will, with no condition, as long as you don't redistribute them to others. The AGPL requires advertising and offering source when used as a network server, which is a condition on usage, and thus incompatible with the Free Software definition. rms will never admit to this, but AGPL-licensed software is, by any reasonable reading of the Free Software definition, not Free Software, and shouldn't be included in the Debian main repository, for example. It's just that nobody seems to be able to read past the "AGPL is from the FSF so it must be free software" idea. These are just some ways in which the FSF and rms are hurting their own cause. If you want to support an organization, I would recommend the FSFe instead of the FSF. The European branch is actually doing good work for free software advocacy, instead of all the nonsense the FSF is doing which only makes the movement look worse.
- forgotmypw17 6y agoI think you have formed a rather negative opinion of rms without having ever met him or spoken with him. This is common in politics, so I don't blame you, but I don't think you're serving yourself or anyone else well.
- totetsu 6y agoIs this that thing, where someone posts something controversial that is bound to generate lots of discussion, to deflect and derail the discussion from the real topic at hand.
- enos_feedler 6y agoI trust the device maker more than myself to keep my data safe and secure.
- CamperBob2 6y agoThen don't install unsigned apps. The notion that the platform owner is somehow doing you a favor by denying you that choice is nothing but a manifestation of Stockholm Syndrome in action.
- gruez 6y agoThat advice might be feasible for the average HN reader, but what about the average person? How resistant do you think they will be against a social engineering attack telling them to disable code signing?
- chillacy 6y agoSome sites have big scary warnings if you try to open the dev console in the page for this reason. I don't know how well that works though. We can put all the warnings on bleach we want, someone out there is still going to drink it.
- heavyset_go 6y ago> We can put all the warnings on bleach we want, someone out there is still going to drink it. If we went with the Apple solution, this means nobody gets to use bleach.
- brundolf 6y agoIt's important to note that you can still run unsigned Mac apps. Apple isn't preventing users from running a tool they want to run, it's just showing them a big scary warning and making them jump through some extra hoops. It's incredibly scummy and inappropriate, but I would put it more along the lines of an attack-ad than an outright ban. Edit: Now, one thing that isn't totally clear is whether or not devs who have their own developer accounts, and use Unreal Engine to target iOS, can still make iOS builds. If not that's a much bigger deal, though the fundamental issue would still lie with iOS, not macOS.
- babaganoosh89 6y agoNotarizing has been mandatory since Catalina: https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=09032019a https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=09032019a
- brundolf 6y agoYou can bypass it: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491
- grishka 6y agoYou can also disable AMFI, the component that enforces signatures and entitlements, altogether, but you have first to disable SIP completely by either booting into Linux of by patching the kernel and then setting the requisite NVRAM variable directly. (`spctl` does not, in fact, disable it completely.)
- VectorLock 6y ago>by either booting into Linux I don't think thats an option on newer MacBook Pros any more.
- my123 6y agoYou don't need to do it that way. Boot to macOS Recovery and use csrutil(1) to disable SIP.
- dreamcompiler 6y ago> On a device I own... And that's the issue. The overwhelming body of evidence in recent years suggests Apple does not consider the devices they make to be "yours." Rather, their attitude seems to be that those devices forever belong to Apple, and Apple simply allows you to pay for the privilege of using them.
- grishka 6y agoWhy didn't they make it a subscription at this point? Pay $100 per month, or your iPhone would lock and demand that you return it to an Apple Store.
- caf 6y agoIt basically is that - most owners replace their iPhones regularly, and if you replace your iPhone with purchase price $P every M months, that's just as good for Apple as you paying P/M per month, with some additional benefits: The user is locked in to a large minimum spend; the user is responsible for EOL disposal of the device; the users perform self price discrimination, where more wealthy users replace their phone more often so effectively pay a higher monthly rate.
- m463 6y agoToo overt. Why not just keep slowing it down until it compares poorly and you upgrade to the new snappier version?
- JGM_io 6y agoOwh wait they do
- LdSGSgvupDV 6y agoAlso, this is true for windows OS. Once you installed it, the computer would not belong to you. They would force updating, updating, and updating. Even if you were in meeting, that speaker stopped the talk and went back to find another computer. It is ridiculous. Nowadays, physician could do a surgery in remote. How about during operation there is an update.
- burnte 6y ago> On a device I own, there should be no parties that are trusted more than myself. It's ridiculous I even have to write this. This is only true if you contain at least the minimum amount of knowledge to built said device yourself. If you cannot design the type of CPU required, you must trust the vendor. If you cannot design the RAM, you must trust the vendor. If you cannot design the motherboard, you must trust the vendor. You must also have the ability to supervise every step of construction. If you don't have that ability, then your knowledge is worthless. You can only be the most trusted party in your system if you can be personally 100% certain nothing was inserted into the system without your knowledge. This is not restricted to the software, which theoretically you could inspect the source code to. Maybe there SHOULD be systems where you are the most trusted party, but realistically, there are almost none. You have to trust the engineer who designed the road, the worker who delivered the package, the maker of the chips that go on the board, the company who makes the air filter in your home HVAC, etc. Society is built on trust.
- grishka 6y agoOf course. But from my point of view, Apple designed a capable device and deliberately limited its capabilities for its own advantage. They have the private key to sign apps that iOS will run, but you do not. They empowered themselves, while depriving the user of that power at the same time. It's as if you bought a house but couldn't repaint the walls and rearrange the furniture to your liking. You'd have to call a special person from the company that built the house.
- caf 6y agoThe misunderstanding here is because the word "trust" has been misappropriated in this context to mean something slightly different from its everyday meaning. You do indeed have to trust the designers, manufacturers and suppliers of your equipment, in the sense that they are in a position to cause you harm without a realistic way to prevent that beforehand. However, when "trust" is used in the sense of "what is allowed", what we're actually talking about is sovereignty or authority, not "trust". I believe the word is used in this context because giving a third party authority over your device necessarily puts them in a position of trust, but it is actually the authority that is important here, and the fact that you have some measure of trust in a party does not imply that the party should also be granted authority. If you recast the GP's comment in these terms, I believe it captures the essence without muddying the waters with "trust": > On a device I own, there should be no parties with more authority than myself. It's ridiculous I even have to write this.
- jlarocco 6y agoI agree with you in principle, but disagree in practice. For every person who knows what they're doing and can trust themselves, there are 1000 who will install malware and other crap and end up at an Apple store getting it fixed, and they'll blame Apple instead of themselves.
- jjeaff 6y agoYou talk like this is some unique problem. This has been solved for a long time. Warranties have terms of service. If your car is under warranty and the engine fails due to a defect, warranty covers it. If your engine fails because you drove it into a river, then the warranty don't cover it and you'll pay out of pocket for repairs.
- buzzerbetrayed 6y agoSo you're effectively saying that Apple must allow a user to install malware (likely unintentionally), but then Apple is also responsible for paying to fix it? I feel like I have to be misunderstanding you because that makes no sense.
- minedwiz 6y agoWhat it seems like they're saying is that Apple should operate like a car manufacturer, wherein if you put some aftermarket shite in your engine, you can't get a warranty service, and likewise if you don't do your due diligence with what you put on your PC, Apple should be able to deny service.
- thirdsun 6y agoWhile perfectly fair, it would still lead to unhappy customers, which aren't exactly known to be receptive to reason. While I may not always agree with Apple's approach I can understand their reasoning and don't believe that it simply comes down to earning a few extra bucks with the 30% cut in question and all the seemingly drastic measures that come with it.
- 6y ago
- causality0 6y agoI'm forcibly reminded of how one jackass forgetting to renew a certificate stripped almost every Firefox installation on earth of all its extensions, resulting in probably thousands of malware infections and possible identity theft.