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> If I am a bad actor I can submit an app for review and activate an evil mode after the application is approved. While this is of course still possible, the s

> If I am a bad actor I can submit an app for review and activate an evil mode after the application is approved. While this is of course still possible, the store model allows you to disable the app and remove the store listing to prevent further distribution of the bad app. You would be giving this up ability if you allowed third-party distribution. The fact that review is necessary in the first place also serves as a deterrent, and if a bad actor is caught their developer account can be banned to prevent them from submitting any more apps. > Maybe we can stop pretending that the lock is in place to protect the users Not sure why you think this is a pretense. In 2019, Android devices were responsible for 47.15% of malware infections compared to 0.85% of iPhones (https://onestore.nokia.com/asset/205835 https://onestore.nokia.com/asset/205835). There is a clear security benefit to the locked-down store model.

simion314 6y ago
>the store model allows you to disable the app and remove the store listing to prevent further distribution You do not need a store to blacklist a known bad application, you can have the OS do what OSX is doing now(I read on HN about this, I don't run any newer OSX versions) check an app when it starts against a blacklist. I agree that a review will catch low level effort of malware and I am not advocating for no official store if is possible users should use applications from the sore or on Linux from the official repositories but if some application is not in the store/repo (maybe you live in one of those countries that ban apps) you can have the option to side load the application. The statistics for malware on iOS vs Android could be problematic if you don't compare equal user groups, Like a rich kid will buy the games from Steam or Apple store, some poor kid will try to get some free games so IMO we should compare similar population.
- nodamage 6y ago
  Blacklisting may be an appropriate solution for malware but doesn't help with privacy issues because apps distributed outside the App Store by definition won't be subject to the App Store privacy rules. > The statistics for malware on iOS vs Android could be problematic if you don't compare equal user groups, Like a rich kid will buy the games from Steam or Apple store, some poor kid will try to get some free games so IMO we should compare similar population. Even within the Android platform Google has reported an 8x difference in malware between devices that use side-loading compared to devices that use only the Google Play Store (https://source.android.com/security/reports/Google_Android_Security_2018_Report_Final.pdf https://source.android.com/security/reports/Google_Android_S...). In other words, it is specifically side-loading and third-party app stores that cause the biggest problem. We've already seen this same story play out on Windows. Why would we expect it to be any different here?
  - simion314 6y ago
    > because apps distributed outside the App Store by definition won't be subject to the App Store privacy rules. Can you explain? Side loading apps won't disable the sandbox so the app won't have access to your files, sensors or peripherals without permissions. The OS could be even more privacy focused by allowing power users to enable an option to fake private data like contacts,photos,location etc for apps that would refuse to run without this permissions. Second thing, what extra privacy a manual review of a guy would add to an app that can't be done better on the device by sandboxing and code? Side loading would be used by power users most of the time or people in countries with censorship. We will not repeat the Windows story , we would repeat the Linux story where we always had trusted apps on trusted repos and only power users would "side load" stuff, on Windows the story wad different, you needed something you used google and run the first thing you find.
    - nodamage 6y ago
      Consider, for example, an app that might initially request access to your contacts for a legitimate purpose (like messaging your friends), but secretly scrapes your contacts and sells it to third parties. This is a privacy abuse that is not prevented by sandboxing since the user explicitly granted those permissions. The problem is the user has no control what the developer actually does with the data after the permission is granted. At least with an app review policy you can say this type of behavior is not acceptable and you will be banned if you abuse it. I'm not saying that will perfectly catch all abuses but at least it serves as a powerful deterrent that otherwise would not exist if all apps were directly distributed with no oversight. > Side loading would be used by power users most of the time or people in countries with censorship. Not sure why you think this but it simply doesn't match existing statistics. Side-loading and third-party stores are quite common in certain countries and it leads to large numbers of regular people getting infected by malware. For example, Kaspersky reports that 60% of mobile users in Iran and 38% of mobile users in India have been attacked by mobile malware. (https://securelist.com/mobile-malware-evolution-2019/96280/ https://securelist.com/mobile-malware-evolution-2019/96280/)
      - 6y ago

simion314 6y ago

>the store model allows you to disable the app and remove the store listing to prevent further distribution You do not need a store to blacklist a known bad application, you can have the OS do what OSX is doing now(I read on HN about this, I don't run any newer OSX versions) check an app when it starts against a blacklist. I agree that a review will catch low level effort of malware and I am not advocating for no official store if is possible users should use applications from the sore or on Linux from the official repositories but if some application is not in the store/repo (maybe you live in one of those countries that ban apps) you can have the option to side load the application. The statistics for malware on iOS vs Android could be problematic if you don't compare equal user groups, Like a rich kid will buy the games from Steam or Apple store, some poor kid will try to get some free games so IMO we should compare similar population.

nodamage 6y ago
Blacklisting may be an appropriate solution for malware but doesn't help with privacy issues because apps distributed outside the App Store by definition won't be subject to the App Store privacy rules. > The statistics for malware on iOS vs Android could be problematic if you don't compare equal user groups, Like a rich kid will buy the games from Steam or Apple store, some poor kid will try to get some free games so IMO we should compare similar population. Even within the Android platform Google has reported an 8x difference in malware between devices that use side-loading compared to devices that use only the Google Play Store (https://source.android.com/security/reports/Google_Android_Security_2018_Report_Final.pdf https://source.android.com/security/reports/Google_Android_S...). In other words, it is specifically side-loading and third-party app stores that cause the biggest problem. We've already seen this same story play out on Windows. Why would we expect it to be any different here?
- simion314 6y ago
  > because apps distributed outside the App Store by definition won't be subject to the App Store privacy rules. Can you explain? Side loading apps won't disable the sandbox so the app won't have access to your files, sensors or peripherals without permissions. The OS could be even more privacy focused by allowing power users to enable an option to fake private data like contacts,photos,location etc for apps that would refuse to run without this permissions. Second thing, what extra privacy a manual review of a guy would add to an app that can't be done better on the device by sandboxing and code? Side loading would be used by power users most of the time or people in countries with censorship. We will not repeat the Windows story , we would repeat the Linux story where we always had trusted apps on trusted repos and only power users would "side load" stuff, on Windows the story wad different, you needed something you used google and run the first thing you find.
  - nodamage 6y ago
    Consider, for example, an app that might initially request access to your contacts for a legitimate purpose (like messaging your friends), but secretly scrapes your contacts and sells it to third parties. This is a privacy abuse that is not prevented by sandboxing since the user explicitly granted those permissions. The problem is the user has no control what the developer actually does with the data after the permission is granted. At least with an app review policy you can say this type of behavior is not acceptable and you will be banned if you abuse it. I'm not saying that will perfectly catch all abuses but at least it serves as a powerful deterrent that otherwise would not exist if all apps were directly distributed with no oversight. > Side loading would be used by power users most of the time or people in countries with censorship. Not sure why you think this but it simply doesn't match existing statistics. Side-loading and third-party stores are quite common in certain countries and it leads to large numbers of regular people getting infected by malware. For example, Kaspersky reports that 60% of mobile users in Iran and 38% of mobile users in India have been attacked by mobile malware. (https://securelist.com/mobile-malware-evolution-2019/96280/ https://securelist.com/mobile-malware-evolution-2019/96280/)
    - 6y ago