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This is one of those tough cases where software cuts both ways. Some people are smart, informed developers that install a trusted tool to monitor their traffic

• Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  If I install Little Snitch, it's because I trust Little Snitch to be responsible for my computer's network traffic, over and above anyone else. I recognize that this won't necessarily apply to all users or all apps, but there needs to be a way for the user to designate trust. Apple services and traffic should not get special treatment.
  • coldtea 6y ago
    They provide the OS. If you don't trust them, then you shouldn't trust anything running on top of it either...
    • Wowfunhappy 6y ago
      You could (and perhaps would) make the same argument about Intel (for providing the processor) or Broadcom (for providing the wifi chip) or Comcast (for providing internet service). And it's true, all of these parties have the ability to use their positions for nefarious purposes. However, I would like to limit that potential as much as possible, partly by creating a stigma against practices that remove control from the user.
      • LocalH 6y ago
        I find it interesting how the needs of legitimate security mesh so well with the industry desires to kill off general-purpose computing for the majority of users
        • Spivak 6y ago
          I mean the irony is when it comes to browsers you see the general tone of HN shift to the opposite opinion when it comes to features like, RTC, USB, Bluetooth, Filesystem Access. These are all features that give users more power but it's (apparently) easier to see the downsides and how these features can and are used maliciously. Now put yourself in the Apple's position where "an iOS app" or a "mac App" is about as trusted as a random website. Tech people have a strong culture of locally installed apps being extremely trusted but that doesn't extend to everyone. Can you imagine if websites could control your firewall?
          • Wowfunhappy 6y ago
            > I mean the irony is when it comes to browsers you see the general tone of HN shift to the opposite opinion when it comes to features like, RTC, USB, Bluetooth, Filesystem Access. I don't think it's that ironic. From my vantage point, the big tech companies specifically and consistently invoke the security arguments that are best aligned with their agendas. • We need to enforce automatic Windows 10 updates to keep your computer secure. (But also, we won't let consumers use the security-patches-only LTSC branch we offer businesses.) • You cannot install an app on your iPhone that we have not personally vetted. (As part of the vetting process, we enforce a 30% cut on all digital goods.) • We need to hide URLs in Chrome to protect users from phishing websites. (But isn't it nice how it makes AMP more seamless?) • We need to give browsers Bluetooth and USB access, because web apps are safer than random Windows executables. (But also, we can advertise inside of web apps more easily.) I could go on. The problem with all of these arguments is that they aren't wrong so much as they're selective. The iOS App Store does protect users from malware, and hiding URLs does protect users from phishing. What goes unacknowledged are the trade-offs of these decisions—some of which may themselves be bad for security.
            • 6y ago
    • paulryanrogers 6y ago
      Right, but many users want to delegate trust to more than just the OS vendor.
    • whimsicalism 6y ago
      I don't understand these style of responses. I think the point is that this "feature" makes the OS shittier.
      • coldtea 6y ago
        For the average user who expects to be able to block malicious traffic via something like Little Snitch, but still expects their OS updates, App Store, etc to work, or for someone who "knows better"?
        • Wowfunhappy 6y ago
          The average user isn't using Little Snitch. And if they are, the app provides default profiles for this sort of thing.
    • AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      > If you don't trust them, then you shouldn't trust anything running on top of it either... Trust, but verify. The problem with this is that it's taking away the ability to verify. Which takes away the ability to trust.
    • Spivak 6y ago
      This really isn't about trusting Apple, this is about trusting Little Snitch. I don't think it would be a good decision to allow any app to control your firewall, but I should be able to say "this app should be allowed to because I trust it."
    • mdoms 6y ago
      I trust my friend Mike to drive me to the pub. I don't trust Mike to be the executor of my will.
      • Wowfunhappy 6y ago
        And also, you might be uncomfortable if Mike blacked out all the windows.
        • deleted 6y ago
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    • flower-giraffe 6y ago
      > If you don't trust them, then you shouldn't trust anything running on top of it either... You start with trust, if you attempt to verify that trust by examining behaviour and discover a covert side channel surely you can no longer trust.
    • kbenson 6y ago
      It's not about trust that they aren't doing something malicious, it's about trusting them to provide the level of attention and work required to keep something very secure. A kernel and the core OS capabilities are a high security domain and I expect Apple to be extremely careful and put a lot of attention into making it secure. Desktop applications are a different domain where security is not quite at the same level and Apple will not and can not provide the same level of security for all of them that it can and does provide for the base OS. As a simple example, compare Safari and the OS. The domains in which they operate make it extremely hard, if not impossible, for Safari to have the same level of security as the OS and kernel because the use case of Safari opens it to far more attack vectors. Does anyone believe that exempting all Safari traffic from firewalls would be a good idea? If not, then why should we accept that it's a good idea for some arbitrarily set of other Apple applications? The issue here is simple, it's the same as it always is with Apple. There's a choice to do the thing that's slightly more complex and requires users to provide even a minimal amount of input that they might have to think about ("An application is attempting to change the traffic flow required by X service, if you allow this it may cause problems with this service. Yes/No?"), but instead they opt for "Users must trust us implicitly and entirely in everything we do", which is their go-to solution. It all comes back to control, does Apple control the user, or the the user control their software? Apple has built their empire around the former, so while we can't expect the latter without if being forced on them, that doesn't mean we shouldn't.
    • Sporktacular 6y ago
      Trust but verify. Now we must do the former without being able to do the latter.
      • DiederikvandenB 6y ago
        You can very easily monitor all outgoing traffic through an external device.
        • Wowfunhappy 6y ago
          You can’t filter per-app, however, which is a key selling point of Little Snitch.
        • ric2b 6y ago
          How do you get around TLS with cert-pinning?
    • gowld 6y ago
      Their software could have bugs, or be compromised.
    • abhinav22 6y ago
      Great comment - agree 100%
    • dreamcompiler 6y ago
      Microsoft makes an OS too. And to use it I have to spend an enormous amount of time turning off all its daemons that phone home, harvest my personal information, show me ads, and force updates on me. So no, I don't trust OS providers. I tolerate them and defend myself against them.
    • LdSGSgvupDV 6y ago
      China (enter the room): Agreed.
    • _jal 6y ago
      That's the exactly the thing - they are, indeed, chasing me off. When this Mac dies, I'll be replacing it with something running Debian. It is too bad - the Mac hit this sweet-spot where it was pretty much my perfect machine for several years - a kickass Unix workstation in a decently built laptop, with a decent GUI, with access to consumer apps, too. It was great while it lasted. Thing is, this is a reasonable thing for Apple to do. Back when they weren't enormous, it made sense for them to at least make token gestures to the Unix-weenie/developer market - we threw a lot of money at them and made them hip when they were down and out. Now we're in rounding-error territory, and that we got what we wanted for a while was sort of a happy accident, anyway. Building developer dream-machines was never Apple's thing. I bought my first Mac in 1991, and this one will last a while longer. Can't really complain too much about 30 years of decent-to-awesome tools.
      • andreareina 6y ago
        I disagree that it's reasonableness except in the short term. We're seeing a change in developers' opinions; my friends in video production were getting ready to ditch Apple due to their "professional" software and hardware products getting worse both in relative (hardware) and absolute (software) terms. Part of the Apple cachet is that these are professional tools; how long is their reputation going to hold up if those professionals leave the platform? It's a touch of hubris to think that we are and will continue to be taste makers, certainly. Maybe Apple won't get burned by alienating this crowd. But it seems a risky strategy for dubious return.
        • MagnumOpus 6y ago
          Both the tech-bro and the media production audience are now a rounding error of a rounding error for Apple. It is a consumer luxury brand first and foremost, and it derives 99% of net income from that. Catering to dorks in basements is a tiny legacy business and the support level for it is commensurate. (It probably actually only exists because Apple has its own share of dorks in basements.)
          • AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    • saagarjha 6y ago
      Well, that's not the whole story: consider another example, the various parts of Safari. Apple wrote that, Apple wrote the whole OS…should they have access to a kernel task port? Shouldn't I trust them to not do bad things? Of course I do, since I use the browser–but I am glad that those are split into separate processes and sandboxed, because an exploit in any of those instantly turns this access into a confused deputy problem. A confused deputy is trustworthy–but they're confused. Adding exceptions means adding more points of failure, more complexities in code, more opportunities for attackers to bypass restrictions placed on them but not on OS services. Not only that, but you get the upside of having a unified model for Apple and your app developers "for free"–the latter which is of critical importance to Apple in particular, since they have had years of trouble in this area.
  • threatofrain 6y ago
    If you don’t trust Apple then you need something more than little snitch. Apple is responsible for both hardware and OS. What delta in security or trust is little snitch going to offer over Apple?
    • addicted 6y ago
      In this situation the question isn’t about whether or not Apple can be trusted. Apple has clearly betrayed users’ trust in this situation. People don’t install Little Snitch only to prevent nefarious third party activity. Some may want to know what traffic is going to and from their computers. Other may want to block all traffic for testing and/or research purposes. I can trust that Apple is not doing something nefarious and still see that Apple is blatantly betraying the fact that people trusted when switching stuff like firewalls away from kext that it wouldn’t build backdoors for itself. Also, any backdoors Apple builds for its own apps and services are simply an additional attack vector that could potentially be used by non Apple malicious actors.
      • threatofrain 6y ago
        > any backdoors Apple builds for its own apps Apple hasn't weakened the security of their devices to provide a secret way in, in fact, they made their systems even more robust. The question absolutely is whether Apple can be trusted. Little Snitch works for other apps, just not Apple's apps. The remaining slice of the pie you're arguing for is whether or not we can trust Apple. So what delta in security and trust over Apple are we getting by asking for this change, and how much insecurity and brittleness are we inviting to all other users with our ineffective software based firewall?
        • Wowfunhappy 6y ago
          > Apple hasn't weakened the security of their devices to provide a secret way in, in fact, they made their systems even more robust. I'd consider poking a hole in firewalls to be providing "a secret way in", particularly in the context of Little Snitch. This isn't some antivirus bloatware that comes preinstalled, or a firewall imposed by corporate networks. The entire pitch of Little Snitch is that it enables you, the user, to monitor and control any bit of traffic that leaves your machine. No one was asking for Apple to bypass that.
  • Sporktacular 6y ago
    5 years ago I found LS was unable detect any traffic out of a VMWare virtual machine running on the same Mac. Sure the VM is running through some installed virtual network adapter, but if that's all it takes an attacker can set up one of her own. Cool Hollywood interface but I gave up on LS as a serious security tool right there.
    • _qulr 6y ago
      I can't speak about 5 years ago, but I was using Little Snitch with VMWare last year, and it worked. I had to specifically allow the VMWare process.
      • Sporktacular 6y ago
        Guest traffic was visible when the VM was in NAT mode, but when switched to Bridged mode traffic went straight through with LS unaware. I suppose LS was only sniffing the standard adapters, though this could have been improved since.
        • _qulr 6y ago
          I was only trialing VMWare before, so unfortunately I can't test this anymore.
          • Wowfunhappy 6y ago
            Heads up that VMWare Fusion has a free version on Mac as of this month. :)
        • belthesar 6y ago
          That's likely because VMWare Workstation's bridge mode likely injects into the networking stack at the same point that Little Snitch does.
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• ballenf 6y ago
  I'd argue this opens up a giant attack surface where malicious software will try to route its command and control communication through a protected service. Do we really want to trust that Apple will keep all 50+ of these privileged services fully protected? I think it makes the "world" slightly worse in that it will be harder to discover malware. Little snitch has a small user base, but it's been used to identify many forms of malware and protect many more people once the threat is identified.
  • 3pt14159 6y ago
    Yes I agree with your first part. There are real drawbacks. But it's like installing a custom HTTPS cert in your OS to inspect potential traffic that malware may use through, say, a Google Doc or Sheet. It's helpful to true professionals dealing with highly sensitive information, but it's ultimately a bigger source of compromise for the vast majority of software users. I don't think there is an easy answer here. That's why I said I thought it made the world a "touch better" and I can see from your response that you understand the tradeoffs roughly as well as I do based on the wording of your response. The fact is that contemplating these hard tradeoffs belie the underlying truth: Securing computers is hard and getting harder and the stakes keep going up. I can't say if this move by Apple will ultimately be worth it, but I certainly understand the predicament they are in. This is no easy work.
    • Godel_unicode 6y ago
      Absolutely not, installing a CA makes attacks which weren't previously possible now possible. A host firewall isn't doing anything a network provider (read: your ISP, coffee shop, vpn provider, etc) couldn't already do. At least you can possibly look at what the host firewall is doing.
      • jachee 6y ago
        Installing any third-party software that inspects network traffic makes attacks which weren't previously possible now possible, since that software can be targeted.
• addicted 6y ago
  Is there anything Apple can do that makes their platform less accessible to the users that you would not support?
  • 3pt14159 6y ago
    Absolutely. For example, I think that the lockdown of the bios was a move that hobbled developers like myself that installed custom bios extensions. I used to be able to run raw linux on real hardware. Now I need to use a commercial virtual machine just to get the dev environment I want. The difference between the two is subtle, but true. I want true masters that understand what the tradeoffs are to make those hard choices for themselves. I want the rest of the world to have a blanket of privacy and security that protects everyone. Especially the elderly that are too trusting with what they believe.
    • mdoms 6y ago
      Interesting that it's only the thing that personally affects you that you object to
    • addicted 6y ago
      I appreciate the response. I suspect you’re missing the many ways in which this change can negatively impact valid and fairly frequent advanced usages of macs, in a way similar to the BIOS change you mentioned. When I was in college, Little Snitch was an absolute must for using Macs in our networking labs, because it was the best way to analyze and control our network. Without it the mac was not a feasible option. This change by Apple would have essentially eliminated the macs use in several of these experiments, and I suspect that’s true today as well. Further, this has a regular advanced user impact as well, for users on metered networks who would like to control their data usage.
• api 6y ago
  Tech savvy users are not just the minority. They're also cheap. They've been conditioned by the FOSS movement to think all software should be free as-in-beer. (The people who started FOSS didn't say that, but that's what it's become.) They say they want free as-in-freedom, but since they are not willing to pay for it they don't exist. Those who pay set the agenda for everything. Developing a truly polished operating system with a whole ecosystem of services is far, far beyond what volunteers and hobbyists can achieve. It's just too much work. It also requires focus and coordination and someone who is able and willing to say no. Without that the FOSS community rewrites everything over and over again instead of doing the not-fun parts of programming like fixing bugs and edge cases. TL;DR: we get what we pay for. We don't pay for freedom so we don't get it.
  • Skunkleton 6y ago
    > They say they want free as-in-freedom, but since they are not willing to pay for it they don't exist. Only paying users matter. Citation needed. If you look at app store pricing models the opposite seems true. If I were going to take a random guess I would say that tech savvy users use open source software to avoid anti-consumer bullshit more than anything else.
    • api 6y ago
      If enough people said to Apple "hey, this stuff is not acceptable and we won't pay for it" and then they actually did follow through, Apple would stop. My point is that the vast majority of people don't say that, only a very tiny minority. The vast majority of people want convenience, not control. They want their stuff to "just work" because even if they do have the technical knowledge they don't have the time to screw around with fixing their computer. Apple is giving the market what they want as evidenced by actual buying behavior, not posts on HN. My other point is that while there probably are enough tech-savvy people who care about freedom to support a viable alternative platform, the majority of these users are not willing to pay for anything so there is not in fact a market for it. Basically what it boils down to is that people don't actually care. Even the vocal people who say they care don't care because they won't open their wallets or change their buying habits. If you won't actually do anything about something, you don't care. Whining on the Internet is not doing something.
• solatic 6y ago
  > Is the world better or worse due to this change? This is the false shortcut behind any attempt to weaken security. Security makes access harder, therefore let's weaken security to improve access. The fact is that weakening security also makes malicious behavior easier and/or more likely. Changes like this are bad particularly because Apple users pay for a protected walled garden.
  • m463 6y ago
    What this will do is allow apple to decide what goes in and out of the machine. It's pretty clear what they think - they allow basically any app to access the network on ios.
    • spockz 6y ago
      Local network access is a separate permission since iOS 14. I’m not sure whether that is for scanning or multicast only (e.g. finding devices such as Chromecast) or complete access to anything other that the gateway and dns servers.
• m463 6y ago
  Have you used little snitch? It very clearly allows all apple traffic by default, and if you modify something that would affect it, you get a huge popup explaining what will happen and have to click on a red button to confirm.
• GekkePrutser 6y ago
  Who cares about the world.. I just want full access to the system I paid for. This should always remain an option.
  • sjwright 6y ago
    Depending on your definition of "full access", you probably haven't truly had that for decades—on any broadly available computing system at least.
    • saagarjha 6y ago
      Regardless of whether that want is feasible today, having something that gets closer to it is clearly the goal.
      • sjwright 6y ago
        If that goal is important to you, I agree. I disagree that this should be declared as a universal goal for all people.
• flower-giraffe 6y ago
  > I trust Apple, but I don't like trusting trust. Trust relies on faith or evidence, the overwhelming circumstantial evidence is that Apple can not be trusted with anything other than their commercial interests. You can not trust Apple with anything else, therefore you must have faith.
• gowld 6y ago
  How is this good? Either Apple doesn't trust Little Snitch and shouldn't let it interfere with any apps, or Apple does trust Little Snitch and shouldn't block it at all. There's no reason to implement this halfway.
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
  Why doesn't each individual user have the final say over whether she wants to accept the change or not? There is no option presented to the user: [ ] Do not trust Apple, trust only me You say "Some people are smart, informed developers" but in this case, it appears Apple is treating every user as the same. I am not a "developer" (nor am I particularly "smart") and yet I monitor traffic to/from computers I own. Maybe some incorrect assumptions are being made about so-called "users". I find it perplexing that any company should be able to prevent me from monitoring traffic to/from computers I own. I own the computers, I pay for the bandwidth. I do not buy Apple computers for the Apple software.
• Godel_unicode 6y ago
  If the data is so poorly protected in transit that a firewall app on the system is a concern, something has gone very wrong indeed. It's just going to see that your Apple services on your Apple device are speaking to Apple servers. There's an availability consideration here, but that's about it.
• vaccinator 6y ago
  Apple fanboys will always ignore the facts... why would you want apps to bypass a firewall that you install... Apple need to fix their OS either way
• roody15 6y ago
  why do you “trust” Apple?
• xenadu02 6y ago
  In this case it's actually "just" a bug.
• jerry80 6y ago
  Ah, yes, the "users actually want an operating system that undermines their every action" argument.
• unicornporn 6y ago
  > Some people are smart, informed developers that install a trusted tool to monitor their traffic and have legitimate reasons to want to inspect Apple traffic. They're dismayed. Wouldn't say I'm that smart. Wouldn't call myself a developer either. But I'm still kind of dismayed. I used to love macOS (or OS X to be precise), but the clock has been ticking for years now. Near every decision made about macOS future goes in the wrong direction (for me). Right now I'm looking at Manjaro. But still, I need the Adobe CC suite to get my work done, so I will have to use two machines. I hate running two computers. But that's probably where I'll end up.
• tomcooks 6y ago
  Trusting corporations (or any entity free from limitations and background checks) seldom bring the expected results.
• arendtio 6y ago
  Actually, I don't think this is about trust. I mean, when I use an Apple OS, I (should) trust them, as their software has access to all my most sensitive digital information. However, making it impossible to route the traffic of the system apps through a VPN of my choice (whatever the reason), is just broken functionality.