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Security is the antithesis of convenience. Would you rather they send every unit out with Frontier Law levels of user protections? Every graphics artist, musici

by rbrtl 6y ago

Security is the antithesis of convenience. Would you rather they send every unit out with Frontier Law levels of user protections? Every graphics artist, musician, businessperson, student, and Joe Bloggs who buys a Mac needs to study the implications of owning a computer for themselves and mitigate all the threats on their own. Suddenly Apple computers are infected with malware like Windows was in the 2000s and we just burn all the research Apple did on the right compromise for their entire user base because a few power users want to turn on a machine and debug system processes before they even log in. I perceive a level of anti-Apple bias in HN threads, I don't think it's imagined, but more prevalent is the power user bias of people who have advanced knowledge of computer systems and want a superuser machine off the shelf. To me, the fact that you call them "security features" and not some pejorative euphemism is a bit of a capitulation.

saagarjha 6y ago
Some of the things Apple makes are certainly "security features" and not security features, but to your main point: Apple designed their security model to be "trust us or trust nobody" and the security model most users want is "I trust me". It is eminently possible to do that without going back to the wild west of not having any security, actually, the issue is that Apple forces you to go there if you aren't happy with anything they add on macOS.
- rbrtl 6y ago
  Most power users maybe. Most consumer users don’t think about the fact they have to trust at all. And you can’t say you don’t want the security features and then say that it’s bad you have to turn them off if you don’t want them. The goalposts are Apple’s customers, my guesstimate is that 80% of those paying customers would rather be secured by the vendor they already trusted to produce the hardware, firmware, software, and infrastructure they use on a daily basis. Do you know of any market research about the level of security most users want?
- chongli 6y ago
  No, most users would rather trust Apple. These are the people who drop their computer off at the Genius Bar for software problems. They never even think about rolling up their sleeves to fix a problem, never mind firing up the terminal.
- kergonath 6y ago
  You have to be realistic: you already trust them if you buy their hardware.

by rbrtl 6y ago

saagarjha 6y ago

Some of the things Apple makes are certainly "security features" and not security features, but to your main point: Apple designed their security model to be "trust us or trust nobody" and the security model most users want is "I trust me". It is eminently possible to do that without going back to the wild west of not having any security, actually, the issue is that Apple forces you to go there if you aren't happy with anything they add on macOS.

rbrtl 6y ago
Most power users maybe. Most consumer users don’t think about the fact they have to trust at all. And you can’t say you don’t want the security features and then say that it’s bad you have to turn them off if you don’t want them. The goalposts are Apple’s customers, my guesstimate is that 80% of those paying customers would rather be secured by the vendor they already trusted to produce the hardware, firmware, software, and infrastructure they use on a daily basis. Do you know of any market research about the level of security most users want?
chongli 6y ago
No, most users would rather trust Apple. These are the people who drop their computer off at the Genius Bar for software problems. They never even think about rolling up their sleeves to fix a problem, never mind firing up the terminal.
kergonath 6y ago
You have to be realistic: you already trust them if you buy their hardware.