7 ms·

Apple adds limitations to protect the system: "too strict!" Apple gives the chance to disable these limitations to power users: "they should be disabled by def

by chpmrc 6y ago

Apple adds limitations to protect the system: "too strict!" Apple gives the chance to disable these limitations to power users: "they should be disabled by default!" Apple disables limitations: "temporary convenient oversight?" ...

ciwolsey 6y ago
I see nothing wrong with any of these speculations. If you or Apple don't like speculation the answer is for them to communicate their intention.
- machello13 6y ago
  They've plenty communicated their intention to not turn the Mac into the iPhone/iPad. And besides which, it would be a disastrous product strategy to do that, from a company that's absolutely top-of-the-ball when it comes to product strategy.
  - fsflover 6y ago
    Are you serious? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25074959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25074959
    - machello13 6y ago
      Sorry, that seems like a total non sequitur to me. What about that (an outage + a failure to correctly handle the outage on the clientside) suggests Apple is planning to lock down macOS like iOS, either in terms of hardware or software? Or rather, maybe you'd like to explain what you think Apple would have to gain from doing something like that?
      - fsflover 6y ago
        You cannot start any non-Apple applications unless Apple explicitly allows them and keeps a list of what and when you are running. Looks totally fine...
        machello13 6y ago
        Again, I'm having trouble making the leap from this: "Apple checks which macOS applications I run in order to verify that the developers credentials are still valid and not expired/revoked, but only for macOS apps and not executables in general, and you can still open apps that are not signed with a Developer ID using a manual bypass" (which is certainly not ideal but seems like a reasonable security compromise. There's no evidence they're keeping a list of this information anywhere.) to: "Apple will lock down macOS and make it utterly impossible to run any executable or even scripting code that hasn't gone through a strict review process" Since you're unwilling (or unable?) to explain that leap without just spouting pithy 3-word comebacks, I guess we're done :)
        fsflover 6y ago
        I suggest you read the comments in the linked thread. Why do I have to repeat those who can explain better than me? It's pretty clear that the current state: 1) cannot be called "fully unlocked", 2) more locked than what people used to have, even on Apple devices. It might be fine for you, but it certainly is potentially bad for privacy and freedom. Look up keyword "tor" in the thread if genuinely want to understand and not trolling.
        johnofthesea 6y ago
        But isn't it possible to turn off System Integrity Protection and Gatekeeper?
        machello13 6y ago
        Maybe you should go back and read the article that spawned this thread. Apple literally put engineering time + effort just to allow 3rd-party OSes to be run on their chip. That doesn't strike me as the move of a company that wants to lock down their OS. You can disagree with the tradeoffs Apple decided to make in the name of security/privacy, fair enough. And you can certainly blame them for their mistakes (like not thinking to handle a case where their Developer ID verification servers were offline). But practically, these tradeoffs don't really hamper almost anyone's usage of the OS, and the few people for whom it does can disable them.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
    > They've plenty communicated their intention to not turn the Mac into the iPhone/iPad. Of course not, because they need to differentiate. This doesn't mean they renounce their plans to further lock down macOS. Running non-appstore apps is getting harder and harder each year.
    - breakfastduck 6y ago
      Apart from the fact they've actively stated (repeatedly, during their main presentations) that running arbitrary code on a mac will not be changing. For a company that seems sometimes to go out of its way to not give any information on anything it doesn't make sense to clearly and concisely make that statement.
      - andrekandre 6y ago
        > running arbitrary code on a mac will not be changing. i wonder how much of this is thanks to peoples "gnashing of teeth" about mac getting an iphone lockdown in the end its speculation, but id wager a guess apple wouldnt have a big problem locking down macos if people didnt make a big deal out of it
        bun_at_work 6y ago
        It's almost certainly not due to "gnashing of teeth." They've always marketed the MacBook line as a general computing device for power users. The idea that they would make it impossible for developers to use their primary computing product is ridiculous. They know how many of these things they sell to students, developers, etc. Just a note - it's often very easy to measure the validity of your ideas by considering the economics of the ideas. Apple effectively neutering development on their premier general purpose computer would obviously reduce the amount they sold. The same isn't true for the iPhone, which effectively no one develops on.
        sjwright 6y ago
        It's also very clear that Apple sees the iPad Pro—not the Mac—as their vision for locked-down general purpose computing. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see a notebook iPad with a fixed keyboard, or a desktop iPad in the shape of a small iMac. These seem unlikely and perhaps absurd... but not nearly as absurd as locking down the platform Apple expects developers to use.
  - sneak 6y ago
    There are entitlements on macOS that are not provided outside of the App Store, such as NetworkExtension API VPNs. There is also no way to turn off the persistent, hardware-serial-number-based APNS connection to Apple, tracking the system from IP to IP whenever it's on, even when no apps are running. You also can't wipe and restore a mac with filevault without an online reactivation from Apple, even if you have local bootable install media. There are several concrete, technical advances toward the thing they are claiming not to be doing. macOS is indeed becoming more like iOS every release. It's not just unfounded paranoia.
    - sjwright 6y ago
      The matter of Filevault isn't necessarily a bad thing, for many people it's a highly desirable feature. I like the fact that iOS activation lock significantly lowered the value of stolen iPhones; I look forward to the same happening with MacBooks. And if you don't like it, just switch it off.
      - sneak 6y ago
        You can't switch it off. Every current mac requires an online reactivation, even ones without an activation lock. How could activation lock possibly work otherwise? Once wiped, it doesn't know if it's activation locked anymore.
    - oneplane 6y ago
      There is also no way to disable your persistent radio connection on your cell modem (except for turning it off), and your network provider will know your location and radio tower etc as well. Same applies to your mac: you turn the appliance off and then the connection is off as well. You turn it on and it's connected again.
- zepto 6y ago
  They have communicated their intention openly. Just listen to any of the podcasts where Gruber interviews senior execs about this.
DCKing 6y ago
It's a bad faith argument. The presupposition is that Apple is inherently motivated to actively lock things down, because that's what they do with the iPhone. This glosses over that Apple has no reason to actually do so, only has reasons not to do it on the Mac, and has gone on record saying they won't treat the Mac as the iPhone. It's based on the notion that Apple would be against free booting a priori for some reason. Mind you, not all bad faith arguments are unwarranted. I kind of get where it comes from. But it's important to recognize that's that what it is, and there's no reason to actually believe it.
- stopFalse 6y ago
  We've seen Apple remove competition from the App Store at will. This is not theoretical.
  - DCKing 6y ago
    I'm not sure how that means anything when it comes to locking down Macs. If you're trying to make a general argument "Apple is capable of doing bad things", that's of course trivially true but does not at all imply they're interested in locking down the Mac's bootloader?
  - scarface74 6y ago
    What “competition” have they removed?
- bsaul 6y ago
  The reason people assume apple will prevent you from doing what you want with your computer, is because it’s the logical consequence of the strategy they’ve followed for the past 10 years over their whole product line. From phones, to cable, to messenging software. They’re into vertical integration and walled ecosystem.
  - DCKing 6y ago
    Simply asserting this without evidence does not make it so. If Apple truly had this strategy they're doing a horrible job at it. Mostly since you are free to boot (or work on doing so at least) NetBSD and countless other things on practically every Mac they've ever released, including the latest ones. They're doing a horrible job at communicating this strategy too, because they're communicating the opposite. For this Apple Silicon phase, it seems they've also missed a huge opportunity to finally execute on this strategy by spending a little time and money to develop the tools to do the opposite of that strategy and give users a way to boot unsigned kernels. I just don't buy it, sorry. I don't even get why Apple would want to do this outside of sheer malice.

by chpmrc 6y ago

ciwolsey 6y ago

I see nothing wrong with any of these speculations. If you or Apple don't like speculation the answer is for them to communicate their intention.

machello13 6y ago
They've plenty communicated their intention to not turn the Mac into the iPhone/iPad. And besides which, it would be a disastrous product strategy to do that, from a company that's absolutely top-of-the-ball when it comes to product strategy.
- fsflover 6y ago
  Are you serious? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25074959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25074959
  - machello13 6y ago
    Sorry, that seems like a total non sequitur to me. What about that (an outage + a failure to correctly handle the outage on the clientside) suggests Apple is planning to lock down macOS like iOS, either in terms of hardware or software? Or rather, maybe you'd like to explain what you think Apple would have to gain from doing something like that?
    - fsflover 6y ago
      You cannot start any non-Apple applications unless Apple explicitly allows them and keeps a list of what and when you are running. Looks totally fine...
      - machello13 6y ago
        Again, I'm having trouble making the leap from this: "Apple checks which macOS applications I run in order to verify that the developers credentials are still valid and not expired/revoked, but only for macOS apps and not executables in general, and you can still open apps that are not signed with a Developer ID using a manual bypass" (which is certainly not ideal but seems like a reasonable security compromise. There's no evidence they're keeping a list of this information anywhere.) to: "Apple will lock down macOS and make it utterly impossible to run any executable or even scripting code that hasn't gone through a strict review process" Since you're unwilling (or unable?) to explain that leap without just spouting pithy 3-word comebacks, I guess we're done :)
        fsflover 6y ago
        I suggest you read the comments in the linked thread. Why do I have to repeat those who can explain better than me? It's pretty clear that the current state: 1) cannot be called "fully unlocked", 2) more locked than what people used to have, even on Apple devices. It might be fine for you, but it certainly is potentially bad for privacy and freedom. Look up keyword "tor" in the thread if genuinely want to understand and not trolling.
        johnofthesea 6y ago
        But isn't it possible to turn off System Integrity Protection and Gatekeeper?
        machello13 6y ago
        Maybe you should go back and read the article that spawned this thread. Apple literally put engineering time + effort just to allow 3rd-party OSes to be run on their chip. That doesn't strike me as the move of a company that wants to lock down their OS. You can disagree with the tradeoffs Apple decided to make in the name of security/privacy, fair enough. And you can certainly blame them for their mistakes (like not thinking to handle a case where their Developer ID verification servers were offline). But practically, these tradeoffs don't really hamper almost anyone's usage of the OS, and the few people for whom it does can disable them.
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
  > They've plenty communicated their intention to not turn the Mac into the iPhone/iPad. Of course not, because they need to differentiate. This doesn't mean they renounce their plans to further lock down macOS. Running non-appstore apps is getting harder and harder each year.
  - breakfastduck 6y ago
    Apart from the fact they've actively stated (repeatedly, during their main presentations) that running arbitrary code on a mac will not be changing. For a company that seems sometimes to go out of its way to not give any information on anything it doesn't make sense to clearly and concisely make that statement.
    - andrekandre 6y ago
      > running arbitrary code on a mac will not be changing. i wonder how much of this is thanks to peoples "gnashing of teeth" about mac getting an iphone lockdown in the end its speculation, but id wager a guess apple wouldnt have a big problem locking down macos if people didnt make a big deal out of it
      - bun_at_work 6y ago
        It's almost certainly not due to "gnashing of teeth." They've always marketed the MacBook line as a general computing device for power users. The idea that they would make it impossible for developers to use their primary computing product is ridiculous. They know how many of these things they sell to students, developers, etc. Just a note - it's often very easy to measure the validity of your ideas by considering the economics of the ideas. Apple effectively neutering development on their premier general purpose computer would obviously reduce the amount they sold. The same isn't true for the iPhone, which effectively no one develops on.
        sjwright 6y ago
        It's also very clear that Apple sees the iPad Pro—not the Mac—as their vision for locked-down general purpose computing. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see a notebook iPad with a fixed keyboard, or a desktop iPad in the shape of a small iMac. These seem unlikely and perhaps absurd... but not nearly as absurd as locking down the platform Apple expects developers to use.
- sneak 6y ago
  There are entitlements on macOS that are not provided outside of the App Store, such as NetworkExtension API VPNs. There is also no way to turn off the persistent, hardware-serial-number-based APNS connection to Apple, tracking the system from IP to IP whenever it's on, even when no apps are running. You also can't wipe and restore a mac with filevault without an online reactivation from Apple, even if you have local bootable install media. There are several concrete, technical advances toward the thing they are claiming not to be doing. macOS is indeed becoming more like iOS every release. It's not just unfounded paranoia.
  - sjwright 6y ago
    The matter of Filevault isn't necessarily a bad thing, for many people it's a highly desirable feature. I like the fact that iOS activation lock significantly lowered the value of stolen iPhones; I look forward to the same happening with MacBooks. And if you don't like it, just switch it off.
    - sneak 6y ago
      You can't switch it off. Every current mac requires an online reactivation, even ones without an activation lock. How could activation lock possibly work otherwise? Once wiped, it doesn't know if it's activation locked anymore.
  - oneplane 6y ago
    There is also no way to disable your persistent radio connection on your cell modem (except for turning it off), and your network provider will know your location and radio tower etc as well. Same applies to your mac: you turn the appliance off and then the connection is off as well. You turn it on and it's connected again.
zepto 6y ago
They have communicated their intention openly. Just listen to any of the podcasts where Gruber interviews senior execs about this.

DCKing 6y ago

It's a bad faith argument. The presupposition is that Apple is inherently motivated to actively lock things down, because that's what they do with the iPhone. This glosses over that Apple has no reason to actually do so, only has reasons not to do it on the Mac, and has gone on record saying they won't treat the Mac as the iPhone. It's based on the notion that Apple would be against free booting a priori for some reason. Mind you, not all bad faith arguments are unwarranted. I kind of get where it comes from. But it's important to recognize that's that what it is, and there's no reason to actually believe it.

stopFalse 6y ago
We've seen Apple remove competition from the App Store at will. This is not theoretical.
- DCKing 6y ago
  I'm not sure how that means anything when it comes to locking down Macs. If you're trying to make a general argument "Apple is capable of doing bad things", that's of course trivially true but does not at all imply they're interested in locking down the Mac's bootloader?
- scarface74 6y ago
  What “competition” have they removed?
bsaul 6y ago
The reason people assume apple will prevent you from doing what you want with your computer, is because it’s the logical consequence of the strategy they’ve followed for the past 10 years over their whole product line. From phones, to cable, to messenging software. They’re into vertical integration and walled ecosystem.
- DCKing 6y ago
  Simply asserting this without evidence does not make it so. If Apple truly had this strategy they're doing a horrible job at it. Mostly since you are free to boot (or work on doing so at least) NetBSD and countless other things on practically every Mac they've ever released, including the latest ones. They're doing a horrible job at communicating this strategy too, because they're communicating the opposite. For this Apple Silicon phase, it seems they've also missed a huge opportunity to finally execute on this strategy by spending a little time and money to develop the tools to do the opposite of that strategy and give users a way to boot unsigned kernels. I just don't buy it, sorry. I don't even get why Apple would want to do this outside of sheer malice.