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It would be responsible of them if they had done it in a situation where they weren't pressured into the decision by media outlets.
by Paraesthetic 6y ago
It would be responsible of them if they had done it in a situation where they weren't pressured into the decision by media outlets.
- SulfurHexaFluri 6y agoIts possible that they saw it as a purely positive move that would improve security on MacOS and then after seeing everyone's response they reevaluated its importance.
- onelovetwo 6y ago> positive move that would improve security That they purposefully added in the first place to let only Apple apps bypass third-party firewalls?
- m463 6y agoor they started getting security bugs from the fuzzer teams. (it's a hard problem to sanitize so many exectutables, and the people who use VPNs are probably high-value customers, like business people wfh)
- tempodox 6y agoHaving to be told by outsiders that this backdoor could be abused by malware is pretty embarrassing. It's hard to imagine Apple's engineers weren't aware of that.
- eyelidlessness 6y agoApple gives two fucks about media pressure. Their longstanding history of giving in to pressure almost exclusively is responsive to their users, either: - pro/dev users who act as their trend setters (see recent backpedals on keyboards and Mac Pro form factor) - people hacking stuff where it’s popular enough they want more influence on the UX (bootcamp)
- onelovetwo 6y agoName an instance where Apple has reversed a decision where media outlets haven't reported on.
- m463 6y agoJust search for example "apple backpedals" and it's pretty clear that Apple is not immune to the effects of publicity (like all companies)
- eyelidlessness 6y agoI cited a pretty huge example (bootcamp) where there was no media pressure at all. There was definitely tech pressure, but the media had no dog in the fight.
- stretchcat 6y agoFinding an example of Apple changing something for a reason other than media coverage is hardly evidence of media coverage never swaying Apple.
- Uehreka 6y agoThe iPhone Headphone Jack has entered the chat.
- culopatin 6y agoFollowed by the EarPods
- alwillis 6y agoWhen it comes to media pressure, Apple is like the honey-badger—they don’t care.
- saagarjha 6y agoThey want to make it seem like they don’t care…but they very much do.
- yalogin 6y agoAs much the community wants to think they are evil and want to purposefully violate trust, most often the easier explanation works very well. Its an oversight or a resourcing issue.
- colejohnson66 6y agoAs much as I'd like to believe it was just an oversight, how do you accidentally have your services bypass the firewall? That feels like it would have to be a deliberate choice under the assumption that "our apps are signed by us, and the OS verifies that, so all traffic through these apps should be OK, right?" I don't mean this snarkily; it's a genuine question. I don't know how OSes work.
- Demiurge 6y agoPerhaps they wanted a bypass as system recovery option, or preference, not on by default.
- jtbayly 6y agoThat could really make sense of why you need a config file and it is just a simple bug at the same time.
- stretchcat 6y agoI don't see why half the shit in that list would be needed during a recovery process, let alone need to bypass a VPN as well. If Apple wants to claim this as their defense, let them. Until then, I see little value in dreaming up excuses they aren't willing to make for themselves.
- webmobdev 6y agoThey already have a "system recovery mode" where no such firewalls run, and only select system tools are available. There's also "safe mode".
- acdha 6y agoMy guess is that this started small (“we shouldn’t let firewalls block security updates or Find My Mac”) and once that mechanism was there people kept adding other things to it thinking about support (security filters are notorious for people blocking things without understanding the implications and then file big reports) but not the users who would be upset about not being able to block those services.
- ROARosen 6y agoNah, it's not media outlets Apple is scared of, it's the front page of Hacker News...
- jiofih 6y agoThe amount of people reading about firewalls in the latest OS release surely does not qualify as “media pressure” on any kind of scale.
- Unklejoe 6y agoDon't underestimate the power that a few angry nerds can have when it comes to the overall narrative about a technology. Every family has that one computer geek who everyone asks for advice, which ultimately influences purchase decisions.