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> Gatekeeper’s role is to ensure that when users execute some code, that code meets the local system policy. The policy includes checks such as whether the code

by Lammy 4y ago

> Gatekeeper’s role is to ensure that when users execute some code, that code meets the local system policy. The policy includes checks such as whether the code is validly signed and whether it has been tampered with in certain ways. Weasel-word alert. I never thought I’d see the day when technologists would applaud the gradual death of general-purpose computing, but here we are. A decade from now Apple probably won’t even ship a local version of Xcode, and the transformation will be complete as all new development happens in Xcode Cloud where no line of code goes unscrutinized by the watchful eye of the mother ship. At least we’ll be Safe™.

RONROC 4y ago
There is no more prescient of a take on this news as this one. Once the singularity is nearly complete you'll know: macOS and iOS will merge into one monolithic OS.
kccqzy 4y ago
Gatekeeper was introduced in 2011 in Lion. It has already been a decade. I didn't see that transformation happening.
- Lammy 4y ago
  The existence of Gatekeeper already causes a huge privacy violation by “requiring” my computer to phone home to verify the signature the first time it launches an application. Everyone should have realized this when Apple’s OCSP responder went down in November 2020 and nobody could launch anything that wasn’t built in to the OS. According to TFA this kind of verification will now occur every time an application is launched to deter post-verification “tampering” by you, the user. How big of a privacy violation would it have to become to bother you, out of curiosity? If we let this continue we will end up in a future where full “Remote Attestation” of every hardware and software component is required to participate in the Internet. This isn’t hypothetical doom-saying, either: game consoles already work like this. I remember my XBOX360 could detect modified DVD drive firmware, launches of individual pieces of software (e.g. Halo 3 Delta leak), and other types of system modifications, then it would permanently ban that machine from XBOX LIVE. And that was all 15+ years ago. Just imagine what a gift this will be to law enforcement, for example, once they can go to Apple all like “Hey, Siri, show me all users of Tor Browser around the time of ${BITCOIN_TRANSACTION_ID}”.
guessmyname 4y ago
It is funny to me to read this because I recently joined the Xcode Cloud team to precisely work on this, thinking that I could help Apple make developer’s life easier in the near future, but according to your comment, there are people out there who will consider my team’s work a regression.
- drdaeman 4y ago
  There is no problem with a remote compilation. If anything, it's good to have options. The problem if someone decides that it's going to be the only option. And another problem is that they can. So, your work is not regression, and it definitely has a positive use case. It's just that it can also make certain unethical things possible.
- jcelerier 4y ago
  > It is funny to me to read this because I recently joined the Xcode Cloud team to precisely work on this, thinking that I could help Apple make developer’s life easier in the near future, but according to your comment, there are people out there who will consider my team’s work a regression. how exactly will it be easier than my current workflow of: - Boot computer - Press win-key + d - type the letters "qtc" - hit enter - ctrl-alt-shift-<index the project I'm working on> - ready to code
  - zmmmmm 4y ago
    Not having to download 10g to edit 1 line of code on a computer where you haven't set up XCode should be a win? Having said that, I agree, the biggest problem here is that even if it doesn't seem obvious now, once the cloud offering is there the control it offers will make it very appealing for Apple to expand its use and eventually offer features there that aren't in the real XCode. It can fast be a slippery slope to the non-cloud app being deprecated.
danpalmer 4y ago
I disagree. Before Gatekeeper there was no way to define a policy about what code could run, now with Gatekeeper there is. Currently, Apple define a default policy. Users can edit this themselves if they acknowledge the risks. Admins of Macs can also set their own policies. The ability to have policies is very different from enforcing overly strong policies. Apple seems quite clear that they see iOS as being a platform with a stronger policy, and macOS as being a platform with at least the ability to run a weaker policy. Edit: also Xcode Cloud isn't what you imply it is/could be, and Apple's moves with Swift being developed in the open suggest to me a very different direction for development. I can't see this ever being locked down, either in terms of technology or policy.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
corrral 4y ago
> A decade from now Apple probably won’t even ship a local version of Xcode, and the transformation will be complete as all new development happens in Xcode Cloud where no line of code goes unscrutinized by the watchful eye of the mother ship. Any young folks wondering: yes, this exact same thing was being posted ten years ago, all the time. "Apple's gonna totally lock down macOS without any way around it, they hate general purpose computing" and the related "Apple's gonna merge iOS and macOS" are the apocalypse cult of computer geek forums. They might be right eventually, but only after being wrong a hundred times. And they never get the timeline right.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Do you not see that every new macOS release is a few more steps towards that dystopia?
  - corrral 4y ago
    Started kinda late on macOS/OSX (in my career, and in the life of Apple) but have still been using it for 11ish years, and developing, off and on, for iOS. Nope, I don't.
pjmlp 4y ago
I thought all UNIX heads longed for the days we used to telnet or startx into the UNIX development server, everyone had their $HOME configured with noexec, and the tooling configured by the BOFH team.

by Lammy 4y ago

RONROC 4y ago

There is no more prescient of a take on this news as this one. Once the singularity is nearly complete you'll know: macOS and iOS will merge into one monolithic OS.

kccqzy 4y ago

Gatekeeper was introduced in 2011 in Lion. It has already been a decade. I didn't see that transformation happening.

Lammy 4y ago
The existence of Gatekeeper already causes a huge privacy violation by “requiring” my computer to phone home to verify the signature the first time it launches an application. Everyone should have realized this when Apple’s OCSP responder went down in November 2020 and nobody could launch anything that wasn’t built in to the OS. According to TFA this kind of verification will now occur every time an application is launched to deter post-verification “tampering” by you, the user. How big of a privacy violation would it have to become to bother you, out of curiosity? If we let this continue we will end up in a future where full “Remote Attestation” of every hardware and software component is required to participate in the Internet. This isn’t hypothetical doom-saying, either: game consoles already work like this. I remember my XBOX360 could detect modified DVD drive firmware, launches of individual pieces of software (e.g. Halo 3 Delta leak), and other types of system modifications, then it would permanently ban that machine from XBOX LIVE. And that was all 15+ years ago. Just imagine what a gift this will be to law enforcement, for example, once they can go to Apple all like “Hey, Siri, show me all users of Tor Browser around the time of ${BITCOIN_TRANSACTION_ID}”.

guessmyname 4y ago

It is funny to me to read this because I recently joined the Xcode Cloud team to precisely work on this, thinking that I could help Apple make developer’s life easier in the near future, but according to your comment, there are people out there who will consider my team’s work a regression.

drdaeman 4y ago
There is no problem with a remote compilation. If anything, it's good to have options. The problem if someone decides that it's going to be the only option. And another problem is that they can. So, your work is not regression, and it definitely has a positive use case. It's just that it can also make certain unethical things possible.
jcelerier 4y ago
> It is funny to me to read this because I recently joined the Xcode Cloud team to precisely work on this, thinking that I could help Apple make developer’s life easier in the near future, but according to your comment, there are people out there who will consider my team’s work a regression. how exactly will it be easier than my current workflow of: - Boot computer - Press win-key + d - type the letters "qtc" - hit enter - ctrl-alt-shift-<index the project I'm working on> - ready to code
- zmmmmm 4y ago
  Not having to download 10g to edit 1 line of code on a computer where you haven't set up XCode should be a win? Having said that, I agree, the biggest problem here is that even if it doesn't seem obvious now, once the cloud offering is there the control it offers will make it very appealing for Apple to expand its use and eventually offer features there that aren't in the real XCode. It can fast be a slippery slope to the non-cloud app being deprecated.

danpalmer 4y ago

I disagree. Before Gatekeeper there was no way to define a policy about what code could run, now with Gatekeeper there is. Currently, Apple define a default policy. Users can edit this themselves if they acknowledge the risks. Admins of Macs can also set their own policies. The ability to have policies is very different from enforcing overly strong policies. Apple seems quite clear that they see iOS as being a platform with a stronger policy, and macOS as being a platform with at least the ability to run a weaker policy. Edit: also Xcode Cloud isn't what you imply it is/could be, and Apple's moves with Swift being developed in the open suggest to me a very different direction for development. I can't see this ever being locked down, either in terms of technology or policy.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

corrral 4y ago

> A decade from now Apple probably won’t even ship a local version of Xcode, and the transformation will be complete as all new development happens in Xcode Cloud where no line of code goes unscrutinized by the watchful eye of the mother ship. Any young folks wondering: yes, this exact same thing was being posted ten years ago, all the time. "Apple's gonna totally lock down macOS without any way around it, they hate general purpose computing" and the related "Apple's gonna merge iOS and macOS" are the apocalypse cult of computer geek forums. They might be right eventually, but only after being wrong a hundred times. And they never get the timeline right.

josephcsible 4y ago
Do you not see that every new macOS release is a few more steps towards that dystopia?
- corrral 4y ago
  Started kinda late on macOS/OSX (in my career, and in the life of Apple) but have still been using it for 11ish years, and developing, off and on, for iOS. Nope, I don't.

pjmlp 4y ago

I thought all UNIX heads longed for the days we used to telnet or startx into the UNIX development server, everyone had their $HOME configured with noexec, and the tooling configured by the BOFH team.