4 ms·

> Users are dumb, and need to protected from harm. And we know for a fact that Apple despite all their claims to the contrary cannot do that.

by troupo 2y ago

ben_w 2y ago
Indeed, but in the same way that code reviews and QA testers can't catch all defects. Perfect is the enemy of the good. Swiss cheese model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model Apple's (flawed!) review process still catches a lot of bad actors. Not all, and it has false-positives. That doesn't mean it's useless. The (legit) question is: is Apple also using security as an excuse to make more money at the expense of customer choice? Because Apple absolutely doesn't need to be the only entity performing this task — I don't trust Epic, I think their business model is predatory on gambling addiction, that doesn't mean they would be incapable of performing the same kinds of security review — and while Apple's smooshing of all the different expenses from API development to review and hosting and processing fees into a fixed sales percentage is convenient, it does make it harder for competitors to emerge for each of those separate tasks.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >Perfect is the enemy of the good. I think it goes both ways. Perfection is letting me control the hardware I bought and tweak the software to my liking. them throwing their hands up because of their motte argument of "security" doesn't resonate with me. Especially when the bailey argument is simply "we want to control everything you do". Here, it's "don't even try to achieve good, avoid bad at all costs". In my mind it's like closing a store down due to excessive theft in an area. That doesnt fix theft, it just takes away service from the honest customers.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Some call it "the Apple tax". To that end, I see this as more like the invention of courts and a police force in a world that was previously an anarchy. Yes, I lose the power to do things; in exchange, I genuinely gain the security of some measure of defence against other people doing things at my expense. I remember when we could actually read all the code on our computers — that time has passed even when the source code is fully published simply because the volume is too great, and we must either trust someone to do it for us (or at least that someone has liability if it goes wrong), or have some manner of insurance because doing so is impractical. Of course, corporations are not democracies, so the fight between Apple and Epic is to me as the fight between King John and his barons in 1215 A.D. — and my relative power compared to either corporation is as the power of a, I dunno, franklin or free peasants or something, as to the King and his barons.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      >I genuinely gain the security of some measure of defence against other people doing things at my expense. If I need security, I buy anti-virus. But I can't opt out of Apples "security". I don't see that as a good thing. If apple wanted to offer that at checkout, I wouldn't mind at all. Worst case scenario, I backup all my stuff. My phone exploding should not ruin any more of my livliehood than losing a few days of phone calls would. I can protect myself without some non-consentual agreement from a vendor whose relationship should end after the device ships to my address. that time has passed even when the source code is fully published simply because the volume is too great, and we must either trust someone to do it for us (or at least that someone has liability if it goes wrong), or have some manner of insurance because doing so is impractical. >that time has passed even when the source code is fully published simply because the volume is too great, and we must either trust someone to do it for us (or at least that someone has liability if it goes wrong), or have some manner of insurance because doing so is impractical. I'm not going to pretend I consult the AOSP everytime I hit an odd quirk on my android. But I like the ease of mind knowing I can take my ball and go home if Google goes rogue (and I can argue thst it has already done so, years ago). I ultimate trust people mush smarter than me for that, but I like having more than one biased source to rely on. And heck, I might help contribute if angry enough. That's the power of open source. The best possible insurance when I go in loops under "official channels".
      - ben_w 2y ago
        > If I need security, I buy anti-virus. But I can't opt out of Apples "security". I don't see that as a good thing. If apple wanted to offer that at checkout, I wouldn't mind at all. I can't opt out of the police. I can opt out of Apple's security by using literally any other brand of phone. > Worst case scenario, I backup all my stuff. No, the worse-case scenario is that malware knows everything you look at and everything you type (like bank details), everything you're listening to in real life, your location, your health data, etc.… and can also be used to spy on you through all the phones of the people around you in much the same way even if you don't download any malware yourself. (And how many of those things would Facebook like to do in the name of "improved advertisement targeting"? If they had full access to photo libraries rather than just what's uploaded to their servers, I'd expect them to try to analyse all my friend's photos that happen to include me for this exact reason, and I'd expect that data to be mis-used by malicious parties just like other ad data has reportedly been). There's a lot of reason someone should be enforcing rules on this; not so much that it should be Apple doing it. > whose relationship should end after the device ships to my address So, not a fan of security patches? :P > But I like the ease of mind knowing I can take my ball and go home if Google goes rogue (and I can argue thst it has already done so, years ago). Given that Google has (arguably) already gone rogue, can you actually take your ball and go home? There's a whole subreddit for that, yet every time I've heard other people try, it turns out much harder than anticipated. > That's the power of open source. The best possible insurance when I go in loops under "official channels". I have no more reason to trust open source than closed source: underhanded-C contest; at least one example of a Linux distro doing exactly what I'd expect if they were under a secret government order; Reflections on Trusting Trust; the foot-gun nature of C++ combined with its popularity; the number of times someone else has told me to fix something in a PR or QA report where I never spotted the issue while writing the code myself; and the obvious motivations of intelligence agencies worldwide to insert backdoors.

> Users are dumb, and need to protected from harm. And we know for a fact that Apple despite all their claims to the contrary cannot do that.

by troupo 2y ago

> Users are dumb, and need to protected from harm. And we know for a fact that Apple despite all their claims to the contrary cannot do that.

ben_w 2y ago

Indeed, but in the same way that code reviews and QA testers can't catch all defects. Perfect is the enemy of the good. Swiss cheese model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model Apple's (flawed!) review process still catches a lot of bad actors. Not all, and it has false-positives. That doesn't mean it's useless. The (legit) question is: is Apple also using security as an excuse to make more money at the expense of customer choice? Because Apple absolutely doesn't need to be the only entity performing this task — I don't trust Epic, I think their business model is predatory on gambling addiction, that doesn't mean they would be incapable of performing the same kinds of security review — and while Apple's smooshing of all the different expenses from API development to review and hosting and processing fees into a fixed sales percentage is convenient, it does make it harder for competitors to emerge for each of those separate tasks.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
>Perfect is the enemy of the good. I think it goes both ways. Perfection is letting me control the hardware I bought and tweak the software to my liking. them throwing their hands up because of their motte argument of "security" doesn't resonate with me. Especially when the bailey argument is simply "we want to control everything you do". Here, it's "don't even try to achieve good, avoid bad at all costs". In my mind it's like closing a store down due to excessive theft in an area. That doesnt fix theft, it just takes away service from the honest customers.
- ben_w 2y ago
  Some call it "the Apple tax". To that end, I see this as more like the invention of courts and a police force in a world that was previously an anarchy. Yes, I lose the power to do things; in exchange, I genuinely gain the security of some measure of defence against other people doing things at my expense. I remember when we could actually read all the code on our computers — that time has passed even when the source code is fully published simply because the volume is too great, and we must either trust someone to do it for us (or at least that someone has liability if it goes wrong), or have some manner of insurance because doing so is impractical. Of course, corporations are not democracies, so the fight between Apple and Epic is to me as the fight between King John and his barons in 1215 A.D. — and my relative power compared to either corporation is as the power of a, I dunno, franklin or free peasants or something, as to the King and his barons.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >I genuinely gain the security of some measure of defence against other people doing things at my expense. If I need security, I buy anti-virus. But I can't opt out of Apples "security". I don't see that as a good thing. If apple wanted to offer that at checkout, I wouldn't mind at all. Worst case scenario, I backup all my stuff. My phone exploding should not ruin any more of my livliehood than losing a few days of phone calls would. I can protect myself without some non-consentual agreement from a vendor whose relationship should end after the device ships to my address. that time has passed even when the source code is fully published simply because the volume is too great, and we must either trust someone to do it for us (or at least that someone has liability if it goes wrong), or have some manner of insurance because doing so is impractical. >that time has passed even when the source code is fully published simply because the volume is too great, and we must either trust someone to do it for us (or at least that someone has liability if it goes wrong), or have some manner of insurance because doing so is impractical. I'm not going to pretend I consult the AOSP everytime I hit an odd quirk on my android. But I like the ease of mind knowing I can take my ball and go home if Google goes rogue (and I can argue thst it has already done so, years ago). I ultimate trust people mush smarter than me for that, but I like having more than one biased source to rely on. And heck, I might help contribute if angry enough. That's the power of open source. The best possible insurance when I go in loops under "official channels".
    - ben_w 2y ago
      > If I need security, I buy anti-virus. But I can't opt out of Apples "security". I don't see that as a good thing. If apple wanted to offer that at checkout, I wouldn't mind at all. I can't opt out of the police. I can opt out of Apple's security by using literally any other brand of phone. > Worst case scenario, I backup all my stuff. No, the worse-case scenario is that malware knows everything you look at and everything you type (like bank details), everything you're listening to in real life, your location, your health data, etc.… and can also be used to spy on you through all the phones of the people around you in much the same way even if you don't download any malware yourself. (And how many of those things would Facebook like to do in the name of "improved advertisement targeting"? If they had full access to photo libraries rather than just what's uploaded to their servers, I'd expect them to try to analyse all my friend's photos that happen to include me for this exact reason, and I'd expect that data to be mis-used by malicious parties just like other ad data has reportedly been). There's a lot of reason someone should be enforcing rules on this; not so much that it should be Apple doing it. > whose relationship should end after the device ships to my address So, not a fan of security patches? :P > But I like the ease of mind knowing I can take my ball and go home if Google goes rogue (and I can argue thst it has already done so, years ago). Given that Google has (arguably) already gone rogue, can you actually take your ball and go home? There's a whole subreddit for that, yet every time I've heard other people try, it turns out much harder than anticipated. > That's the power of open source. The best possible insurance when I go in loops under "official channels". I have no more reason to trust open source than closed source: underhanded-C contest; at least one example of a Linux distro doing exactly what I'd expect if they were under a secret government order; Reflections on Trusting Trust; the foot-gun nature of C++ combined with its popularity; the number of times someone else has told me to fix something in a PR or QA report where I never spotted the issue while writing the code myself; and the obvious motivations of intelligence agencies worldwide to insert backdoors.