21 ms·

MacOS sometimes leaks traffic after system updates

402 points by dulvui 2y ago

mgoetzke 2y ago
it also leaks the audio of tabs before logging in. Even though I had disabled all 'restore' applications features, macos sometimes decides to 'start' browsers BEFORE logging in after a restart AND those start auto-playing audio from whatever was paused before the reboot (or many days before). Since then I went rather deep disabling that feature, but I never trusted it.
- Affric 2y ago
  I can’t think of anything I want less from a laptop than it playing sound when I open it… and yet apple bring it to me as though it’s a feature.
  - theshrike79 2y ago
    There are exactly zero situations where I would want my laptop be anything except fully muted when I open it.
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      Your applications should catch the signal and pause. Safari, Apple Music and Spotify handle this well. Firefox needs a bugfix.
      - Faaak 2y ago
        Yet they still make a sound when powered on or resuming sleep (and curiously, when plugged into my usb-c monitor, keeps going to sleep and turning back on (with a nice sound) forever. No other laptop win or Linux does that)
        bayindirh 2y ago
        I actually tested my laptop before writing that comment. My laptop(s) make no sound even if I close the lid with playing audio (sans Firefox, as I said). I didn't test sleep/wake consciously while I docked my laptops, but I don't remember they start making sounds when they should be silent. Maybe you're seeing PowerNap cycles, but mine is not doing any noise in PowerNap, either. Need to test with leaving Firefox playing something and see what it does. ...all in all, interesting sentiments. I'm using these things for ~15 years at this point, and while they did funny things in the past, this was not one of them.
        Faaak 2y ago
        you're lucky :-)
    - andrepd 2y ago
      Configurability is also out of fashion nowadays, so you'll get that behaviour and enjoy it.
  - latexr 2y ago
    That’s an unfair characterisation. It’s just restoring windows, some of which happen to be browser windows, which then load a website with auto-playing video or audio that (unsurprisingly) starts playing. No one is selling it as a feature to “play sound when waking up from sleep”. I bet that if you configured the browser to never auto-play, this wouldn’t happen. To clarify, because commenters seem to be misunderstanding my point: I’m not defending the functionality, I think it’s wrong. My sole quarrel is with the characterisation that Apple is selling it as a feature, when they’re not. Let’s not ascribe wrong (or at best unknown) motivations to behaviours, as that makes is less likely they will be fixed.
    - chx 2y ago
      I do not think the user particularly cares whether it was an intentional feature or an unfortunate byproduct of features and bugs when they open a laptop in a classroom or a meeting and it starts blaring the music they listened to before closing it.
      - Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
        Some areas of expertise require so much work, it nearly prevents the student from learning to appreciate the intent, the craft, itself. It's like being literally unable to dog Opening a laptop, even if the last activity was blaring obnoxious carnival music, should _allow_, not _demand_ the user to resume their last function - which was explicitly to _pause_ the laptop, by closing the lid. If I close the lid, I am done with the computer and video; it is obvious that I am done right now - the OS/browser would be alerted of LidDown, and I would expect the OS to tell the browser to Pause (via some new javascript media API that I am sure exists), pagefile ram if possible/needed, and dump all console.logs to a temp directory, in case restarting from hibernation goes awry. If I open the lid, I am attempting to use the computer. The previous quest can be pertinent or moot; but it would be oddly assumptive (against the ethos of general computing) to _automagically_ resume (especially a paused) playback just from first button press - at least give me the option to explore, format, or rename the thing.
        2y ago
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    macOS sends a "pause" signal to all players when it sleeps, and any application which can handle that won't be playing any audio when the system wakes up. So if your audio continues the moment you open the lid, please file a bug report for that application.
    - Kbelicius 2y ago
      GP wrote nothing about sleep.
      - bayindirh 2y ago
        macOS sleeps the moment you close the lid, and wakes the moment you raise it a little. It's instantaneous, esp. ARM powered ones.
        Kbelicius 2y ago
        Sorry, mistook which post you were replying to.
        bayindirh 2y ago
        Nah, no problems. Things happen. Have a nice day :)
        ta1243 2y ago
        I've seen many situations where macos laptops with a closed lid continue to perform network tasks
        bayindirh 2y ago
        That's PowerNap. Depending on your settings, your Mac wakes up briefly to check e-mails, updates and sleeps again. Normally it happens only during charging, but you can enable on battery power or disable it completely. Bluetooth and wireless radios stay on for a longer while because to keep everything connected if you are moving from room to room at home or at work, also it's made possible because all radios are higher end models with their independent processors.
  - 30714 2y ago
``` #/bin/sh osascript -e 'set volume 0' ``` and SleepWatcher by bernard-baehr.de
- threeseed 2y ago
  I have never heard of anyone with this issue. The only explanation is that you restarted whilst having the "Open All Previous Application" checkbox enabled. And yes it will launch processes after you have logged in but before the Desktop is shown. Either that you or you have some launch daemon that is opening a browser.
  - olyjohn 2y ago
    I've had similar experiences with MacOS. I uncheck that goddamn box all the time and still it relaunches previously opened applications half the time. If my application or computer crashes, I don't want the crashy application to open up at startup again. MacOS isn't perfect.
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      OSX is particularly lousy with remembering user preferences and configuration. I quit using it after I grew sick of raging at it forgetting what applications want different files to open with. I've never had this sort of problem on Linux.
      - jwells89 2y ago
        In my experience, when filetype associations change under macOS it’s because some app I’ve used recently has made those changes without asking me. I know some people are tired of all the prompts but I don’t think apps should be able to change those associations without first prompting the user.
  - eru 2y ago
    I also have this issue from time to time. > The only explanation is that [...] Please show some more imagination.
    - threeseed 2y ago
      Maybe you should use your imagination and read the second part of what I wrote. Which is that it could be a launch daemon. It's very common for third party apps to use their imagination and do dumb things on startup.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
  They want their TCP/IP stack and safari browser hot and ready for their demanders of instant gratification. In the long run, they barter this goodwill for "Safari is shit" credit until they and Google force the internet until a browser-turned App-Play-Store war. Both companies win, and can blame the other company - all while incentivising anti-competition behavior and benefiting from their own organizational, yet altruistic, self-interests happening to coincidentally collude in similar, yet distinctly more complicated cases of creating monopolies spanning multiple domains. The internet was captured, gamified, commoditized, and vertically integrated into a handful of giga-Corps. your mobile devices are essentially tracking devices you are addicted to, and the government is too interested in these shiny grandiose things and their use in facilitating government functions without any real consequence, they fail to see the systematic risks that they themselves have allowed to proliferate by not enforcing stricter laws for systematically - exploitable intersections of law, technology, and business.
  - lukan 2y ago
    "they fail to see the systematic risks" Or they also fail at providing a solution. Would you prefer diletantic government intervention in this area instead?
    - phoe-krk 2y ago
      The differences between governments and megacorps are dwindling and the two are becoming much more alike one another. We already live in global technofeudalism.
      - eru 2y ago
        Alas, no. By and large, governments are still vastly less competent than multinational corporations. MNCs also don't force you to pay taxes or buy their products.
        phoe-krk 2y ago
        Governments are adopting the international outreach of megacorps. Megacorps are adopting the level of competence of governments. I see no contradiction here.
- cryptoz 2y ago
  How is this possible? I wouldn’t have thought that it could open your applications without you logging in? How does it know who you are? How does it know which applications to open? If you’re not logged in yet, is is just logging in for you automatically but not showing you? Seems like a huge security bug. This isn’t being exploited? Wild stuff. Reminds me of when you could hear a FaceTime call coming through but if you chose not to answer it, no worries! Your iPhone will turn on your camera anyway! And send your video to the calling party!
  - delfinom 2y ago
    Vast majority of all laptop and even phone usage is single user. They could literally be doing if macbook_has_only_one_account(): preloadapps()
    - cryptoz 2y ago
      But how? - surely they don't store the passwords in plain text locally? Does the OS have a function to log in a user while bypassing their credentials? I would have assumed that it is impossible for the OS to preloadapps() when it doesn't have access to the user's apps in the first place. But apparently it does! shrug So why tell the user that they need to log in first? If they are the only user account on the system and the OS can access the user's files and apps without logging in, why have the user event set a password in the first place? It seems like a fake login, a false sense of security. And a massive security issue. If the user can just open the lid and that means that code is now running under their own account but they have not authorized a log in, that's just dangerous.
      - delfinom 2y ago
        The OS at its core doesn't care about credentials. As long as there is a root process, which there is for init. It can simply execute a process as another user id. With how modern macbooks and many other laptops work nowadays, you are rarely fully turning off the device and simply hibernating it constantly which keeps everything loaded in memory. I don't deny there are security implications. But it's an Apple design choice. lol
- radicality 2y ago
  Damn, how is that possible? I imagine you have FileVault enabled, and if so this sounds like some security bypass? I was under the impression that until you provide the password after a reboot, the system should know nothing about you as all user data should be encrypted, so it should not know what apps you had open before reboot let alone start playing sound.
  - gruez 2y ago
    >Damn, how is that possible? I imagine you have FileVault enabled, and if so this sounds like some security bypass? If you're choosing "reboot" rather than "shut down", presumably you intend to continue using the machine, so it's reasonably safe to keep credentials around. AFAIK windows has the same feature.
    - steve1977 2y ago
      > If you're choosing "reboot" rather than "shut down", presumably you intend to continue using the machine, so it's reasonably safe to keep credentials around. This is the last thing I would expect. Quite the contrary, when I reboot (rather than log out or sleep), I expect the machine to clear it's memory completely.
  - pram 2y ago
    After you type your FileVault password you are 'logged in' This is really about the checkbox on the reboot modal that says "reopen windows when logging back in." An OS update defaults to yes, for whatever reason.
- f1shy 2y ago
  Somewhat loosely related, but I have something similar with the iPhone browser. Where opening the browser will shortly show the last page I had open (even I carefully closed it before closing the browser). Even if it never got me into trouble, I found that annoying as s. And could potentially make problems.
  - m-s-y 2y ago
    FWIW, what you’re seeing is likely just the cached thumbnail that iOS creates for the app-switcher UI, not an interactive web session.
    - pornel 2y ago
      Yes, but still if you have somebody looking over your shoulder, it can leak whatever you've been looking at. There's a way to block that entirely for "secure' apps, but iOS could be smarter about this, and cache some stripped down view or expire that cache quicker.
    - DavideNL 2y ago
      This is also the case for FaceTime; The last image the camera captured will stay visible in the app switcher like forever... so other people who use your iPad / iPhone can see it.
    - f1shy 2y ago
      Yes. Something like that, but can reveal a lot of the site you were in.
- commandersaki 2y ago
  What I don't understand is why browsers (in my case Brave) doesn't pause all playback after a restart?
pt_PT_guy 2y ago
[flagged]
- bayindirh 2y ago
  Mhmm... A POSIX compliant OS which is bundled with a calibrated high gamut screen, low latency audio stack, and relatively high speed networking with good thread scheduling, great memory management and tremendous uptime numbers for a personal computer. ...a toy OS which becomes invisible most of the time for serious users indeed. I prefer Linux over anything else, but let's be real.
  - f1shy 2y ago
    Excellent reply. I hate windows viscerally, but I would also not call it toy. Neither Linux, FreeBSD, Windows (and many others) are toys. Linux, BTW, started as a toy, but is far from it now.
  - pt_PT_guy 2y ago
    is POSIX complicance relevant anymore?
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      I write everything to run on macOS and Linux, so yes. At least for me.
  - peoplefromibiza 2y ago
    > Mhmm... A POSIX compliant OS which is bundled with a calibrated high gamut screen, low latency audio stack, and relatively high speed networking with good thread scheduling, great memory management and tremendous uptime numbers for a personal computer. so basically a Linux less free and less customizable that only runs on a single platform and architecture (ok, let's make it 2!) and still as it seems has some serious bad security bug that no other OS has
    - bayindirh 2y ago
handsclean 2y ago
The first boot after a macOS system update has long been bugged out. It launches a bunch of apps you didn’t even have open before updating, seems to be the 5-10 most recent apps you quit. Yes they were fully quit, yes I have the “resume” setting off. It also doesn’t do a resume, it launches them, i.e. tells them to create new windows, and it launches them before it finishes mounting disks, resulting in every update being followed by all my most used apps appearing out of nowhere and telling me all my config and data is gone. It doesn’t really matter, you just reboot again and you’re good, it’s just careless and makes the OS feel unstable. Maybe the firewall thing is unrelated, maybe it finally forces Apple to fix the bug, we’ll see.
- galad87 2y ago
  It seems to launch all the apps you had open when you pressed the "Update" button, even if that was 30 minutes before the installation began.
  - ahoka 2y ago
    Ah, that is so annoying. It actually opened stuff from yesterday once.
- trissylegs 2y ago
  > yes I have the “resume” setting off I'm not sure what this setting does. The amount of times mac will jsut reopen everything anyway is frustration. I go look up how to stop it and the answer is always "Turn off this setting you already have off".
thisislife2 2y ago
> In this scenario the macOS firewall does not seem to function correctly and is disregarding firewall rules ... Some examples of apps that do this are Apple’s own apps and services since macOS 14.6, up until a recent 15.1 beta. This is not new - every time I update macOS, some of the system settings are changed to default including some in the firewall. And I have to painstakingly go through all of it and change it. Also, the few times I've reinstalled or updated macOS, I've always noticed that it takes longer for the installation if your system has access to the internet - so now I've made it a practice to switch of the router while installing or updating macOS or ios. (With all the AI bullshit being integrated everywhere in Windows, macOS and Android etc., I expect this kind of "offloading" of personal data, and downloading of data, to / from AI servers to keep increasing, especially during updates, to "prepare" for the new AI features in the newer OS updates. No internet means the installer is forced to skip it for later, saving you some valuable time, and hopefully you get to change the default setting before it starts up again. Whatever the claims of AI processing done on the Mac or iDevices itself, some "offloading" to their servers, will still happen, especially if the default settings - which you can change only after the OS is installed - also enables analytics and data collection.) (More here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26418809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26418809 and on this thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26303946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26303946 ).
- hypeatei 2y ago
  > I've made it a practice to switch of the router while installing or updating macOS or ios. Why are you still using those OSes? That seems like a lot of work for something you paid for.
  - freehorse 2y ago
    For me, because of the hardware.
    - binary132 2y ago
      it’s just not that much better or worth it
nubinetwork 2y ago
The article has today's date on it, but I could swear I read this exact same article a month ago...
- diggan 2y ago
  From September 13, 2023: > During the macOS 14 Sonoma beta period Apple introduced a bug in the macOS firewall, packet filter (PF). This bug prevents our app from working, and can result in leaks when some settings (e.g. local network sharing) are enabled. We cannot guarantee functionality or security for users on macOS 14, we have investigated this issue after the 6th beta was released and reported the bug to Apple. Unfortunately the bug is still present in later macOS 14 betas and the release candidate. https://mullvad.net/en/blog/bug-in-macos-14-sonoma-prevents-our-app-from-working https://mullvad.net/en/blog/bug-in-macos-14-sonoma-prevents-... Was fixed September 22, 2023 it seems (https://mullvad.net/en/blog/macos-14-sonoma-firewall-bug-fixed https://mullvad.net/en/blog/macos-14-sonoma-firewall-bug-fix...). Seems like Apple's product/engineering department doesn't agree with the marketing department about how important their users privacy is.
- VoxPelli 2y ago
  It’s been reported by Little Snitch as well: https://obdev.at/blog/should-i-upgrade-to-macos-sequoia-part-2/ https://obdev.at/blog/should-i-upgrade-to-macos-sequoia-part...
OutOfHere 2y ago
[flagged]
banku_brougham 2y ago
I've heard NixOS is good, but I guess I still need a GUI os because of browser and some apps I use regularly. I would love to get out of the macOS world, its going to a bad place. Seems like I've configured my whole digital life around apple.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  > I've heard NixOS is good, but I guess I still need a GUI os because of browser and some apps I use regularly. What? NixOS runs GUIs just fine. (This comment sent from a browser on NixOS)
chatmasta 2y ago
If you want leak-proof VPN, you need to implement it outside of your device, at the router level. This is true for any device but Apple devices in particular. I highly recommended sniffing the traffic on the wire and piping it through wireshark. You can do this with a router, or a passive Ethernet tap. You’ll see a bunch of packets going to places other than your VPN entrypoint. If you use a router, you can check your mobile for leaks too. (Did you know if you have WiFi calling enabled, then your phone makes a TCP connection to a sensor server controlled by your ISP every 30 seconds? So if you’ve got T-Mobile and you’re abroad, not even using it as your default SIM, they’ll get a nice log of every exit IP you use.) Apple’s seeming embrace of support for VPN and network filtering extensions is a red herring, because they’ll happily disable it for their own traffic. On iOS, the App Store will skip any VPN, and similarly Apple will even block you from downloading updates if you’re on a VPN. I only realized this when I used my wireless router with VPN on it and updates failed to download. On Mac, there are a bunch of issues, especially on first boot. It seems like the Mac will refuse to establish the VPN until it can make one connection outside of it. I encounter this when my computer wakes from sleep and the on-demand wireguard tunnel (using Cloudflare Warp) fails to send packets. I unplug my Ethernet, disable always-on, wait 30 seconds (for some timeout?), re-enable always-on, and then plug in the Ethernet and in connects. But I’m not actually sure this isn’t leaking, I need to investigate more.
akira2501 2y ago
> Unfortunately apps are not required to respect the routing table Insane. Why even have one or expose it to the user if it's just suggestive fiction? Vendors really need to stop privileging themselves on users machines.
- eptcyka 2y ago
  There are legitimate usecases for binding a socket to a specific interface.

402 points by dulvui 2y ago

it also leaks the audio of tabs before logging in. Even though I had disabled all 'restore' applications features, macos sometimes decides to 'start' browsers BEFORE logging in after a restart AND those start auto-playing audio from whatever was paused before the reboot (or many days before). Since then I went rather deep disabling that feature, but I never trusted it.

Affric 2y ago
I can’t think of anything I want less from a laptop than it playing sound when I open it… and yet apple bring it to me as though it’s a feature.
- theshrike79 2y ago
  There are exactly zero situations where I would want my laptop be anything except fully muted when I open it.
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    Your applications should catch the signal and pause. Safari, Apple Music and Spotify handle this well. Firefox needs a bugfix.
    - Faaak 2y ago
      Yet they still make a sound when powered on or resuming sleep (and curiously, when plugged into my usb-c monitor, keeps going to sleep and turning back on (with a nice sound) forever. No other laptop win or Linux does that)
      - bayindirh 2y ago
        I actually tested my laptop before writing that comment. My laptop(s) make no sound even if I close the lid with playing audio (sans Firefox, as I said). I didn't test sleep/wake consciously while I docked my laptops, but I don't remember they start making sounds when they should be silent. Maybe you're seeing PowerNap cycles, but mine is not doing any noise in PowerNap, either. Need to test with leaving Firefox playing something and see what it does. ...all in all, interesting sentiments. I'm using these things for ~15 years at this point, and while they did funny things in the past, this was not one of them.
        Faaak 2y ago
        you're lucky :-)
  - andrepd 2y ago
    Configurability is also out of fashion nowadays, so you'll get that behaviour and enjoy it.
- latexr 2y ago
  That’s an unfair characterisation. It’s just restoring windows, some of which happen to be browser windows, which then load a website with auto-playing video or audio that (unsurprisingly) starts playing. No one is selling it as a feature to “play sound when waking up from sleep”. I bet that if you configured the browser to never auto-play, this wouldn’t happen. To clarify, because commenters seem to be misunderstanding my point: I’m not defending the functionality, I think it’s wrong. My sole quarrel is with the characterisation that Apple is selling it as a feature, when they’re not. Let’s not ascribe wrong (or at best unknown) motivations to behaviours, as that makes is less likely they will be fixed.
  - chx 2y ago
    I do not think the user particularly cares whether it was an intentional feature or an unfortunate byproduct of features and bugs when they open a laptop in a classroom or a meeting and it starts blaring the music they listened to before closing it.
    - Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
      Some areas of expertise require so much work, it nearly prevents the student from learning to appreciate the intent, the craft, itself. It's like being literally unable to dog Opening a laptop, even if the last activity was blaring obnoxious carnival music, should _allow_, not _demand_ the user to resume their last function - which was explicitly to _pause_ the laptop, by closing the lid. If I close the lid, I am done with the computer and video; it is obvious that I am done right now - the OS/browser would be alerted of LidDown, and I would expect the OS to tell the browser to Pause (via some new javascript media API that I am sure exists), pagefile ram if possible/needed, and dump all console.logs to a temp directory, in case restarting from hibernation goes awry. If I open the lid, I am attempting to use the computer. The previous quest can be pertinent or moot; but it would be oddly assumptive (against the ethos of general computing) to _automagically_ resume (especially a paused) playback just from first button press - at least give me the option to explore, format, or rename the thing.
      - 2y ago
- bayindirh 2y ago
  macOS sends a "pause" signal to all players when it sleeps, and any application which can handle that won't be playing any audio when the system wakes up. So if your audio continues the moment you open the lid, please file a bug report for that application.
  - Kbelicius 2y ago
    GP wrote nothing about sleep.
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      macOS sleeps the moment you close the lid, and wakes the moment you raise it a little. It's instantaneous, esp. ARM powered ones.
      - Kbelicius 2y ago
        Sorry, mistook which post you were replying to.
        bayindirh 2y ago
        Nah, no problems. Things happen. Have a nice day :)
      - ta1243 2y ago
        I've seen many situations where macos laptops with a closed lid continue to perform network tasks
        bayindirh 2y ago
        That's PowerNap. Depending on your settings, your Mac wakes up briefly to check e-mails, updates and sleeps again. Normally it happens only during charging, but you can enable on battery power or disable it completely. Bluetooth and wireless radios stay on for a longer while because to keep everything connected if you are moving from room to room at home or at work, also it's made possible because all radios are higher end models with their independent processors.
- 30714 2y ago
``` #/bin/sh osascript -e 'set volume 0' ``` and SleepWatcher by bernard-baehr.de
threeseed 2y ago
I have never heard of anyone with this issue. The only explanation is that you restarted whilst having the "Open All Previous Application" checkbox enabled. And yes it will launch processes after you have logged in but before the Desktop is shown. Either that you or you have some launch daemon that is opening a browser.
- olyjohn 2y ago
  I've had similar experiences with MacOS. I uncheck that goddamn box all the time and still it relaunches previously opened applications half the time. If my application or computer crashes, I don't want the crashy application to open up at startup again. MacOS isn't perfect.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    OSX is particularly lousy with remembering user preferences and configuration. I quit using it after I grew sick of raging at it forgetting what applications want different files to open with. I've never had this sort of problem on Linux.
    - jwells89 2y ago
      In my experience, when filetype associations change under macOS it’s because some app I’ve used recently has made those changes without asking me. I know some people are tired of all the prompts but I don’t think apps should be able to change those associations without first prompting the user.
- eru 2y ago
  I also have this issue from time to time. > The only explanation is that [...] Please show some more imagination.
  - threeseed 2y ago
    Maybe you should use your imagination and read the second part of what I wrote. Which is that it could be a launch daemon. It's very common for third party apps to use their imagination and do dumb things on startup.
Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
They want their TCP/IP stack and safari browser hot and ready for their demanders of instant gratification. In the long run, they barter this goodwill for "Safari is shit" credit until they and Google force the internet until a browser-turned App-Play-Store war. Both companies win, and can blame the other company - all while incentivising anti-competition behavior and benefiting from their own organizational, yet altruistic, self-interests happening to coincidentally collude in similar, yet distinctly more complicated cases of creating monopolies spanning multiple domains. The internet was captured, gamified, commoditized, and vertically integrated into a handful of giga-Corps. your mobile devices are essentially tracking devices you are addicted to, and the government is too interested in these shiny grandiose things and their use in facilitating government functions without any real consequence, they fail to see the systematic risks that they themselves have allowed to proliferate by not enforcing stricter laws for systematically - exploitable intersections of law, technology, and business.
- lukan 2y ago
  "they fail to see the systematic risks" Or they also fail at providing a solution. Would you prefer diletantic government intervention in this area instead?
  - phoe-krk 2y ago
    The differences between governments and megacorps are dwindling and the two are becoming much more alike one another. We already live in global technofeudalism.
    - eru 2y ago
      Alas, no. By and large, governments are still vastly less competent than multinational corporations. MNCs also don't force you to pay taxes or buy their products.
      - phoe-krk 2y ago
        Governments are adopting the international outreach of megacorps. Megacorps are adopting the level of competence of governments. I see no contradiction here.
cryptoz 2y ago
How is this possible? I wouldn’t have thought that it could open your applications without you logging in? How does it know who you are? How does it know which applications to open? If you’re not logged in yet, is is just logging in for you automatically but not showing you? Seems like a huge security bug. This isn’t being exploited? Wild stuff. Reminds me of when you could hear a FaceTime call coming through but if you chose not to answer it, no worries! Your iPhone will turn on your camera anyway! And send your video to the calling party!
- delfinom 2y ago
  Vast majority of all laptop and even phone usage is single user. They could literally be doing if macbook_has_only_one_account(): preloadapps()
  - cryptoz 2y ago
    But how? - surely they don't store the passwords in plain text locally? Does the OS have a function to log in a user while bypassing their credentials? I would have assumed that it is impossible for the OS to preloadapps() when it doesn't have access to the user's apps in the first place. But apparently it does! shrug So why tell the user that they need to log in first? If they are the only user account on the system and the OS can access the user's files and apps without logging in, why have the user event set a password in the first place? It seems like a fake login, a false sense of security. And a massive security issue. If the user can just open the lid and that means that code is now running under their own account but they have not authorized a log in, that's just dangerous.
    - delfinom 2y ago
      The OS at its core doesn't care about credentials. As long as there is a root process, which there is for init. It can simply execute a process as another user id. With how modern macbooks and many other laptops work nowadays, you are rarely fully turning off the device and simply hibernating it constantly which keeps everything loaded in memory. I don't deny there are security implications. But it's an Apple design choice. lol
radicality 2y ago
Damn, how is that possible? I imagine you have FileVault enabled, and if so this sounds like some security bypass? I was under the impression that until you provide the password after a reboot, the system should know nothing about you as all user data should be encrypted, so it should not know what apps you had open before reboot let alone start playing sound.
- gruez 2y ago
  >Damn, how is that possible? I imagine you have FileVault enabled, and if so this sounds like some security bypass? If you're choosing "reboot" rather than "shut down", presumably you intend to continue using the machine, so it's reasonably safe to keep credentials around. AFAIK windows has the same feature.
  - steve1977 2y ago
    > If you're choosing "reboot" rather than "shut down", presumably you intend to continue using the machine, so it's reasonably safe to keep credentials around. This is the last thing I would expect. Quite the contrary, when I reboot (rather than log out or sleep), I expect the machine to clear it's memory completely.
- pram 2y ago
  After you type your FileVault password you are 'logged in' This is really about the checkbox on the reboot modal that says "reopen windows when logging back in." An OS update defaults to yes, for whatever reason.
f1shy 2y ago
Somewhat loosely related, but I have something similar with the iPhone browser. Where opening the browser will shortly show the last page I had open (even I carefully closed it before closing the browser). Even if it never got me into trouble, I found that annoying as s. And could potentially make problems.
- m-s-y 2y ago
  FWIW, what you’re seeing is likely just the cached thumbnail that iOS creates for the app-switcher UI, not an interactive web session.
  - pornel 2y ago
    Yes, but still if you have somebody looking over your shoulder, it can leak whatever you've been looking at. There's a way to block that entirely for "secure' apps, but iOS could be smarter about this, and cache some stripped down view or expire that cache quicker.
  - DavideNL 2y ago
    This is also the case for FaceTime; The last image the camera captured will stay visible in the app switcher like forever... so other people who use your iPad / iPhone can see it.
  - f1shy 2y ago
    Yes. Something like that, but can reveal a lot of the site you were in.
commandersaki 2y ago
What I don't understand is why browsers (in my case Brave) doesn't pause all playback after a restart?

pt_PT_guy 2y ago

[flagged]

bayindirh 2y ago
Mhmm... A POSIX compliant OS which is bundled with a calibrated high gamut screen, low latency audio stack, and relatively high speed networking with good thread scheduling, great memory management and tremendous uptime numbers for a personal computer. ...a toy OS which becomes invisible most of the time for serious users indeed. I prefer Linux over anything else, but let's be real.
- f1shy 2y ago
  Excellent reply. I hate windows viscerally, but I would also not call it toy. Neither Linux, FreeBSD, Windows (and many others) are toys. Linux, BTW, started as a toy, but is far from it now.
- pt_PT_guy 2y ago
  is POSIX complicance relevant anymore?
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    I write everything to run on macOS and Linux, so yes. At least for me.
- peoplefromibiza 2y ago
  > Mhmm... A POSIX compliant OS which is bundled with a calibrated high gamut screen, low latency audio stack, and relatively high speed networking with good thread scheduling, great memory management and tremendous uptime numbers for a personal computer. so basically a Linux less free and less customizable that only runs on a single platform and architecture (ok, let's make it 2!) and still as it seems has some serious bad security bug that no other OS has
  - bayindirh 2y ago

handsclean 2y ago

The first boot after a macOS system update has long been bugged out. It launches a bunch of apps you didn’t even have open before updating, seems to be the 5-10 most recent apps you quit. Yes they were fully quit, yes I have the “resume” setting off. It also doesn’t do a resume, it launches them, i.e. tells them to create new windows, and it launches them before it finishes mounting disks, resulting in every update being followed by all my most used apps appearing out of nowhere and telling me all my config and data is gone. It doesn’t really matter, you just reboot again and you’re good, it’s just careless and makes the OS feel unstable. Maybe the firewall thing is unrelated, maybe it finally forces Apple to fix the bug, we’ll see.

galad87 2y ago
It seems to launch all the apps you had open when you pressed the "Update" button, even if that was 30 minutes before the installation began.
- ahoka 2y ago
  Ah, that is so annoying. It actually opened stuff from yesterday once.
trissylegs 2y ago
> yes I have the “resume” setting off I'm not sure what this setting does. The amount of times mac will jsut reopen everything anyway is frustration. I go look up how to stop it and the answer is always "Turn off this setting you already have off".

thisislife2 2y ago

> In this scenario the macOS firewall does not seem to function correctly and is disregarding firewall rules ... Some examples of apps that do this are Apple’s own apps and services since macOS 14.6, up until a recent 15.1 beta. This is not new - every time I update macOS, some of the system settings are changed to default including some in the firewall. And I have to painstakingly go through all of it and change it. Also, the few times I've reinstalled or updated macOS, I've always noticed that it takes longer for the installation if your system has access to the internet - so now I've made it a practice to switch of the router while installing or updating macOS or ios. (With all the AI bullshit being integrated everywhere in Windows, macOS and Android etc., I expect this kind of "offloading" of personal data, and downloading of data, to / from AI servers to keep increasing, especially during updates, to "prepare" for the new AI features in the newer OS updates. No internet means the installer is forced to skip it for later, saving you some valuable time, and hopefully you get to change the default setting before it starts up again. Whatever the claims of AI processing done on the Mac or iDevices itself, some "offloading" to their servers, will still happen, especially if the default settings - which you can change only after the OS is installed - also enables analytics and data collection.) (More here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26418809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26418809 and on this thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26303946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26303946 ).

hypeatei 2y ago
> I've made it a practice to switch of the router while installing or updating macOS or ios. Why are you still using those OSes? That seems like a lot of work for something you paid for.
- freehorse 2y ago
  For me, because of the hardware.
  - binary132 2y ago
    it’s just not that much better or worth it

nubinetwork 2y ago

The article has today's date on it, but I could swear I read this exact same article a month ago...

diggan 2y ago
From September 13, 2023: > During the macOS 14 Sonoma beta period Apple introduced a bug in the macOS firewall, packet filter (PF). This bug prevents our app from working, and can result in leaks when some settings (e.g. local network sharing) are enabled. We cannot guarantee functionality or security for users on macOS 14, we have investigated this issue after the 6th beta was released and reported the bug to Apple. Unfortunately the bug is still present in later macOS 14 betas and the release candidate. https://mullvad.net/en/blog/bug-in-macos-14-sonoma-prevents-our-app-from-working https://mullvad.net/en/blog/bug-in-macos-14-sonoma-prevents-... Was fixed September 22, 2023 it seems (https://mullvad.net/en/blog/macos-14-sonoma-firewall-bug-fixed https://mullvad.net/en/blog/macos-14-sonoma-firewall-bug-fix...). Seems like Apple's product/engineering department doesn't agree with the marketing department about how important their users privacy is.
VoxPelli 2y ago
It’s been reported by Little Snitch as well: https://obdev.at/blog/should-i-upgrade-to-macos-sequoia-part-2/ https://obdev.at/blog/should-i-upgrade-to-macos-sequoia-part...

OutOfHere 2y ago

[flagged]

banku_brougham 2y ago

I've heard NixOS is good, but I guess I still need a GUI os because of browser and some apps I use regularly. I would love to get out of the macOS world, its going to a bad place. Seems like I've configured my whole digital life around apple.

yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
> I've heard NixOS is good, but I guess I still need a GUI os because of browser and some apps I use regularly. What? NixOS runs GUIs just fine. (This comment sent from a browser on NixOS)

chatmasta 2y ago

If you want leak-proof VPN, you need to implement it outside of your device, at the router level. This is true for any device but Apple devices in particular. I highly recommended sniffing the traffic on the wire and piping it through wireshark. You can do this with a router, or a passive Ethernet tap. You’ll see a bunch of packets going to places other than your VPN entrypoint. If you use a router, you can check your mobile for leaks too. (Did you know if you have WiFi calling enabled, then your phone makes a TCP connection to a sensor server controlled by your ISP every 30 seconds? So if you’ve got T-Mobile and you’re abroad, not even using it as your default SIM, they’ll get a nice log of every exit IP you use.) Apple’s seeming embrace of support for VPN and network filtering extensions is a red herring, because they’ll happily disable it for their own traffic. On iOS, the App Store will skip any VPN, and similarly Apple will even block you from downloading updates if you’re on a VPN. I only realized this when I used my wireless router with VPN on it and updates failed to download. On Mac, there are a bunch of issues, especially on first boot. It seems like the Mac will refuse to establish the VPN until it can make one connection outside of it. I encounter this when my computer wakes from sleep and the on-demand wireguard tunnel (using Cloudflare Warp) fails to send packets. I unplug my Ethernet, disable always-on, wait 30 seconds (for some timeout?), re-enable always-on, and then plug in the Ethernet and in connects. But I’m not actually sure this isn’t leaking, I need to investigate more.

akira2501 2y ago

> Unfortunately apps are not required to respect the routing table Insane. Why even have one or expose it to the user if it's just suggestive fiction? Vendors really need to stop privileging themselves on users machines.

eptcyka 2y ago
There are legitimate usecases for binding a socket to a specific interface.