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> Do you still trust them not to do self-reporting or phoning home, even though it is $0 and closed source? If you trust Little Snitch on Mac, then yes. They'
by lapcat 6mo ago
> Do you still trust them not to do self-reporting or phoning home, even though it is $0 and closed source?
If you trust Little Snitch on Mac, then yes.
They've been in business for over 20 years. They're not going to blow their entire business and reputation for a few Linux users.
- emmelaich 6mo agoYep, I trust the obdev.at / Snitch guys. I do wonder however, are they sufficiently careful about their processes and own machines to avoid a supply chain attack completely. They must be a target for the various hacking groups out there.
- lapcat 6mo agoThis comment seems a bit confused. A supply chain attack doesn't directly attack an end developer but rather a supplier of the developer. So who or what is the supplier in this case?
- hsbauauvhabzb 6mo agoThis seems pedantic and I think you know what they’re questioning and why.
- lapcat 6mo ago> I think you know what they’re questioning and why. No, not really. And I disagree with the premise, "They must be a target for the various hacking groups out there." How would you even hack them? I'm a developer too; how would you hack me?
- heartbreak 6mo agoOptions range from carefully targeted phishing or social engineering attacks to poor opsec and a five dollar wrench.
- lapcat 6mo ago> a five dollar wrench. I'm not even going to respond to this ridiculousness. I still don't know why anyone thinks that, among all developers in the world, a little indie Mac developer is getting targeted specifically.
- emmelaich 6mo agoSome targets are more valuable than others. A firewall product has obvious security value. The fact that it requires high privilege is another reason. I have the same thoughts about other Mac apps. e.g. iTerm2 - cause they "see" so much sensitive data.
- lapcat 6mo ago[flagged]
- hsbauauvhabzb 6mo agoYeah just yolo install whatever, it’s not like applications or libraries such as axios which have a decade of trusted history would all of a sudden become malicious and do nasty things to developer machines, just chill, everything’s fine.
- lapcat 6mo ago> Yeah just yolo install whatever That's not even remotely what I said. > it’s not like applications or libraries such as axios iTerm doesn't use NPM. Little Snitch doesn't use NPM. I don't use NPM.
- hsbauauvhabzb 6mo ago[flagged]
- 6mo ago
- emmelaich 6mo ago?! The same way every other developer that has been hacked. You surely cannot be suggesting you're un-hackable. That seems ludicrously hubristic.
- lapcat 6mo ago> The same way every other developer that has been hacked. There's not one single way, so, no, you're just hand-waving here.
- emmelaich 6mo agoJust saying developers have been hacked. Underrated existence proof.
- lapcat 6mo ago> Just saying developers have been hacked. So are you going to have this same discussion in every HN submission that mentions any piece of software?
- hsbauauvhabzb 6mo agoWhat software do you actually develop? You clearly don’t give a shit about your users and I want to make sure I’m not using your software .
- BoredPositron 6mo agoIf they trust the devs why would they not trust them to not yolo deploy new versions?
- dylan604 6mo agobecause a company worthy of trust doesn't yolo their versions. a company that does yolo versions is not trustworthy.
- hsbauauvhabzb 6mo agoBecause it might not be the developers doing the deploying, but a malicious actor?
- emmelaich 6mo agoThey don't build their own machines or write their compilers or write their own crpyto code or ... so many other things.
- lapcat 6mo ago> They don't build their own machines or write their compilers or write their own crpyto code or ... so many other things. An attack on any of these things has nothing specifically to do with the developers of Little Snitch and would have vastly more widespread and important effects. Why would you even be talking about Little Snitch if a compiler were compromised?!? Your paranoia here is bizarrely narrow. Little Snitch would be the least of our problems in that case.
- LamaOfRuin 6mo agoThat seems... not correct? The comment was asking about preventing a compromised supplier for the developers. A supply chain attack can be anywhere in the supply chain to the target. If I, the end user, am the target, then a supply chain attack compromising the developer of LittleSnitch is effective. I may then be a conduit to compromising other software or components, and would both I and LittleSnitch would be part of the supply chain that could be attacked targeting them.
- lapcat 6mo ago> If I, the end user, am the target You're not a target, anonymous rando.
- microtonal 6mo agoMany supply chain attacks aim to run malware on the end-users machine to harvest authentication tokens, etc. So pretty much everyone here who is a developer is the target.
- lapcat 6mo ago> So pretty much everyone here who is a developer is the target. Are you going to have this same discussion about every piece of software every mentioned on Hacker News? Why are we having it for Little Snitch specifically?
- littlesnitch 6mo agoWe have not detected a targeted attack yet. On the Mac side, we are safe: No dependencies on any third party libraries. Only Apple. On the Linux side, there is no single big vendor such as Apple who provides all the necessary libraries. I have tried to choose reputable sources from crates.io only, but to be honest, I don't know a secure solution to the problem.
- emmelaich 6mo agoThanks very much for your reply.