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    Apple's apps bypass firewalls like LittleSnitch and LuLu on macOS Big Sur

    (twitter.com)
    1183 points robenkleene | 12 comments | 20 Oct 20 15:51 UTC | HN request time: 0.506s | source | bottom
    1. AnonHP ◴[20 Oct 20 16:21 UTC] No.24839212[source]▶
    I trust Apple a lot more than I trust Google or Facebook, but this clamping down of the Mac without options for power users while officially stating that the Mac will remain a Mac is alarming and distasteful on the part of Apple.

    With the transition to Apple’s own chips looming, it seems like the days of “a Mac is a personal computer and not an app console like an iPhone or iPad” will be over by the middle of this decade. All Apple devices locked down completely and Apple decides the limits of what users can do on devices. This model made some sense for mobile (where restrictions were gradually removed or workarounds provided), but the Mac is going in reverse.

    replies(4): >>24839623 #>>24840120 #>>24841207 #>>24841585 #
    2. capableweb ◴[20 Oct 20 16:52 UTC] No.24839623[source]▶
    People keep saying "I trust company X a lot more than I trust company Y" but is "trust" really something that applies to companies at all? Feels weird to humanize companies in that way. If you trust a company, isn't it really that you trust the humans working at that company? So you should really say "I trust person X who happens to work at X today", as as soon as they leave, the trust went with them.

    Companies are not people and cannot be trusted to act in any interest but profits. Any trust you feel towards a company is towards humans in the company, but let's not anthropomorphise companies (yet, until we have better AI at least).

    replies(4): >>24840041 #>>24840494 #>>24841605 #>>24841676 #
    3. snazz ◴[20 Oct 20 17:24 UTC] No.24840041[source]▶
    You make a valid point, but it’s also worth considering how the stakeholders’ interests align with your own. Apple is in the premium hardware and value added services business, so its interests are aligned with mine with regards to privacy and producing a quality product. On the other hand, Facebook is in the ad business, so its interests are not aligned with mine on a variety of points.
    4. clusterfish ◴[20 Oct 20 17:31 UTC] No.24840120[source]▶
    Maybe you should review that trust. Apple of 2020 is very different from what they were in 2010 and before
    5. deltron3030 ◴[20 Oct 20 18:03 UTC] No.24840494[source]▶
    >but is "trust" really something that applies to companies at all?

    Of course, It's called branding. Promises that aren't kept are still promises that aren't kept, and Apple was traditionally known for going beyond expectations, it's the core of their brand.

    Some companies are more B2B business and developer friendly, like MS and FB, and others like Apple and Amazon are the opposite, they're first and foremost about B2C and mainstream customers.

    Apple is less B2B focused than before because of the iPhone. They don't have to attract devs by giving them the best tools, they can attract them because of their market share among solvent customers on mobile alone.

    6. sneak ◴[20 Oct 20 19:08 UTC] No.24841207[source]▶
    All of these companies are equally subject to the spying mandates of the US military intelligence community, an organization that no one should trust due to many decades of history operating entirely outside of the law.

    Trust Apple, fine. But don’t trust the CIA, which gets access to the whole of Apple’s data, taken by threat of force under spying programs.

    7. userbinator ◴[20 Oct 20 19:43 UTC] No.24841585[source]▶
    Apple's authoritarian control-freak mentality has been around since the original Macintosh of the 80s. It was only a coincidence that moving to x86 opened up some freedom. Now it's just moving in the same direction Apple always was.
    replies(1): >>24842404 #
    8. xondono ◴[20 Oct 20 19:45 UTC] No.24841605[source]▶
    Not necessarily, you might trust the intangibles that are part of the company, like how do they do business or what kind of internal policies they have in place.

    Think how (knowledgeable) people “trust in science”, they don’t trust the humans, they trust the method.

    9. bredren ◴[20 Oct 20 19:51 UTC] No.24841676[source]▶
    Think of companies more like nation states than people and it will make more sense.

    The organization is still molded heavily by those in power, but it is what the organization “stands for” that you must put your trust in.

    For example, the United States is a republic and stands for “freedom and justice for all.”

    As we have seen, different people in leadership will interpret these foundational ideas differently and will take actions accordingly.

    It’s worth asking again what Apple stands for.

    The company has made privacy and thus security core values. However, above that is a goal to make _the best_ products of any company, which as Jobs put it is a matter of “taste.”

    So the sentiment of feeling as though Apple’s networking software and developer api choices deviate from your taste has to be measured against one’s support of these other values, and whether one believes Apple’s leadership succession will be measured and protected from weakness.

    replies(1): >>24842227 #
    10. ◴[20 Oct 20 20:48 UTC] No.24842227{3}[source]▶
    11. Wowfunhappy ◴[20 Oct 20 21:14 UTC] No.24842404[source]▶
    I'm not entirely sure what's leading you to this conclusion. The original Macintosh had no privileges system and let apps write to random bits of memory. It was quite problematic for multitasking, in fact.
    replies(1): >>24843566 #
    12. userbinator ◴[20 Oct 20 23:58 UTC] No.24843566{3}[source]▶
    The original Macintosh had no privileges system and let apps write to random bits of memory

    Neither did the PCs of the time, but the difference becomes obvious when you actually try to write an app: PC magazines were filled with BASIC and Asm listings (to be entered with DEBUG), both of which could be immediately used on an IBM PC with DOS, whereas to even start creating --- or for that matter, modifying --- software for the Macintosh was pretty much a non-starter for everyone who didn't want to actually invest plenty of $$$ in it.

    Documentation on the system details is barely available (there's Inside Macintosh, but that pales in comparison to the IBM PC Technical Reference series --- the latter including full BIOS source code and schematics, even for the monitor and hard drive), and of course the PC was far more expandable. Apple wanted the whole stack locked down from the beginning.