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macOS unable to open any non-Apple application

(twitter.com)
2603 points mattsolle | 1 comments | 12 Nov 20 21:00 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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modeless ◴[12 Nov 20 21:30 UTC] No.25075336[source]▶
You've got to be kidding me. When Apple's servers are down, all Macs worldwide start freezing randomly? My XCode is hanging during builds, is this why?

This code signing enforcement stuff has gone way too far. Heads should roll for this.

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p1necone ◴[12 Nov 20 21:49 UTC] No.25075549[source]▶
Wait what happens if you don't have an internet connection? Can Macs not be used offline any more, surely that's still a relatively common use case for a laptop even today in a lot of places?
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josephcsible ◴[12 Nov 20 22:07 UTC] No.25075778[source]▶
My understanding is that if you're offline, it skips this check and everything works fine. The reason this is a big deal is that the problem's on their end, so you're not offline, so it keeps trying and waiting instead of just letting you skip the check.
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Spivak ◴[12 Nov 20 22:16 UTC] No.25075909[source]▶
Unfortunately there’s not a way to differentiate “we’re online but Apple’s servers are having issues — probably fine” and “we’re online and something something is preventing us from talking to them — something nefarious might be happening.”
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alistairSH ◴[12 Nov 20 23:14 UTC] No.25076601[source]▶
Local copy of whatever Apple is checking? Update that daily (on sign on or something). Not going to catch zero day type stuff, but better than making the laptop unusable.
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1. noobermin ◴[13 Nov 20 06:48 UTC] No.25079683[source]▶
I'm going to make a bold claim but Linus made a claim to this effect. Security is important but it cannot be the only main priority when designing systems. Apple's mistake here is probably the main story but more generally this attitude (letting systems spectacularly fail for the sake of hypothetical security) is foolish and results in rather terrible bugs like this.