I don't like apple products but holy shit the amount of conspiracy theorists here is insane. Configurable silent updates for security vulnerabilities are an issue now? What about spectre,meltdown? Imagine if a user prompt was required for patching those.
Apple has pushed a silent Mac update to remove hidden Zoom web server
441–450 of 552 posts
Re: Apple has pushed a silent Mac update to remove hidden Zoom web server
#442It's been rather disturbing to see this whole thing play out --- I'm not taking sides here, but Apple "flexing its arms" in this manner shows that it is willing and has the power to go beyond policing its App Store and such (which while I do not like, I feel it does have the right to) and involve itself in the affairs of third-party software which it did not originally install. (This is subtly different from updating…
How well I remember everyone abandoning Microsoft Windows back in the Windows 2000 era when Microsoft first started using Windows Update to push out their monthly Malicious Software Removal Tool, he said sarcastically.
Re: Apple has pushed a silent Mac update to remove hidden Zoom web server
#443Where can I find the technical details regarding this patch?
Another application I've been running for years won't start-up anymore and is logging:
> Thu 11 Jul 2019 23:12:59 AEST Waiting for web server to come up
It may be coincidental, but would be good to know what Apple changed.
Re: Apple has pushed a silent Mac update to remove hidden Zoom web server
#444What I'm more surprised about is how Apple can giveth and quickly take it away remotely.
Re: Apple has pushed a silent Mac update to remove hidden Zoom web server
#445Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't want to come across as confrontational, but I find this kind of response exhausting. I do not want control of everything on my computer. I don't have time or expertise to decide on whether to accept each and every security update, particularly ones that involve a web server which was installed by stealth and which isn't removed when the app is uninstalled. I want to outsource these kinds of decisions to peopl…
Do you recognize any middle ground between the current state and your extreme scenario of poring through every update?
Honestly, for my purposes (I'm technical director of a digital media agency), not really. I install updates automatically (apart from first-version releases of macOS), and appreciate the gatekeeping aspect of the App Store for everyday software.
When it comes to public-facing servers that we run it's a different matter of course, but then I'm performing (and delegating) the same task that I want Apple to perform for my MacBook Pro.
Re: Apple has pushed a silent Mac update to remove hidden Zoom web server
#446It's been really interesting to see how quickly the original Zoom response of "there's nothing wrong with this, everybody does it" ended up being reversed. I wonder if there's a known exploit for the Zoom server specifically, or if Apple discovered one while looking into it. It seems strange for them to go to these lengths in this case when it sounds like other software has been using a similar technique too. Maybe i…
>I wonder if there's a known exploit for the Zoom server specifically
There is, though it's not public yet.
Re: Apple has pushed a silent Mac update to remove hidden Zoom web server
#447Earlier quoted context omitted.
The same forces that require several levels of management make it increasingly difficult to enforce ethical decisions. Basically, when no one person can keep track of all the moving pieces you get splits around what individuals think is acceptable behavior. The larger organizations grows the more things tend to diverge, with different branches often having wildly different perspectives. This tends to further degrade…
> make it increasingly difficult to enforce ethical decisions Nonsense - this is a solved problem. You simply need to remove the ability to make defined classes of bad decisions by binding the company's future decision making capability with a Ulysses pact[1]. Cory Doctorow gave a good talk[2] about using Ulysses pacts in the tech industry. >> It's not that you don't want to lose weight when you raid your Oreo stash…
They don’t insist on preserving the option, they simply can’t predict the choice.
Companies lack unified decision making. The founders can’t predict every moral choice any employee will make. And for any large organization the CEO has no idea what most of the day to day decisions involve.
Consider something as simple as an old brick company setting up an email server for the first time. That opens up a host of choices management likely had zero idea even exist.
Re: Apple has pushed a silent Mac update to remove hidden Zoom web server
#448Earlier quoted context omitted.
lol they removed what would be called horrific spyware if it wasn’t made by Zoom and you’re over here on some lofty criticism about possible implications years into the future any OS (and many other apps) that update have the power to do what you’re afraid of, and much more. plus i don’t really see a bright line between system level software and an app when apps can access your video cam, mic, all your files - basica…
That's it right there. This isn't some gray area, questionable thing like that time they pushed a David Bowie song onto people's iTunes. Remember that? People completely lost their minds over it, and I agree with the sentiment. This isn't third-party anything. No one even knew this was running on their machine and it was demonstrably abusable. Good riddance!
As one of those people who got really annoyed by it, here's two reasons why:
One: On the family iPad we had at the time, we hadn't ever uploaded music to it from the family library, because there wasn't enough space for it all. Whenever anyone opened control panel and accidentally pressed "play", something by U2 (with a not-appropriate-for-little-children album cover) would come on.
Two: It was hard to remove that darn album. I couldn't figure out how to get it to go away for the life of me.
There's also a fundamental difference between someone adding something like Clippy to your desktop (or a U2 album) and someone saying "you need to fix your stuff or you get kicked out."
Re: Apple has pushed a silent Mac update to remove hidden Zoom web server
#449Earlier quoted context omitted.
But they didn't uninstall 'a program'. The product itself was unaffected. And, again, this was done in consultation with the makers of the 'program' who had screwed up badly enough to be unable to fix the problem themselves. Nothing happened here that doesn't regularly happen when all sorts of things update.
These are unimportant details, the issue is with Apple modifying people's computers silently and the users themselves having no knowledge or any say about it. Replace this instance with something that you disagree about (imagine Apple removing VPN software from Chinese customers due to demands from China or "fixing" existing VPN software with backdoors that enable Chinese authorities to wiretap Chinese people) and se…
> something something Apple, a US-based company who prides itself on privacy helping China spy on people.
Apple engineers go to China. Anything they do to help the Chinese government can immediately affect their own workers. If they did that, and a bunch of people with Apple devices got thrown in jail / whatever, their stock, and moral standing, would suffer some serious blow-back for it.
Google Chrome has a thing that pops up when it thinks you might be getting attacked / phished by somebody. I wouldn't mind if OS X terminated my connection and said "Hey, we don't think this is safe" to me, especially if it was something that the average person isn't likely to notice and can cause damage to them (also, in China [relative to the US], the stakes for everything are generally higher- the US probably tracks you around, China for sure does that and is actively nabbing people a lot more frequently, too.)
Re: Apple has pushed a silent Mac update to remove hidden Zoom web server
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
lol they removed what would be called horrific spyware if it wasn’t made by Zoom and you’re over here on some lofty criticism about possible implications years into the future any OS (and many other apps) that update have the power to do what you’re afraid of, and much more. plus i don’t really see a bright line between system level software and an app when apps can access your video cam, mic, all your files - basica…
This is effectively a press release to the Russian and Chinese governments that Apple could unilaterally remove all VPN software from Macs in a territory if they were compelled to. If you don't think that's scary then you're just incapable of long term thinking.
What? The blowback from that would be huge. Why would they do that?
Yes, they can do that. So can Microsoft with Windows. So can Google with Android. Will any of them do that? Hopefully not, at the very least. Will all of them do that? Probably not- there's money to be made being the last company standing that actively protects privacy.