Live data from Hacker News

Catalina is checking notarization of unsigned executables

lapcatsoftware.com

61–70 of 182 posts

Re: Catalina is checking notarization of unsigned executables

#61
post #24

I guess the list of things keeping me off catalina (and, by extension, new Mac hardware) just got one item longer. I recently bought a new System76 laptop as a stopgap, but it might end up becoming permanent. Kind of a sad end for 25+ years of Mac use.

There's also the issue of losing all your data if you enabled Secure-Boot (which is default) and the T2 chip failed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dwqxsDHkKQ

Re: Catalina is checking notarization of unsigned executables

#62
Why don't companies come out and tell people what they're doing these days? Telemetry is getting to the point where people such as doctors and lawyers might be violating the law by using a modern computer. And people in the defense industry? Doesn't Apple employ thousands of forns? Who's audited their datasystems and ensured that this stuff stays private?

Much easier and better to just stop using it all and move to a system like Linux or BSD. 99% of people do everything in a browser these days anyhow.

Re: Catalina is checking notarization of unsigned executables

#63
post #25

This must be a blacklist, since it doesn't block my own random scripts which it has never seen before. If it's a global blacklist on apple servers, it should instead be downloaded to the client, and be a local blacklist. Too big? Use a bloom filter. Now you only end up keeping less than one byte per blacklisted item. Update the bloom filter with an autoupdater. Any positive hit you can check against the server just i…

Doesn't a blacklist also work only until the malware authors figure out how to randomize 8 junk bytes every time they serve an executable?

That's the crazy thing about this. There's already obfuscation techniques against hash blacklists, so what is this even for? There's no earthly way apple security engineers didn't know that. So what is actually happening?

My guess is that it's strictly for banning app store apps that they pull from the app store, but would like also to cripple retroactively on installed machines. But that doesn't explain why it had to run against random shell scripts? This is all still confusing. We don't have all the info.

Re: Catalina is checking notarization of unsigned executables

#64
post #24

I guess the list of things keeping me off catalina (and, by extension, new Mac hardware) just got one item longer. I recently bought a new System76 laptop as a stopgap, but it might end up becoming permanent. Kind of a sad end for 25+ years of Mac use.

What are the other problems with Catalina for you? I ask because every time there is an OS X update someone posts this exact sentiment but then over a few months the issues get resolved. Please don’t interpret this as an attack; I am genuinely curious and want to see if Apple ends up fixing things. I my self have a maxed out 16 MacBook Pro and a for the first few weeks after the upgrade it was literally in usable bec…

I installed Catalina on my iMac several days ago and ImageCapture still has bugs! Although I can now select multiple photos to import from my iPhone 11, ImageCapture will not delete the photos after import. Previous to that, ImageCapture on Catalina would not import more than 10 photos without reporting an error. At least they fixed that bug.

Re: Catalina is checking notarization of unsigned executables

#65
post #24

I guess the list of things keeping me off catalina (and, by extension, new Mac hardware) just got one item longer. I recently bought a new System76 laptop as a stopgap, but it might end up becoming permanent. Kind of a sad end for 25+ years of Mac use.

What are the other problems with Catalina for you? I ask because every time there is an OS X update someone posts this exact sentiment but then over a few months the issues get resolved. Please don’t interpret this as an attack; I am genuinely curious and want to see if Apple ends up fixing things. I my self have a maxed out 16 MacBook Pro and a for the first few weeks after the upgrade it was literally in usable bec…

Not a Catalina issue per se, but the big problem with Apple nowadays is:

1. Upgrades are not optional. The system will relentlessly nag me until I upgrade even if I don't want to upgrade.

2. Upgrades are crap shoots. An Apple upgrade nowadays is as likely to break things as it is to fix things.

3. Upgrades are difficult and sometimes impossible to revert. If an upgrade breaks something, I'm just screwed.

So I'm still running Mavericks. It works. It's reliable. It does everything I need it to do. And I can count on that still being the case tomorrow. If I upgrade, all bets are off.

Re: Catalina is checking notarization of unsigned executables

#66
I was watching a Linus YouTube video on the upgradeability of Alienware Laptops. So envious! Now you can't upgrade anything on the newest MacBook Pros.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-RXqNafscs

And if something breaks on your MacBook Pro, most likely you will have to replace the entire motherboard or display.

PS: I own lots of Macs but sad to see the direction Apple is heading in.

Re: Catalina is checking notarization of unsigned executables

#67
post #24

I guess the list of things keeping me off catalina (and, by extension, new Mac hardware) just got one item longer. I recently bought a new System76 laptop as a stopgap, but it might end up becoming permanent. Kind of a sad end for 25+ years of Mac use.

With issues like this and the 4000 series Ryzen mobile processors, top specced MacBook Pros are very noticably slower than $1k alternatives.

I see the above comment heavily downvoted but I'm specifically looking at 4000 series Ryzen laptops as my 1st move away from MacBook Pros. Such incredible CPUs really make the decision a bit more acceptable. The laptop I'm eyeing is near $1000.

Re: Catalina is checking notarization of unsigned executables

#68
post #30

There is so much confusion here. The OP and most others are missing one of the biggest points: Look at the packet trace. There is _no data_, not even a hash, being sent. It's a TLS negotiation and then the connection ends. I have to suspect it's a bug...

Any communication is data! There are tracking pixels that return 404! Why? Because once you've hit their endpoint, it did the job.

The TLS negotiation is enough to send quite enough info.

Re: Catalina is checking notarization of unsigned executables

#69
post #24

I guess the list of things keeping me off catalina (and, by extension, new Mac hardware) just got one item longer. I recently bought a new System76 laptop as a stopgap, but it might end up becoming permanent. Kind of a sad end for 25+ years of Mac use.

Don't worry, Apple will change this. Big companies always make sure that customers just barely find their products acceptable. This was just a test to see if they could get away with it.

Re: Catalina is checking notarization of unsigned executables

#70
I am not sure of what is the whole point of this notarization thing. It would be great (ahem, let's say so) if there was a big and closed list of executables, but every shell / ruby / perl / python script can do many funny things, and you cannot notarize them all. Often, as in bash, by design. So?
Post reply on HN