11–20 of 134 posts
It's astonishing that the developer community is fine with requiring open source projects to pay $99/yr for notarization to run on macOS. Malware authors will happily pay the developer account fees, as seen here, while open source projects are seriously hindered. It should be possible to verify developers and distribute open source apps without a cost on macOS.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Apple didn't want scan every binary submitted for notarization then they didn't need to introduce the notarization. They already had the means to revoke malicious binaries after-the-fact by revoking the corresponding developer certificate. The main difference with notarization is that it forces binaries to be submitted to Apple early for inspection in comparison with signing using developer certificate which happe…
Wouldn’t you also want the ability to revoke just certain binaries? Let’s say a large company like Microsoft accidentally somehow got malware on their Excel app, you wouldn’t want to terminate the dev cert because that would also cancel Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, etc
Since the whole point of notarization is to give Apple the power to revoke malicious binaries on its system after-the-fact, this seems like it works by design, no? Apple quickly revoked the notarization once they were alerted of the malware. Otherwise Apple would have to scan every single binary submitted for notarization, which then puts a pretty large onus on them should anything slip through.
If Apple didn't want scan every binary submitted for notarization then they didn't need to introduce the notarization. They already had the means to revoke malicious binaries after-the-fact by revoking the corresponding developer certificate. The main difference with notarization is that it forces binaries to be submitted to Apple early for inspection in comparison with signing using developer certificate which happe…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Apple didn't want scan every binary submitted for notarization then they didn't need to introduce the notarization. They already had the means to revoke malicious binaries after-the-fact by revoking the corresponding developer certificate. The main difference with notarization is that it forces binaries to be submitted to Apple early for inspection in comparison with signing using developer certificate which happe…
Wouldn’t you also want the ability to revoke just certain binaries? Let’s say a large company like Microsoft accidentally somehow got malware on their Excel app, you wouldn’t want to terminate the dev cert because that would also cancel Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, etc
It's astonishing that the developer community is fine with requiring open source projects to pay $99/yr for notarization to run on macOS. Malware authors will happily pay the developer account fees, as seen here, while open source projects are seriously hindered. It should be possible to verify developers and distribute open source apps without a cost on macOS.
I'm confused, when did Apple "approve" anything? The notarisation software isn't a review process.
What else is the scanning of an uploaded executable than an (automated) review process though? The notarization process wouldn't be needed to implement a "kill-switch" for executables by revoking the certificate (code signing with an Apple certificate was required long before notarization). If anything, the notarization creates an illusion of security for the user which might be worse than an unsigned executable (bec…
It's a pass of checks that might or might not find something.
It's not some official stamp of approval, except to say "those checks passed ok".
It's astonishing that the developer community is fine with requiring open source projects to pay $99/yr for notarization to run on macOS. Malware authors will happily pay the developer account fees, as seen here, while open source projects are seriously hindered. It should be possible to verify developers and distribute open source apps without a cost on macOS.
I see your point and principle , but the salary-opportunity-cost on the number of hours that the average piece of OSS takes to develop would surely dwarf 99 dollars, making that fee maybe 1% of the total effective cost.
Your assessment only works for working developers in high income countries. And even then requiring 99 dollars is insane.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What else is the scanning of an uploaded executable than an (automated) review process though? The notarization process wouldn't be needed to implement a "kill-switch" for executables by revoking the certificate (code signing with an Apple certificate was required long before notarization). If anything, the notarization creates an illusion of security for the user which might be worse than an unsigned executable (bec…
> What else is the scanning of an uploaded executable than an (automated) review process though? It's a pass of checks that might or might not find something. It's not some official stamp of approval, except to say "those checks passed ok".