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Apple removes first-party firewall exemption in macOS 11.2 beta 2

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Re: Apple removes first-party firewall exemption in macOS 11.2 beta 2

#161

Post by neolog »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #149
webmobdev wrote: post #121

I am glad that the public backlash forced them to fix a deliberate BACKDOOR that they had introduced (by design) in the Network Extension Framework that macOS Big Sur now forces all the firewalls to use. (At least, they claim to have removed it). But it is hard to trust them again, and I would prefer to use a firewall that uses its own kernel extension to manage the network than using Apple's API again. (Obviously th…

The PRISM revelations in particular made me realise that we can really only rely on Linux for security, since Apple, MS, Amazon and all the big tech companies are onboard with cooperating with the NSA. If you've read the way eg the CIA installs snooping software on Macs and PC's, they hide the Mac version in your hidden EFI boot volume, even from the factory. It's enough to make you never trust them again.

Security isn't the same as privacy. Linux desktop security is poor but its privacy can be okay.

Re: Apple removes first-party firewall exemption in macOS 11.2 beta 2

#162

Post by orf »

SXX wrote: post #158

This firewall issue isn't the only privacy feature strip from Big Sur release. Unfortunately no big media care about other huge problem Apple introduced. My only hope they will also fix full disk encryption in this update. Since Big Sur broken installation of macOS on passphrase-encrypted disk partitions. I bought into M1 hype and now it's end up that you no longer able to have separate password for the disk encrypti…

Most users don’t want a separate password for disk encryption though, so I’m not sure it’s a huge problem?

Re: Apple removes first-party firewall exemption in macOS 11.2 beta 2

#163

Post by jarym »

conistonwater wrote: post #123
webmobdev wrote: post #121

I am glad that the public backlash forced them to fix a deliberate BACKDOOR that they had introduced (by design) in the Network Extension Framework that macOS Big Sur now forces all the firewalls to use. (At least, they claim to have removed it). But it is hard to trust them again, and I would prefer to use a firewall that uses its own kernel extension to manage the network than using Apple's API again. (Obviously th…

Why do you call it a deliberate backdoor when the Apple developers (see elsewhere in this thread) have said this was a bug?

Perhaps they meant it was a bug in management because the code was very much intentional

Re: Apple removes first-party firewall exemption in macOS 11.2 beta 2

#164

Post by blub »

webmobdev wrote: post #121

I am glad that the public backlash forced them to fix a deliberate BACKDOOR that they had introduced (by design) in the Network Extension Framework that macOS Big Sur now forces all the firewalls to use. (At least, they claim to have removed it). But it is hard to trust them again, and I would prefer to use a firewall that uses its own kernel extension to manage the network than using Apple's API again. (Obviously th…

While I agree that one should remain suspicious and be vocal about privacy violations and security issues, I find your attitude of continuing to attack Apple inappropriate.

Apple competitors Google and Microsoft which control the great majority of OS installs both for mobile and desktop don't even pretend to care about privacy. I have collected over the years reports about dozens of underhanded tactics they use to manipulate users into sharing data, when they're not downright forcing them to do it.

Currently Google is showing in the EU a modal pop-up asking users to accept to be tracked or fuck off to a labyrinth of "See more" and "Other options" which are obviously violating the GDPR. They got fined five times already for GDPR violations.

Microsoft have told their non-enterprise customers to bugger off and learn to live with telemetry. They're actively working around people blocking telemetry and they're being investigated for these practices.

How about a thank you that at least someone at Apple listens to their customers?

Re: Apple removes first-party firewall exemption in macOS 11.2 beta 2

#165

Post by orf »

design-material wrote: post #106
colejohnson66 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't aware that VS Code was "proprietary malware"? All the code for that is right on GitHub.[0] If you don't trust the prebuilt ones, you're free to build it from the source yourself. Want something else? Their GitHub repo list has almost 4000 repositories totaling 130 pages ![1] Just because the OS itself isn't open source[a] doesn't mean that Microsoft doesn't open source a whole crap ton of stuff. And sure, Wi…

Of course VSCode is proprietary malware - unless, as you suggest, you build it yourself and get rid of that proprietary telemetry malware ( https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium ) But please don't suggest that we should praise Microsoft because they're decent enough to almost give us a somewhat convenient-if-you're-a-dev way to avoid being tracked?

Calling things “proprietary telemetry malware” is why nobody takes this seriously.

Re: Apple removes first-party firewall exemption in macOS 11.2 beta 2

#166

Post by simonh »

confiq wrote: post #156
yholio wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has no love for privacy nor ever had. They are in a market position where their main competitors - Google primarily, Microsoft and Amazon - are highly dependent on revenue streams extracted by monetizing personal information. Apple is in a position to cut that stream without affecting its bottom line, so it does it and claims privacy as a core value. I won't look a gift horse in the mouth, but I have no doubt t…

ironically, most of these companies are out of China because they don't want to comply with Chinese laws. Not apple https://applecensorship.com/

"Brain test game was deleted from the Chinese App Store".

These are just changes to the app catalog, what reason do we have to believe that a bunch of brain training apps being dropped or withdrawn is evidence of censorship? Has any of this been verified with the App publishers?

Re: Apple removes first-party firewall exemption in macOS 11.2 beta 2

#167

Post by simonh »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #149
webmobdev wrote: post #121

I am glad that the public backlash forced them to fix a deliberate BACKDOOR that they had introduced (by design) in the Network Extension Framework that macOS Big Sur now forces all the firewalls to use. (At least, they claim to have removed it). But it is hard to trust them again, and I would prefer to use a firewall that uses its own kernel extension to manage the network than using Apple's API again. (Obviously th…

The PRISM revelations in particular made me realise that we can really only rely on Linux for security, since Apple, MS, Amazon and all the big tech companies are onboard with cooperating with the NSA. If you've read the way eg the CIA installs snooping software on Macs and PC's, they hide the Mac version in your hidden EFI boot volume, even from the factory. It's enough to make you never trust them again.

Factory installed CIA snoop software on Macs is news to me, especially bearing in mind most of the factories are in Taiwan. Where can I find out more?

Also if the spyware is installed in firmware at the factory, how is Linux going to help you?

Re: Apple removes first-party firewall exemption in macOS 11.2 beta 2

#168

Post by _qulr »

coldtea wrote: post #91
_qulr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, why not 6 months? Because the first WWDC preview version of Big Sur was released to developers on June 22, 2020, and Big Sur was released to the public on November 12, 2020, so Apple needs to be able to fix issues identified during the beta period much quicker than in 6 months.

Apple doesn't have to "fix issues identified during the beta period" much quicker than the release date. No OS does, including FOSS distros / OSes. Apple just has to fix "the most important issues" with the most bang for the buck identified during the beta period before release. Which they do. The ones they consider less important are put in a backlog. You can find "issues identified during beta releases" still open…

> The ones they consider less important are put in a backlog.

True, but this just proves my point. It still doesn't take 6 months to fix this issue... if they wanted to fix it. Deprioritizing it was a deliberate choice by Apple. The reason the exclusion list shipped to the public in Big Sur wasn't technical, the reason is that Apple's priorities are messed up.

From my perspective, the explanation is simple: ContentFilterExclusionList wasn't a "bug", it was a deliberate "feature". So from Apple's perspective, there was nothing to "fix". At least one developer was told it "behaves as intended": https://twitter.com/david_ddw/status/1329017113709842437

Only the public backlash caused Apple to remove it.

Re: Apple removes first-party firewall exemption in macOS 11.2 beta 2

#169

Post by raverbashing »

webmobdev wrote: post #141
conistonwater wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you call it a deliberate backdoor when the Apple developers (see elsewhere in this thread) have said this was a bug?

(That tweet has been deleted by the Apple developer). Before macOS Big Sur / Catalina, many of these application firewalls - Lulu, Little Snitch, HandsOff, TripMode, RadioSilence etc. - all used their own kernel extensions to effectively monitor and block any processes from connecting to the internet. Firewalls are system security softwares. And naturally Apple would prefer to oversee and have this in-built in their…

I agree, this is 90% likely malicious. The non-malicious usage I can imagine is that for debugging the firewall you don't want to lock your other services out of it in case something goes wrong (or as you said, for reliability issues)

Re: Apple removes first-party firewall exemption in macOS 11.2 beta 2

#170

Post by mcdevilkiller »

neolog wrote: post #161
Synaesthesia wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PRISM revelations in particular made me realise that we can really only rely on Linux for security, since Apple, MS, Amazon and all the big tech companies are onboard with cooperating with the NSA. If you've read the way eg the CIA installs snooping software on Macs and PC's, they hide the Mac version in your hidden EFI boot volume, even from the factory. It's enough to make you never trust them again.

Security isn't the same as privacy. Linux desktop security is poor but its privacy can be okay.

Why us it poor? (Genuinely asking).
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