I got a wrong certificate warning and a 403. Does anyone have a mirror?
Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
11–20 of 157 posts
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're trying to take take take everything away from the user. Soon there will be no filesystem.
>Soon there will be no filesystem. Is that a bad thing? I'm not saying it will happen soon, or that those of us long in the tooth will go easily, but I honestly think it's the future. Think about young teenagers who will soon be "in charge". They snap a pic on their phone and send it to someone else. Nobody cares where it is in the filesystem, or even what the filename is. I used to meticulously name, tag and organiz…
Teenagers aren't going to go on making careers out of tagging photos and checking into places.
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#13Dev tools don't really have a place in managed environments IMO - they just need too low level of access to a system to be able to do their work. Now, say a game or web browser that runs potentially malicious content, sure, sandbox it. But other things like code interpreters, low level Unix tools, or inter process tools like AppleScript, they're still open to (mis)use by anyone. I'm going to guess that most malware f…
Good point. Every interpreter - and program that loads anything - will have to be foolproof. There was a case some time ago where an Xbox (or was it ps3?) game did not correctly check the saved games before loading them. IIRC people where able to exploit this and get the game to run code on their behalf.
In theory, all the games and apps have to sign/encrypt/check everything they load. But I can't believe they will all implement this correctly or that Apple will find all the subtle bugs when reviewing.
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#14If Apple is not going to be distributing software updates because of their asinine policies, Apple should refund their 30% cut to their customers.
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#15It is clear that Apple's current sandboxing is not perfect, but what could be done? The goal is to create the most secure running environment that is possible. Allowing random apps to access/modify different files on the system (without user explicitly allowing that) kinda defeats the purpose of sandboxing (from user's point of view - from developers POV, sandboxing makes his app more secure and stable). All I see is…
Typically the tradeoff with secureity is usability/features vs. security.
It's also important to note that the point of black hat hackers is to get around limitations. Without putting serious teeth into the sandboxing, it's largely pointless and security theater.
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#16Apple needs to do better than this.
For the duration of the company's existence, one of their biggest customer segments has been the creative industry. I can't think of a single pro audio/video/graphic/etc app that doesn't make extensive use of plug-ins, another Mac App Store disqualifier.
Do the developers of these apps necessarily have a "right" to iCloud APIs, delta updates, and other benefits of playing in Apple's sandbox? Of course not.
But is Apple harming themselves and their customers by excluding the creators of these apps from the party and potentially causing them to focus their development efforts elsewhere? I think they may be.
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Soon there will be no filesystem. Is that a bad thing? I'm not saying it will happen soon, or that those of us long in the tooth will go easily, but I honestly think it's the future. Think about young teenagers who will soon be "in charge". They snap a pic on their phone and send it to someone else. Nobody cares where it is in the filesystem, or even what the filename is. I used to meticulously name, tag and organiz…
Teenagers aren't going to go on making careers out of tagging photos and checking into places.
> Teenagers aren't going to go on making careers out of tagging photos and checking into places.
Do they currently go on to careers managing folder hierarchies?
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#18Dev tools don't really have a place in managed environments IMO - they just need too low level of access to a system to be able to do their work. Now, say a game or web browser that runs potentially malicious content, sure, sandbox it. But other things like code interpreters, low level Unix tools, or inter process tools like AppleScript, they're still open to (mis)use by anyone. I'm going to guess that most malware f…
Good point. Every interpreter - and program that loads anything - will have to be foolproof. There was a case some time ago where an Xbox (or was it ps3?) game did not correctly check the saved games before loading them. IIRC people where able to exploit this and get the game to run code on their behalf. In theory, all the games and apps have to sign/encrypt/check everything they load. But I can't believe they will a…
The sandbox lessens the risk of said overflows. Instead of exploiting a flaw in an interpreter or file handling function and getting control of the entire machine, you'd only get control of the sandbox's context.
The only way to parlay that into control of the system would be to break the sandbox. And then, because OS X default security is fairly sane, the only way to do real lasting damage is to use a further exploit to escalate your permissions.
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#19Dev tools don't really have a place in managed environments IMO - they just need too low level of access to a system to be able to do their work. Now, say a game or web browser that runs potentially malicious content, sure, sandbox it. But other things like code interpreters, low level Unix tools, or inter process tools like AppleScript, they're still open to (mis)use by anyone. I'm going to guess that most malware f…
Good point. Every interpreter - and program that loads anything - will have to be foolproof. There was a case some time ago where an Xbox (or was it ps3?) game did not correctly check the saved games before loading them. IIRC people where able to exploit this and get the game to run code on their behalf. In theory, all the games and apps have to sign/encrypt/check everything they load. But I can't believe they will a…
xbox, ps3, wii, psp, gamecube.. this has been a consistent successful attack vector against signed application environments on consoles.
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#20I've been wondering/worried what Gatekeeper, sandboxing, and the rise of the Mac App store in general are going to mean for third party plugin type apps, say for instance Native Instruments virtual synth plugins, or photoshop plugins. iOS can't really handle them, but will they be able to continue to exist on future macs, or will they only work on the non-app store model?