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macOS unable to open any non-Apple application

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Re: macOS unable to open any non-Apple application

#202
Sincerely and without any intention to troll or be sarcastic: I'm puzzled that people are willing buy a computer/OS where (apparently) software can/will fail to launch if some central company server goes down. Maybe I'm just getting this wrong, because I can honestly not quite wrap my head around this. This is such a big no-go, from a systems design point of view.

Even beyond unintentional glitches at Apple, just imagine what this could mean when traffic to this infra is disrupted intentionally (e.g. to any "unfavorable" country). That sounds like a really serious cyber attack vector to me. Equally dangerous if infra inside the USA gets compromised, if that is going to make Apple computers effectively inoperable. Not sure how Apple will shield itself from legal liability in such an event, if things are intentionally designed this way. I seriously doubt that a cleverly crafted TOS/EULA will do it, for the damage might easily go way beyond to just users in this case.

Again, maybe (and in fact: hopefully) I'm just getting this all wrong. If not, I might know a country or two where this could even warrant a full ban on the sale of Apple computers, if there is no local/national instance of this (apparently crucial) infrastructure operating in that country itself, merely on the argument of national security (and in this case a very valid one, for a change).

All in all, this appears to be a design fuck-up of monumental proportions. One that might very well deserve to have serious legal ramifications for Apple.

Re: macOS unable to open any non-Apple application

#203
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can apple not use security certificates to verify publishers ? why does it need to go to their servers ?

The URL mentioned in sibling comments suggests this has to do with certificate revocation (OCSP): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Certificate_Status_Prot... I agree that breaking system availability when an OCSP server isn't available is user-hostile and unnecessary.

Normally if there's no internet Gatekeeper instead checks the "stapled" notarization ticket from the notarization process. But since there is internet, and the ocsp server is technically "up" gatekeeper isn't checking the tickets.

Re: macOS unable to open any non-Apple application

#204
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It IS, though. SmartScreen on Windows doesn't check binaries created on the same machine, but you'll get flagged if you move the untrusted binary to another machine you own.

Note that SmartScreen has an UI that lets you bypass it without having to disable it system wide, and has a sane timeout (I believe 30 seconds) after which it just pops up a dialogue box telling you that it can't check the binary, allowing you to continue.

>has a sane timeout (I believe 30 seconds)

What the hell? You have to wait 30 seconds before you can run unsigned code on Windows without calling home to Microsoft about it? How is that considered sane? (I mean, forking on windows is slow but it's not that slow.)

How do people (and corporations! Especially ones sensitive to sharing IP!) put up with this stuff?!

Re: macOS unable to open any non-Apple application

#207

This is horrible. How can launching apps be depending on a cloud service being available...

> How can launching apps be depending on a cloud service being available... It's not, per se. The apps will launch if you block the specific subdomain, or turn off internet. The problem is if the computer thinks it can connect and keeps trying.

It's like no one at Apple has ever had sporadic internet access and they don't plan for it. The Apple Music app does the same thing, if you are connected to wifi but don't have internet access it takes 60 seconds for a song to start playing every time you click one. Because apparently that is a reasonable timeout for a UI action

Re: macOS unable to open any non-Apple application

#210
post #2

Unbelievable. When I read the tweet (tried to post here as well), I suddenly realized why my Mac was unresponsive an hour ago. Here is another tweet that describes the problem in more detail: https://mobile.twitter.com/llanga/status/1326989724704268289 > I am currently unable to work because macOS sends hashes of every opened executable to some server of theirs and when `trustd` and `syspolicyd` are unable to do so,…

Found another reason for me to not get a Mac
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