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Can't you just right click?

lapcatsoftware.com

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Re: Can't you just right click?

#31

Post by oneplane »

tracker1 wrote: post #17
cuddlybacon wrote: post #6

This feature is at about the right spot for me. It is still convenient enough for me to run software I want that isn't signed, but sufficiently obtuse that neither of my parents have figured it out. Given they are both prone to running any executable that any website tells them to download and run, this feature has probably save me several dozen hours of fixing their computers.

My answer to that was chromebooks.

To be honest, I hoped microsoft and their windows rt experiment would be the 'alternative' to that so you have three choices for the end-user (get chromeOS, iPadOS or Window RT). To get 'stuff done' a user really has no business having access to the system or circumventing controls.

Currently most desktop management structures try to do it backwards by taking an OS, i.e. macOS or Windows, and then trying to glue restrictions on top of it which always leaves holes or undesired side-effects.

The best 'middle of the road' so far seems to be active monitoring with Apple's or Microsoft's native management tools or with stuff like OSQuery; it also tends to be less intrusive for people that are convinced they are 'better than average' (nobody is) and don't need to have an MDM babysitting them.

But even then, there will always be people thinking their personal preference definitely means the big bad corp did it wrong or their personal need is more important than trying to do something about the constant barrage or crap any machine faces during its lifetime.

For the home user, all bets are off.

Re: Can't you just right click?

#32

Post by saagarjha »

yaur wrote: post #24
cuddlybacon wrote: post #6

This feature is at about the right spot for me. It is still convenient enough for me to run software I want that isn't signed, but sufficiently obtuse that neither of my parents have figured it out. Given they are both prone to running any executable that any website tells them to download and run, this feature has probably save me several dozen hours of fixing their computers.

I believe this is bubbling up because apple recently revoked Epic's certificate (sorry if that isn't quite the right term) and these are now the steps required to run Fortnight on Mac.

Technically Apple has (or will) terminate Epic's developer program access, which means that they will no longer be able to sign new builds. They have not revoked the certificate at this time, so those binaries should still continue to run until the certificates expire.

Re: Can't you just right click?

#34

Post by tzs »

A couple other ways to deal with it (at least for some instances--not sure this applies to every kind of executable).

1.1 Hit "Cancel" in the warning dialog.

1.2 Open "System Preferences" / "Security & Privacy" and select the "General" tab.

1.3 It should have a notice about the unverified app being blocked, and offer the chance to approve it. Do so.

1.4 Try to launch the app again. You'll get the dialog again, but this time it should have a button to tell it to go ahead and launch it. That will also remember that you have approved the app so you should be OK from them on (or at least until the app updates, and you will have to redo this).

Another way is to fix it from the command line.

2.1 Locate the executable.

2.2 Do "xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/executable"

I just hit this today when doing some web testing with Selenium, and it could not use chromedriver because the developer was not verified. My chromedriver is installed via Homebrew and evidently it had been updated since I last used it. A search for how to deal with that turned up both of the above solutions as part of this Stackoverflow question [1].

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/60362018/macos-catalinav...

Re: Can't you just right click?

#35

Post by dddddaviddddd »

lucb1e wrote: post #2

This makes me wonder how open source is supposed to work on macOS. People seem to become more and more aware of it and even enterprises that insisted on support contracts can see that they can't get around open source completely anymore. Meanwhile Apple is removing the ability for me to have a pet project without paying an Apple tax. If the message were completely transparent, something like "The developer didn't pay…

There's a segment of open source users who understand these messages and aren't necessarily dissuaded by them. I make an open source app for merging audio files in iTunes/the Music app. The userbase are people who are technical enough to install Homebrew, (generally) use iTunes scripts, and manage Gatekeeper warnings, but not so determined as to replicate the app's functionality with their own set of shell scripts. https://www.davidschlachter.com/misc/trackconcat

Re: Can't you just right click?

#36

Post by saagarjha »

lucb1e wrote: post #22
saagarjha wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many (often cross-platform) apps are no longer signed, so they throw up this warning–I assume that users of these have long since learned that the warning is just something they need to bypass. macOS-native apps have largely adopted notarization and the fee that comes with it. Open source command line tools do not need to be notarized. Interestingly enough, it seems to be possible to notarize someone else's app , so…

> learned that the warning is just something they need to bypass Note that I'm not necessarily arguing that training people to click "yes, yes, continue..." is a good idea. Digital security is my day job and I totally see why Apple wants digital signatures for software. However, the message is opaque about what is really going on and just tries to scare people into buying "trusted" software rather than using free sof…

Not only is the message opaque, but it is intentionally misleading. I know the security team at Apple occasionally has trouble coming up with good explanations of what is going on, but this message really can't be looked at in any way other than being misleading, sorry. And you are absolutely right that misleading messages like these train users to click through warnings.

Re: Can't you just right click?

#37

Post by bzb4 »

yaur wrote: post #24
cuddlybacon wrote: post #6

This feature is at about the right spot for me. It is still convenient enough for me to run software I want that isn't signed, but sufficiently obtuse that neither of my parents have figured it out. Given they are both prone to running any executable that any website tells them to download and run, this feature has probably save me several dozen hours of fixing their computers.

I believe this is bubbling up because apple recently revoked Epic's certificate (sorry if that isn't quite the right term) and these are now the steps required to run Fortnight on Mac.

I think people are mostly bitching about iOS, since it will be impossible to run the game on iPhones and iPads anymore at all.

Re: Can't you just right click?

#38

Post by shakna »

white-flame wrote: post #10

The fact that the standard model of computing is that applications are opaque machine code blobs that can access everything in your user permission space is the core problem in privacy and malware. Applications should see nothing but their executable jail, and whatever was intentionally allowed to them by the user (eg, Open file dialog giving the application an opaque file handle, etc, not carte blanche access to the…

> Applications should see nothing but their executable jail, and whatever was intentionally allowed to them by the user

Whilst this works for some programs, it gets... Difficult... When dealing with others.

What permissions should sh get, for example? And do the programs it will call inherit the same, or do they get their own permissions, or a hybrid?

Re: Can't you just right click?

#39

Post by toast0 »

aaomidi wrote: post #27
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #23

I dont see any problem with this. If you don't feel comfortable doing this then you definitely shouldn't be running random code from the internet. I would take it a step further and force it to be run from the command line. Also, what kind of "viable software business" has trouble paying $100 a year?

Any open source developer? Do you know how much $100 is in Iran?

> Do you know how much $100 is in Iran?

It doesn't really matter, because for developers in Iran, the question becomes do you know how hard it is to pay US companies from Iran?

Re: Can't you just right click?

#40

Post by saagarjha »

turblety wrote: post #20

This is just a cash grab from Apple, and part of a series of unethical behaviour by a monopoly (eg app store dictatorship). This would be totally unnessisary if apps could run in a sandbox. It wouldn't matter if I run some random game I downloaded off the internet if it can't do anything on my computer outside of its own sandbox. And to the people that say it's not possible, just look at web browsers. Each website ru…

macOS ships with some of that already; users immediately complained that it turned their OS into Windows Vista. Perhaps the underlying problem is that Apple's sandbox is not under the control of the user, it's mostly controlled by Apple and (to a lesser extent) by the developer of the software itself. It's really a strange model if you think about it…
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