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Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

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Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#511

Post by falcolas »

floatingatoll wrote: post #456
falcolas wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fortnite is not malware. Well, it kinda is, isn't it? > Programs are also considered malware if they secretly act against the interests of the computer user. Is convincing children that they need to spend money to not be a "default" really in the interest of a computer user? Is taking advantage of gambling addictions with lootboxes really in the interest of a computer user (or society at large)? I get what you real…

You're arguing that Fortnite is harmful to children and society due to its invocation of gambling reward techniques. That's a fine argument to make, but it's nothing to do with what we're discussing here :) If you wrote a blog post about how Apple and Google should ban gambling reward techniques from their app stores, I'd read it if you posted it to HN!

> but it's nothing to do with what we're discussing here

Well, except we're talking about how these measures are generally reserved for malware. Thence my (pseudo) logic chain.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#512

Post by brundolf »

dimator wrote: post #492
brundolf wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. I'm just saying, user-freedom is technically preserved. This is a huge inconvenience, and bad for Epic's business, but it's not a ban . As an owner of Mac hardware, I still have control over what I can do with my machine.

Do you honestly think Apple is going to keep this true for Macs in 2 years? 5 years? 10 years? I think there is slim to none chance that they give a shit about the "openness"of Mac. As far as I'm concerned, Mac openness is just a cat that got out of the bag, before anyone knew they could produce a _mint_ from rent seeking walled garden platforms. I find it highly unlikely Apple is not looking to correct this mistake…

Even Steve Jobs knew you needed "trucks" of computing. I'm generally fine with my phone being locked down, because I use it for straightforward tasks. I (and the many other developers who use Macs) need my laptop to be a "truck". If it stopped being that, I'd stop being a customer. But we're not at that point yet and I think Apple would be really dumb to go there and alienate a huge market.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#513

Post by themacguffinman »

Aperocky wrote: post #500
themacguffinman wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? iOS is something like half the US market and its userbase is likely more wealthy on average, I don't think any normal game developer could sacrifice that to keep using what is essentially an implementation detail at the end of the day, no matter how good it is.

half the US market but how much of gaming market? Personally I have always used macs but I have a windows desktop specific for gaming. I don't think anybody somewhat into gaming would have bought an apple machine for that purpose.

A cursory google search indicated that mobile gaming represents about 45% of the total games industry [1]. That's quite a lot, I'd say that the potential risk here is well into "unacceptable" territory.

[1] https://kommandotech.com/statistics/mobile-gaming-statistics....

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#514

Post by johncolanduoni »

dimator wrote: post #492
brundolf wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. I'm just saying, user-freedom is technically preserved. This is a huge inconvenience, and bad for Epic's business, but it's not a ban . As an owner of Mac hardware, I still have control over what I can do with my machine.

Do you honestly think Apple is going to keep this true for Macs in 2 years? 5 years? 10 years? I think there is slim to none chance that they give a shit about the "openness"of Mac. As far as I'm concerned, Mac openness is just a cat that got out of the bag, before anyone knew they could produce a _mint_ from rent seeking walled garden platforms. I find it highly unlikely Apple is not looking to correct this mistake…

I believe they’ll likely keep this the case, not out of generosity, but because the most valuable thing Mac gets them is developers writing apps for iOS. This will only become more true in time unless there’s a sudden reversal of the trend towards phones and tablets over laptops. They may not care about power users in general, but allowing developers to run their own code to target their platforms is crucial, and there’s no mint to be made on macOS by fully locking it down due to the reduced marketshare.

I would not be shocked however if at some point they switched to developers having to buy special Macs to have this capability, and normal Macs would cease to be able to turn off secure boot and SIP and would require code signing/store distribution universally.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#515

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

gruez wrote: post #375
JohnTHaller wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Windows world, you can just pick a new certificate vendor. In Apple world, they have a monopoly and get to dictate who gets 'full access' to both their mobile devices and their desktops/laptops. They could still do unsigned MacOS apps from here out, but Apple has purposely made it difficult for end users to run them.

>In Windows world, you can just pick a new certificate vendor I mean if they really wanted to they could blacklist your CN or O value in the certificate, or add you to the windows defender/smartscreen detection list, which will effectively kill your app for a good segment of the windows userbase.

I’m not aware of that ever happening though - and the workaround is just to get another certificate from another CA vendor.

I have code-signing certificates myself: the verification process did not fill me with confidence that the system is trustworthy - GlobalSign had me email them details of my DUNS/ UBI / business registration and a notarised copy of my driving license and checked that my name matched, and that was it. I could easily fraudulently obtain a code-signing certificate with a fake ID matching the name and state of some other vendor I just took a disliking to.

(I recognise that this system’s adding of barriers-to-entry does eliminate large numbers of opportunistic malware and provide a means to quickly disable installation and execution of revoked certificates - so I’m not calling for the system to be torn down!).

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#516

Post by zeroimpl »

Hamuko wrote: post #229
amaccuish wrote: post #97

What took me aback was the withdrawing permission to notarise their apps for Mac. That was only meant to be a check for known vulnerabilities/malicious software. Apple was more within their rights to kick Fortnite until the dust has settled from the iOS store, that was the retaliation, but now a mechanism supposedly for security has been repurposed as punishment. That's a pretty nasty move and I feel the mask has sli…

Yeah, it's fucked up if Apple is going to start disabling macOS apps regardless of distribution if the developer has violated their App Store rules in some way. Definitely undermines my trust in macOS.

They are also being sued by Epic. Would you keep doing business with a company suing you?

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#517

Post by damnyou »

floatingatoll wrote: post #494
damnyou wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Apple should very obviously not have a completely unchecked right to disable arbitrary software from running on millions of computers for whatever reason they want. This is so obviously an abuse of power that I can't believe I have to spell it out so clearly. At the very least such decisions should be subject to appeal to an independent board, and failing that the legal system.

The only time in the past decade that I can think of where they used that power to remove anything other than malware on any platform, was to remove the Zoom daemon that Zoom was using to bypass Installer.app permission checks, which made sense to Apple — and to HN, at the time — because it was considered malicious/exploitable. Should they have not exercised that right, and left us all at risk — even though the daemo…

The decisions should be transparent and subject to review and appeal by an independent board. Zoom should be free to appeal Apple's decision to the board, yes.

Checks and balances are not a new concept.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#518

Post by noodle »

ryandrake wrote: post #449
_qulr wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Notarization is about protecting users who are not capable of making an informed decision about code safety from developers who refuse to comply with Apple's terms of service. No, notarization is about preventing malware. That's all. This has been promised to us by Apple many many times. Malware prevention only. Fortnite is not malware.

An application that suddenly changes behavior due to no action taken by the user, triggered remotely by the developer, is getting very close to the "malware" line in my book.

This is a pretty broad brush. It puts a lot of installable desktop or mobile apps into that bucket due to things like code push. And of course every web app falls in this territory.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#519

Post by gruez »

heavyset_go wrote: post #508
chillacy wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some sites have big scary warnings if you try to open the dev console in the page for this reason. I don't know how well that works though. We can put all the warnings on bleach we want, someone out there is still going to drink it.

> We can put all the warnings on bleach we want, someone out there is still going to drink it. If we went with the Apple solution, this means nobody gets to use bleach.

More like, you have to pay $100/yr to be a Bleach Safety Expert, which allows you to handle bleach. Actually come to think of it, don't we have the same thing, but for cars?

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#520

Post by _qulr »

floatingatoll wrote: post #429
_qulr wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Notarization is about protecting users who are not capable of making an informed decision about code safety from developers who refuse to comply with Apple's terms of service. No, notarization is about preventing malware. That's all. This has been promised to us by Apple many many times. Malware prevention only. Fortnite is not malware.

I'm sorry, it sounds like we're saying the same thing. Notarization is not a stick-less carrot. Anyone can sign up and agree to the rules and pay the fee begin notarizing apps. If you break the rules you agree to when you sign up, you lose access to notarization. It seems like we disagree about this basic understanding, so I'll take a couple guesses at it. Are you, perhaps, arguing that Apple should not be allowed to…

I'm arguing that Developer ID should be entirely separate from the App Store. That they involve the same Apple developer accounts and programs is merely a matter of convenience, but until now we never had the worry that App Store disputes would lead to problems with Mac software distribution outside the App Store. It's clear now that they should be entirely separate developer programs.

If Apple wants to suspend someone's App Store developer account, fine. But you should be able to distribute outside the App Store regardless.

The whole point of distributing outside the App Store is to avoid all that nonsense with Apple's rules.

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