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You can't trust macOS Privacy and Security settings

eclecticlight.co

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Re: You can't trust macOS Privacy and Security settings

#61

Post by traderj0e »

mh8h wrote: post #35
layer8 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that this given permission doesn’t show in Files & Folders, and after turning it on and off there it still persists. The only way to revoke it is using some CLI command and restart the computer.

That's not what's happening here. Forget about the first 5 steps. If you install the app and start from step 6, the behaviour will be the same. If the user chooses the Documents folder in the browse window in an app, the app can use the contents of the Documents folder without the need for that permission in the Settings page. The Privacy settings applies only to access to the Documents folder without the user intera…

Other comment seems accurate

Re: You can't trust macOS Privacy and Security settings

#62

Post by TeMPOraL »

cifer_security wrote: post #58

[flagged]

Another solution would be for people to make up their minds. Maybe it's time to give up entirely on multi-tasking support in the OS, because what's the point if all interoperability is going to be disabled "for security"? Might as well just go back to running one program at a time and close up all those security holes in one go.

Re: You can't trust macOS Privacy and Security settings

#63

Post by jakeydus »

mh8h wrote: post #46
layer8 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that (a) it’s misleading that the app has access to the folder while the settings claim that it doesn’t, and (b) there is no reasonable way for the user to revoke the implicitly given permission.

You don't need that permission if the user gives their implicit consent by selecting the Documents directory in the browse window. That's why most apps don't even show up in the Privacy Settings at all. Most apps don't need that, because they don't try to access that directory on their own. They only do it when the user selects the directory. I guess the improvement can be to show the implicit consent in the privacy…

Yeah, it's less of a "GOTCHA!" and more of a weird use case that Apple engineers probably didn't think through all the way. Doesn't seem like a difficult fix at all.

If the app opens a window and prompts the user to select a directory to save a file or load a file, should that access be recorded in the privacy settings page? I'd argue that maybe there should be a verbose version of the privacy settings page, where if you _really_ want to you can see every dir that every app has ever accessed, but the vast majority of users don't care.[0]

I'm less caffeinated this morning though so maybe I misread the whole argument.

[0] edit: And whether the app still has access to that dir. Which maybe that was the point of the article. I am just skeptical generally of these kinds of exposés because while they're generally pretty fair, they'll inevitably get picked up by the geniuses on r/pcmasterrace who will spin it into "Apple Privacy and Security Settings Let Terrorists Invade Your Family Photos"

Re: You can't trust macOS Privacy and Security settings

#64

Post by traderj0e »

mh8h wrote: post #46
layer8 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that (a) it’s misleading that the app has access to the folder while the settings claim that it doesn’t, and (b) there is no reasonable way for the user to revoke the implicitly given permission.

You don't need that permission if the user gives their implicit consent by selecting the Documents directory in the browse window. That's why most apps don't even show up in the Privacy Settings at all. Most apps don't need that, because they don't try to access that directory on their own. They only do it when the user selects the directory. I guess the improvement can be to show the implicit consent in the privacy…

The real problem with this isn't so much that it doesn't show the implicit consent. That would be nice but not a big deal. It's that it shows explicit non-consent that is getting ignored.

  8. Confirm that Documents access for Insent is still disabled in Files & Folders.

Re: You can't trust macOS Privacy and Security settings

#65

Post by eviks »

epistasis wrote: post #55
eviks wrote: post #36

That's the beauty of using a GUI-first operating system! > only way you can protect your Documents folder from access by Insent is to run the following command in Terminal: tccutil reset All co.eclecticlight.Insent then restart your Mac

Jobs is turning in his grave. There are lots of stories of this conflict at NeXT and Mac OS X where there's a quick fix but not via GUI, which was one of the many things that incensed him.

Is there a common source/collection of such stories?

Re: You can't trust macOS Privacy and Security settings

#66

Post by concinds »

There's another "security UI" issue in the latest macOS, that's been there for at least a few versions.

I go into "Privacy & Security", "Full Disk Access". A bunch of apps added themselves in there (Anki, Fission, Microsoft Autoupdate, WhatsApp), the toggle is disabled and I've never enabled it. Ok, whatever.

But when I go into "Files & Folders", and under those apps I see "Full Disk Access" in gray. Apps that have Full Disk Access toggled on look identical, with "Full Disk Access" in gray. What the hell am I supposed to make of that?

Is it a bug? Do they have full disk access? Is the UI trying to imply that those apps are solely controlled by the FullDisk toggle and are ineligible to request granular permissions for Desktop/Documents? Or that they are eligible, but haven't requested it? Or maybe they did request it, and I granted it, but I don't get to see it? Who knows?

Re: You can't trust macOS Privacy and Security settings

#67

Post by traderj0e »

jasonjei wrote: post #7

The problem with Mac’s sandbox system is that it’s giving me some PTSD of Windows UAC. It’s inventing a solution to a problem that might exist in small doses, but instead gives users permission fatigue. I personally think the traditional *nix model has served us quite well, and elective sandboxing using containers (à la Docker and so on) is quite good. The Mac sandbox model is probably ok for most normal users, but f…

I feel the opposite with Mac permissions (or Linux or Windows). Hardly anything asks me, and it seems like everything has access to everything. But same conclusion here, if I don't trust something, I want to explicitly sandbox it.

Re: You can't trust macOS Privacy and Security settings

#68

Post by epistasis »

eviks wrote: post #65
epistasis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs is turning in his grave. There are lots of stories of this conflict at NeXT and Mac OS X where there's a quick fix but not via GUI, which was one of the many things that incensed him.

Is there a common source/collection of such stories?

I'm sure there are some great ones, but it was 5-10 years ago when I last read one, and it was fantastic. It's nearly impossible to do a web search for it right now, probably because of Google's bias towards recency. I know it's been linked on Hacker News many times, so maybe somebody else has better info here.

Even if you're not an Apple fan, these sorts of stories are kind of great for learning about product development and companies in general, I think. jwz's stories of Netscape are also phenomenal. (Just don't click on any HN links that go to jwz.org, or you'll have to clear cookies to see any content there in the future. He's not a fan of the exploitation that startups frequently do to their employees and views HN as a primary channel of promoting that exploitation.)

Re: You can't trust macOS Privacy and Security settings

#69

Post by binaryturtle »

I never used the ~/Documents folder. Lots of apps just trashed their stuff in there over the years making that folder entirely unusable for my actual document files. I would have to dig through the mess to find them. So I have to admit that I don't really understand the extra "care" Apple is doing to this particular folder. Same for the ~/Downloads folder: all my actual downloads go to some other disk, since the system disk is so small. Protecting this two folders would be entirely useless here.

IMHO where it really needs to be protected from when iCloud suddenly starts grabbing everything w/o the user's permission to upload it to some random Apple servers.

Re: You can't trust macOS Privacy and Security settings

#70

Post by concinds »

throwaway290 wrote: post #6

It seems that author basically found a 0day and published it. It's for sure better than selling it on the dark web but maybe it's better first tell it to Apple?

Apple Security would instantly close it as "don't see the problem here" if you reported it to them. They have a poor reputation around TCC bug reports.
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