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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

#611

Post by krapp »

downvoteme1 wrote: post #521
fermienrico wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am fine with this for most things except my phone. I trust Apple more than any party in the world. Even the government. Fortnight devs, Epic, whatever are not even on the same radar. They'll sell your privacy in milliseconds if they can get 2.5 cents for it. I would never ever own an open source phone. Not because the operating system is open source (probably good that it has eyes on it) but there is no way to cont…

Not related to the poster but it is surprising that HN is becoming like Reddit where non conformist opinions are downvoted extensively.

Stop caring about pretend internet points.

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

#612

Post by weikju »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #582
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need to know what to google for to find the right magic incantation to enter into the macOS terminal. You right click it and select “Open”... Almost all MacOS users even the non-technical types encounter this at some point unless they go 100% Mac App Store which almost no one does if they have a job.

I tested this just now on my Mac and “right-click -> Open” on an untrusted .app gave me the same warning message with no obvious way to force-open the app.

And in that situation you have the much less obvious solution but still not Terminal: go in System Preferences -> Security and you will see a new button appear to allow the specific app to open

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

#613

Post by jachee »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #581
ryandrake wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A one day 10% off sale is a change in behavior due to no action taken by the user triggered remotely by the developer. Is a sale very close to malware?

Depends.

Does the sale require me to submit payment details to a not-already-trusted platform?

The change remotely triggered by Epic redirects users to a third-party (Epic) payment system, but what if it were, say, a malicious Epic insider? How much user payment info/cash could they grab before they were detected and disabled?

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

#615

Post by rpdillon »

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 behavior is now the norm in my experience, including browser extensions, mobile apps, and websites. I experience breakage through no action of my own, triggered remotely by the developer. While I agree that it's very much like malware, I'm simply pointing out that this is the rule, rather than the exception, with commercial software today.

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

#616

Post by jachee »

shiburizu wrote: post #439
floatingatoll wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic expressly snuck code through the door to activate a user-visible feature in direct prohibition to App Store rules. Apple could have revoked their developer certificate in response, which would have essentially killed all installations of Fortnite iOS/Mac worldwide within 24 hours. That they are merely revoking their ability to sign new code and giving them 2 weeks to perform an orderly shutdown is far less draco…

This isn't being fought over a data breach or privacy concerns and that's why Epic is smart to fight at this angle. Apple says "you can't do this", but Epic does the thing and says "I should be allowed to do this. As you can all see, this is what happens when I try to put my foot down on it and here's this target audience of people who are benefited by the thing I'm trying to do". This works for them because they are…

Redirecting user payment info is totally a data/privacy breach.

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

#617

Post by james_s_tayler »

downvoteme1 wrote: post #521
fermienrico wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am fine with this for most things except my phone. I trust Apple more than any party in the world. Even the government. Fortnight devs, Epic, whatever are not even on the same radar. They'll sell your privacy in milliseconds if they can get 2.5 cents for it. I would never ever own an open source phone. Not because the operating system is open source (probably good that it has eyes on it) but there is no way to cont…

Not related to the poster but it is surprising that HN is becoming like Reddit where non conformist opinions are downvoted extensively.

Welcome to the human experience.

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

#618

Post by mthoms »

brundolf wrote: post #396
grishka wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so that's why I never liked nor trusted this whole idea of code signing with non-self-signed certificates, especially on desktop OSes. This notarization mechanism introduced a single point of failure: Apple. And now there is concrete evidence of how exactly this is bad. On a device I own, there should be no parties that are trusted more than myself. It's ridiculous I even have to write this.

It's important to note that you can still run unsigned Mac apps. Apple isn't preventing users from running a tool they want to run, it's just showing them a big scary warning and making them jump through some extra hoops. It's incredibly scummy and inappropriate, but I would put it more along the lines of an attack-ad than an outright ban. Edit: Now, one thing that isn't totally clear is whether or not devs who have…

According to the court filing, Apple is denying Epic access to any development tools, software betas, APIs and the like. Epic will not be able to keep Unreal Engine up to date. Including on MacOS.

The end result will be that Unreal Engine, and all applications developed with it will be dead in the water on MacOS/iOS/iPadOS.

From the the legal filing:

>... when Epic sued Apple to break its monopoly on app stores and in-app payments, Apple retaliated ferociously. It told Epic that by August 28, Apple will cut off Epic’s access to all development tools necessary to create software for Apple’s platforms—including for the Unreal Engine Epic offers to third-party developers, which Apple has never claimed violated any Apple policy. Not content simply to remove Fortnite from the App Store, Apple is attacking Epic’s entire business in unrelated areas.

and...

>Apple stated that unless Epic capitulates, Apple will also block “[e]ngineering efforts to improve hardware and software performance of Unreal Engine on Mac and iOS hardware [and] optimize Unreal Engine for the Mac for creative workflows”.

PDF link: https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/epic-v-apple-8-17-20-768927327...

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

#619

Post by urda »

josephcsible wrote: post #143
Razengan wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple needed that 30 percent cut to monitor for fraud and quality or something, going above-and-beyond other payment processors. How much do Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Steam, Gog and etc. take from publishers on their stores?

That's a misleading question, because on other platforms you can choose to avoid the store. A better question would be "what's the lowest cut you need to give up to distribute to users of these other platforms?". And the answer to that is zero on basically all of them except iOS.

Since when? You cannot side load apps onto modern consoles, to the extent of manufactures like even Nintendo releasing updated hardware revisions to block homebrew exploits.

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

#620

Post by jimmydorry »

Joeri wrote: post #366
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…

Isn’t it a bit naive that we ever believed the notarization feature would not be used to blacklist developers for business reasons? I feel like a chump now. It is definitely clear that apple does not have the best interest of me, their customer, at heart. Epic were being very sneaky towards Apple, but not malicious towards users in any way. Apple is being malicious. If I want to run Epic’s software without disabling…

It cuts both ways though, doesn't it? Either Apple spends time / effort vetting all applications, including those made by people that don't pay Apple and aren't sold through their store.

Or Apple doesn't vet all of these apps, and refuses to notarize any app that is not associated with a valid developer account.

It's a whole other can of worms if you want to get into the merits of being able to install and run any app you find. Apple made the decision to not allow the average user to do that, and I don't see the mass exodus of people showing that the public doesn't agree with this design choice. Just like iOS and the app store, the average user seems happy with a curated and largely vetted selection of things to use that... 'just work (TM)'.

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