Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
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Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
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Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#2It is clear that Apple's current sandboxing is not perfect, but what could be done?
The goal is to create the most secure running environment that is possible. Allowing random apps to access/modify different files on the system (without user explicitly allowing that) kinda defeats the purpose of sandboxing (from user's point of view - from developers POV, sandboxing makes his app more secure and stable).
All I see is people ranting about sandboxing's limitations, without coming up with actual plans to improve it.
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#3Dev tools don't really have a place in managed environments IMO - they just need too low level of access to a system to be able to do their work.
Now, say a game or web browser that runs potentially malicious content, sure, sandbox it. But other things like code interpreters, low level Unix tools, or inter process tools like AppleScript, they're still open to (mis)use by anyone.
I'm going to guess that most malware for OS X will soon become non-compiled scripts. Sure, the interpreter would be signed, but what it runs is totally arbitrary.
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#4It is clear that Apple's current sandboxing is not perfect, but what could be done? The goal is to create the most secure running environment that is possible. Allowing random apps to access/modify different files on the system (without user explicitly allowing that) kinda defeats the purpose of sandboxing (from user's point of view - from developers POV, sandboxing makes his app more secure and stable). All I see is…
They're trying to take take take everything away from the user. Soon there will be no filesystem.
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#5I mostly agree, with one exception:
"SSH keys and agent configuration are automatically picked up, so access to remotes over SSH ‘just works’"
Um, no. If there's one thing that's more private than my address book, it's my ssh keys. The fact that they aren't available to your application by default is a feature. If you need a key, ask me for it. If I want to give you the access, I'll do that.
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#6It is clear that Apple's current sandboxing is not perfect, but what could be done? The goal is to create the most secure running environment that is possible. Allowing random apps to access/modify different files on the system (without user explicitly allowing that) kinda defeats the purpose of sandboxing (from user's point of view - from developers POV, sandboxing makes his app more secure and stable). All I see is…
It's silly to pretend that Apple didn't pick and choose which capabilities they would support in the sandbox.
It's very similar to their support for "multitasking" on iOS. Handle the common cases well, most others will find some way to make it work, and the rest are out of luck.
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#7Good points. I am concerned about this coming sandboxing. I don't use the Mac app store, but the sandboxing seems to be too restrictive, and I'd hate to see apps giving up functionality just to stay in the store. I think long-term Apple will get this sorted out, but it would be a shame for app functionality to regress in the meantime.
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#8It is clear that Apple's current sandboxing is not perfect, but what could be done? The goal is to create the most secure running environment that is possible. Allowing random apps to access/modify different files on the system (without user explicitly allowing that) kinda defeats the purpose of sandboxing (from user's point of view - from developers POV, sandboxing makes his app more secure and stable). All I see is…
They're trying to take take take everything away from the user. Soon there will be no filesystem.
Next thing you know, there will be no keyboard, just a featureless ball. It would roll down from slippery slopes real well.
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#9I got a wrong certificate warning and a 403. Does anyone have a mirror?
Re: Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store
#10It is clear that Apple's current sandboxing is not perfect, but what could be done? The goal is to create the most secure running environment that is possible. Allowing random apps to access/modify different files on the system (without user explicitly allowing that) kinda defeats the purpose of sandboxing (from user's point of view - from developers POV, sandboxing makes his app more secure and stable). All I see is…
They're trying to take take take everything away from the user. Soon there will be no filesystem.
>Soon there will be no filesystem.
Is that a bad thing? I'm not saying it will happen soon, or that those of us long in the tooth will go easily, but I honestly think it's the future.
Think about young teenagers who will soon be "in charge". They snap a pic on their phone and send it to someone else. Nobody cares where it is in the filesystem, or even what the filename is. I used to meticulously name, tag and organize my mp3 collection into folders and sub-folders. Now I don't even know where they are on my hard drive - because I just don't care.
Those are old concepts we used to rely on to find and use information stored inside the computer, but I honestly don't see the need for the in the future. We can stop focusing on the "how" of the computer, and focus on the doing.
I will add that "power" users like developers will require these kind of concepts for a lot longer than your average Joe, but I still see it becoming less and less important.