Comment by 013a | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 013a | Hacker News Reader

I'm astounded with some of the user security dialogs that Macs display. I got one today: "VSCode wants to make some changes. Deny or Allow." That was the exact wording.

Seriously? THIS. BENEFITS. NO. ONE.

The only thing I can figure is that, somehow, Mac has required applications to display something to the user to get their permission to make some substantial system-level changes. But the application is, I guess?, allowed to fill in the message dialog. I can't believe that wording came from Apple; I assume it was Microsoft, who I do trust as much as anyone, so I'll approve it, but this leaves a lingering question:

Either Apple actually did write that, or they allow applications published by "whoever" to fill in "whatever" messaging they want to get the user to click Yes. It's absolutely unacceptable behavior.

I'd say I'm done with Apple, but there isn't a personal computing platform who gets this right. Every Apple employee reading this article should be ashamed. Every Microsoft employee should be ashamed. Everyone just Needs To Do Better.

What is Better? I don't know, off-hand. It's not easy, but I'd imagine why that's why these companies are paid billions of dollars. For starters: If I install around your centralized certificate signing authority to install something, I Trust That Application. It doesn't need to alert me every time it makes a change. And if I install it through your store, then I also trust it, because you trust it. So why do I get so many damn "Approve This Change" notifications? I should get ZERO after the install.

I get that most users aren't as savvy as me, but that's why you're making it so hard to bypass that central certificate signing authority, and I'm fine with that. It's the lingering notifications that make zero sense. Fix your shit, Apple, because I haven't encountered anyone that's ecstatic with anything you've released in the past 18 months.

My favorite are the dialogs whose only options are "Do the thing we want" or "Learn more about the thing we want" with no option to dismiss. Slightly less terrible are the daily dialogs that give the options "Do the thing we want" or "Bug me tomorrow". More and more, Apple devs seem to have contempt for the idea that the user should be in control.

They haven't quite descended to Microsoft levels of "We're restarting your computer now kthxbye", but it's a grim, user hostile path they're on, at least with notifications.

Just as I've read this comment, I got a 60 second restart countdown notification for untold software updates. Like what if I got up to do something found all my shit locked up behind an update that to date cannot report an accurate timeframe (why bother reporting one at all if they haven't been right since my first mac with tiger). I'm not even on catalina yet, so maybe that's it.

I don't know what's with microsoft and apple. When I'm in the middle of using my computer is not the time to close everything and lock the machine down for 30+ minutes for an update. I'm going to say no every single time.

Haha I guess that was bound to happen, given the number of HNers. I don't remember the last time I saw that one, though, whereas my Windows box is always trying to restart itself (despite frequently succeeding). I'm currently beating back iCloud notifications.

Man, I miss Snow Leopard. I think that was peak OS X for me.

Miss Snow Leopard too, last sane release ... everything was in a much better balance and care. I keep it in one machine as reference point to make sure I am writing good apps.

> centralized certificate signing authority to install something, I Trust That Application

You mean like how Facebook trusted the Cambridge Analytica apps which then went on to steal huge amounts of data.

Or how about all of the legitimate apps which include metrics libraries which have then gone on to steal huge amounts of data.

You simply can't trust the original signing process these days.

You can't just Give Up and live a life without any Trust. That's like experiencing a bad breakup then deciding that you never want to be in a relationship again, because being vulnerable is too uncomfortable.

Computing is strikingly similar. You're vulnerable when you use any service where any level of personal information or even code execution is passed to a third party. You're vulnerable even when you buy a VM from DigitalOcean, or when you edit a document on Google Drive, or when you install some binary from a company. But that's alright; to be vulnerable is to be human, and there are tons of very tangible benefits to allowing yourself to be vulnerable.

There are alternatives. You can live like RMS and be so scared of vulnerability that you lock yourself in a self-imposed computing exile. I don't trust the code; I need to see it. I don't trust the authors; I need to be able to make changes. I don't trust my contributors; they need to open-source what they make. I don't trust service providers; I need to host my own servers. That's a very sad outlook on life.

Facebook fucked up. In fact, they've fucked up so much that they aren't deserving of my trust anymore. Everyone is allowed to have different opinions about who they trust, but Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many other companies have not fucked up to the same degree, and are still deserving of my trust. I don't love Google especially, and tend to think that they're headed down the same path, but they still do a lot right. Maybe I'll be burned someday. But that's alright.

So you want all your apps to have root-level system access?

I think the poster above is arguing that dialogs like "this app needs permissions, deny or allow" are effectively giving root-level system access for all intents and purposes, for almost all users -- exactly because users have no basis on which to make that decision and saying "deny" probably prevents the app from doing what it was the user wanted it to do.

So users almost always click "allow". What's the point of the dialog then?

Really, the dialog should be explicit about what's needed and why it's needed and what click "allow" does (i.e., always allow this action, for this purpose? Or always allow any root-level action from this app? Or something else?)

Only then will users actually be able to make a decision beyond "do I trust Microsoft and do I want to do this thing I just asked Word to do?"

I always err on the side of "deny" and trying to fix it afterwards, particularly on Android. Typically well-written apps will alert you that you are about to receive a system prompt and explain the reasons why.

Are you using VSCode to access files on remote servers (e.g. using Transmit)?

This breaks in 10.15. Do you have a work around?

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