Apple memory holed its broken promise for an OCSP opt-out
lapcatsoftware.com
lapcatsoftware.com
[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2015/03/03/revoking-interm...
[3] https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2020/01/09/crlite-part-1-a...
The advantages of OCSP are that you get a real-time understanding of the status of a certificate and you're not needing to download large CRLs which are stale very quickly. If you set security.OCSP.require appropriately, you don't have any risk of the browser failing open, either.
It seems to me like the people who most dislike OCSP are CAs who have to maintain the infrastructure capable of responding to queries. I have really limited sympathy, that should be part of running a CA.
The privacy concerns could be solved by mandating OCSP stapling, and you could then operate the OCSP responders purely for web-servers and folks doing research.
Unfortunately the ship has sailed with ballot SC63 now, and we are where we are. I don't necessarily agree that OCSP as a concept was unfixable, though.
My main privacy related concern isn't about domains being sent in plaintext but that they are sent to the CA and they can then theoretically do analytics on this data and profile web users.
But maybe this concern doesn't really make sense as we have strict personal-data regulations now.
When you're network is all Linux everything actually does "just work" more so than it ever did with OSX. Everything is just an SSH away, it's really pretty amazing.
https://support.apple.com/lt-lt/guide/mac-help/mchlp1066/mac
We were using complex passwords; this was when 10.6 was latest OS, so perhaps security is better now with simple password-based SSH — but I would never take such a risk again.
Plus, if you know what OCSP is and care about it, chances are you don't use MacOS anymore. Nobody who conscientiously objects to OCSP tracking should be assenting to the rest of MacOS and it's perverse sense of "security".
Like there's just so much crap you have to do to make these non-free OSes pleasant or private and it's always blowing up. Linux mostly "just works" OOTB.
... and then claim it was necessary for "updates and upgrades". Not sure why TextEdit.app needed a kernel network extension for "updates and upgrades".
They also denied it was possible until it was provably demonstrated that they did.
I like Apple stuff, everything I use is Apple. But too many see them as infallible or go to the whataboutism for missteps like these.
Well, the goal of a bridged net adapter for VMs is to make the VM as if it were physically plugged in directly into the network, independently of the host, so it makes sense for it not to be affected by a firewall.
> running a VM in your evil app.
IIRC back then, creating a bridged net adapter required a special entitlement (special as in you can't get it without explicitly asking Apple for it and the dev cert for it has additional entries, like for kernel extensions). Dunno if that's still the case.
Fact: Little Snitch resolves the IP address (i.e. does domain-to-IP lookup) before the Deny/Allow dialogue ever appears onscreen. Only by pressing "Allow" does Little Snitch then allow/initiate connections to the already-resolved IP ADDRESS.
I run four, locally [50+ users].
Local DNS Server issues default lookup server @x.x.x.2 (e.g. minimal blocklist PageAd, CloudFare), for maximal client compatibility.
Users can thereafter upgrade levels of blocking by manually increasing DNS IP +1 (e.g. x.x.x.3 for stricter blocking, whereas default x.2 only blocks seven very common trackers), at host-level.
They can also manually enter x.x.x.1 and thereafter have no DNS-restrictions [this is the router itself, which each x.x.x.N itself resolves to, via our ISP's own DNS serverlist].
Our x.x.x.5 is top-notch white-page browsing, but many applications won't work (e.g. banking; although surprisingly Youtube still works although you do have to watch pre-roll ads).
I have one user who there-after has his own local subnet/PiHole, although you can hop-up to PiHoles, as long as the subnet is a child or sibling of that DNS-resolver.
(Posting a link because HN formatting breaks the format).
The process is "trustd".
Just blocking ocsp2.apple.com is probably fine if you're running anything recent-ish.
And ocsp4. And 5. Block them all!
Yes, though I couldn't say offhand when exactly it changed.
It's not very practical though. Better to block the address with little snitch or a hosts file
Guess what I'm doing right now? Talking to you on HN.
(I could probably do everything I need to do on Linux - I just don't want to)
Bluntly: if you don't trust your OS vendor, then you can't use OS updates. There are people in this category but it's a lot of work.
Much easier to trust your OS vendor (at least to this extent).
This is not true. FLOSS (and reproducible builds) allows the community to verify the code and significantly (though not fully) decrease the trust to the OS.
That's notable, as we're discussing a case where Apple said they would do something, and then not only didn't do it, but went out of their way to pretend that they never said they would.
From that lens, Google is also commited to never give your personal data (think Gmail content, Maps behaviour, pins etc) to other companies and keep it all in their ecosystem, for themselves only. Your data is their key advantage, the base of the ad empire, and they won't let another company run away with it.
If we call Apple privacy focused, Google also fits the bill, the question just falls down on whether we see Apple or Google as part of our intimate circle, within our private life. I assume you do for Apple but not for Google.
They need you in their ecosystem, the same way Google needs you in theirs.
And I totally agree with you, I wouldn't't call Google privacy focused, and I don't call Apple privacy focused either, even as they market it harder than anyone else.
Methinks you're holding a double standard. Compared to Android and Linux, Apple's "promise" is no better than the one Microsoft offers Bitlocker customers.
I’ve always thought it was either far too time or far too space intensive to be practical.
Do you have sources on this, either from Apple or academic papers of the scheme they’re planning on using?
[0] https://www.swift.org/blog/announcing-swift-homomorphic-encr...
To whom? And to what aim? They're not exactly short of money.
> They're not exactly short of money.
Shareholders are not satisfied (and never will).
macOS preferences aren't magically locked away from the rest of system, regular users can change their own user preferences, and root can change system preferences. An antivirus has to still work against an attacker who has root. It's why you can't block certain apps/domains from the firewall as well.
You could put the preference in recovery mode along with disabling SIP and I think that would accomplish everyone's goals.
It's not. There are multiple layers of security, including notarization and XProtect.
> I'm pretty sure I know what the first thing any malicious software is gonna do.
What?
> macOS preferences aren't magically locked away from the rest of system, regular users can change their own user preferences, and root can change system preferences. An antivirus has to still work against an attacker who has root.
You sound confused about admin vs. root. Anyway, if you have a local attacker running on your Mac, then it's already too late for OCSP.
This scheme isn't really designed to prevent attacks so to speak, it's to stop the malicious software on everyone's system all at once. You can say theoretically it's too late because the software is already doing what it's doing and you should consider the machine compromised. But the rubber meets the road for regular users who aren't going to wipe their machines in response to malware and so this lets you purge it.
I don't think I'm confused about admin vs root. I'm talking about the System Administrator user, The oops I ran malware with sudo user, uid 0, the user who is only constrained by the kernel via SIP. But yeah, admin is the more common use-case for regular users and I'm not sure the point you're making, malware can get admin and if you put the preference somewhere changeable by admin then welp. You could put the preference in recovery mode same as SIP, I think that would be fine.
Mkay.
> OSCP is how notarization actually works, that's what's being checked to validate the notarization.
No, you are misinformed. OCSP is checked by the trustd process on ocsp2.apple.com, whereas notarization is checked by the syspolicyd process on api.apple-cloudkit.com.
OCSP is simply checking whether the Developer ID certificate has been revoked. Notarization, on the other hand, requires uploading a build to Apple and receiving a special notarization ticket. The notarization ticket is either "stapled" to the app or downloaded from Apple when the app is first launched.
Well they're not. What would you call it? Windows Defender and Microsoft's code signing requirement aren't super related. You could purge discovered malware with a signature/scan but that's not impossible to get around.
I'm not sure I really grok the difference from a security perspective when the main thing with notarization is ensuring it's signed with your developer cert.
I guess the Venn diagram isn't technically a circle but is it not that the actual security of notarization is provided by OSCP? I suppose I could have phrased that bit better.
Is there a case where a hypothetical notarization process that excludes that bit provides any real security? Because Apple "scanning it for malware" isn't going to be that different from Xprotect.
I'm really not sure what I did to get such an, idk hostile? response.
The security of notarization is provided by Apple's signature over the hashes of the executables in the app [0]. The hashes and signature are put into a "ticket". This ticket is stored on Apple's servers, and can also be "stapled" to the app. Gatekeeper (one of the macOS security systems) will prefer to fetch the ticket from Apple if possible, and fall back to the stapled ticket if available. Notarization is meant to guarantee that the code was sent to Apple and checked for malicious code.
OCSP checks that the Apple Developer ID certificate used to sign the app hasn't been revoked.
They are two separate checks done by the Gatekeeper system, which is meant to ensure that only trusted software runs on macOS. I believe it makes sense to call the OCSP check part of the Gatekeeper system, but this may be incorrect.
[0]: https://forums.developer.apple.com/forums/thread/710738
It's not the main thing.
> is it not that the actual security of notarization is provided by OSCP?
No.
I tried to explain the difference in my previous reply, but I'm not going to sit here and write an entire essay on the subject (though I could). The information is out there, for example on developer.apple.com. Or even on my own website. Inform yourself, or at least stop spouting falsehoods.
I’d rather you shill your own blog posts. Even without reading them, I know they are better. ;)