Hacker News Reader

Comment by dcrazy | Hacker News Reader

This dialog comes from the System Management framework [1]. Slack is probably installing a privileged helper tool (conceptually similar to a setuid root binary) so that it can update itself regardless of where it is installed or which user originally installed it.

[1]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/servicemanagement/...

View on HN

Seems like it should only need to do this once. I get this with almost every Slack and VSCode update. The correct solution for me is to quit Slack.app and let my company's management software do the update for me.

Maybe it's smart enough to require re-authorization when the binary changes?

Why would the helper binary change that much? A setuid-ish binary should be ultra simple and not constantly changing I'd assume.

...and it should be able to replace itself.

I don't use slack except in the browser. I never get a prompt for VSCode. It must be one of your extensions.

I've got them both installed through a corp-managed "software center". Don't have any exciting extensions that I've installed.

Chances are they have some kind of management software like SentinelOne that is preventing Slack from doing this (or storing the permission to do so), so it just asks over and over. Which is arguably worse.

I installed Slack from the app store and never see this popup.

Discord does this as well I believe. I often needed to enter the administrator password to install a helper after the system had been off for a couple days.

And they are sooooo insistent. Just keep bugging you forever

Discord, Slack and VS Code desktop apps are all built using Electron, so I'm guessing this is an Electron issue.

A software updater was going to be my best guess at what this was. I guess I understand the flexibility it brings, but it definitely does have some security trade-offs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com