[HN Gopher] Apple's macOS Ventura - New Security Changes
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Apple's macOS Ventura - New Security Changes
        
       Author : alwillis
       Score  : 144 points
       Date   : 2022-06-19 14:51 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.sentinelone.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.sentinelone.com)
        
       | kemayo wrote:
       | Nothing terribly major here, it sounds like. Making login items
       | visible is a long-overdue change... but none of these are going
       | to have any particular impact on average users or average apps.
       | 
       | On a pettier note, can we get a better source than a website
       | that's using JS to change its title when it doesn't have focus to
       | try to gain attention? (It toggles about every second between
       | "macOS Ventura | 7 New Security Changes to Be Aware Of" and
       | "Message from SentinelOne". https://imgur.com/ynPqpvK - it's
       | pretty awful.) I don't normally complain about scummy websites on
       | here, but this is just annoying.
       | 
       | Interestingly, I went looking for alternative sources for the
       | content, and found that identical content is on other sites [1]
       | which are also doing the same title-flicker technique. So
       | presumably this is part of some content network...
       | 
       | [1]: https://phxtechsol.com/2022/06/13/apples-macos-
       | ventura-7-new...
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | servercobra wrote:
         | I'm not surprised they're using scummy tactics. Their actual
         | software runs like crap, so gotta do whatever they can to get
         | users. I had a work MBP and personal MBP with exactly the same
         | specs, main difference being the Sentinel One agent. The work
         | one was constantly spinning up the fans, S1 was gobbling up
         | memory, and support was completely useless in diagnosing. Their
         | Linux agent isn't much better with constant memory leaks.
        
         | sys_64738 wrote:
         | I noticed it even did that in Reader Mode in Safari. Really
         | annoying.
        
       | Ensorceled wrote:
       | 5-6 year support for hardware is just too short. I have a Mid
       | 2015 Macbook Pro as a "backup" and that computer is still quite
       | decent.
        
         | kappuchino wrote:
         | See reply below about Open Core Legacy Patcher[1] which enables
         | to use older Intel Models to use modern OS Versions. And for
         | even older hardware, check out the patchers from Dosdude[2].
         | Most likely this will not be possible with the M-Class
         | Processors from Apple, which is a shame.
         | 
         | [1]https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-
         | Patcher/MODELS.ht...
         | 
         | [2]http://dosdude1.com/
        
         | Kerrick wrote:
         | MacOS versions tend to receive security updates for 2
         | additional years after they're supplanted, so it's more like
         | 7-8 years. Plus, all of the Macs that aren't eligible for
         | Ventura can use Bootcamp to install Windows or dual boot into
         | Linux if you're not happy with MacOS anymore.
        
           | michaelmrose wrote:
           | The newest machine that can't run the new version would be a
           | Mac Pro purchased a scant 4 years ago. Potentially for
           | several thousand dollars.
           | 
           | Meanwhile there are 10 year old ~$1000 Thinkpads running
           | Windows 11 or Linux. If they just wanted to run Linux on it
           | they could have saved themselves some money.
           | 
           | 8 years of updates to current version and 10 years of
           | security updates should be the absolute minimum for every
           | expensive hardware.
        
             | unix_fan wrote:
             | I question anyone purchasing a machine with generations old
             | hardware in 2018. Especially considering the Mac pro had
             | been supplanted by newer macs at that point.
        
               | lostmsu wrote:
               | In 2018 CPUs were still stagnating, so a 2013 CPU would
               | likely be almost as performant as the latest one.
        
               | nicky0 wrote:
               | It's not really about the CPU power, more that by 2018 it
               | was well known that the Trashcan Mac Pro was a dead-end
               | design and a soon to have radical refresh.
        
               | michaelmrose wrote:
               | Absolutely correct it would have been a shitty purchase
               | but one which ought to be supported none the less.
               | 
               | Companies ought to love people who give them thousands
               | for outdated hardware worth hundreds.
        
         | thewebcount wrote:
         | I wonder if it's worse this year than usual because of the
         | switchover to AppleSilicon? I have a 2013 Mac Pro that I use
         | daily and it's gotten all updates until this one. 9 years is
         | pretty good. But I can understand wanting to end support for as
         | many Intel machines as quickly as possible.
        
           | djxfade wrote:
           | When Apple announced the transition from PPC to Intel, the
           | PPC Macs only got two major updates before being EOLed. Even
           | the Power Mac G5 (2005) only got two major updates before
           | being cut off from support.
        
             | rodric wrote:
             | It should be noted, however, that those major updates had
             | longer lifespans then. Snow Leopard, the first Intel-only
             | version of Mac OS, came out in 2009.
        
         | more_corn wrote:
         | They haven't yet released a machine worth upgrading to if
         | you're on a 2015 MBP. I recently got a 14" M1 and I think I'll
         | just reinstall my 2015 and move back to it.
        
           | ekzy wrote:
           | You can't be serious? The m1 is so good, great performance,
           | much quieter and doesn't get hot, and the battery life is
           | amazing. Also there's not many compatibility issues now
        
           | matthewmacleod wrote:
           | I'd wager that the vast majority of people who have made that
           | upgrade would disagree with that view; it's a substantial
           | step-change in most ways, if you use the device for software
           | development or content creation.
        
           | sys_64738 wrote:
           | Battery life and speed alone are totally noticeable. This
           | doesn't mention that Intel fires up the fans anytime a CPU
           | calculation is done. I think you're being disingenuous here.
        
           | Klonoar wrote:
           | ...absolutely not. I jumped from a 2015 to an M1 and never
           | looked back. It's 100% worth the upgrade.
        
           | stouset wrote:
           | That's certainly a hot take. I'm not sure many would share
           | that opinion.
        
           | have_faith wrote:
           | The 14" M1 is the spiritual successor to the 2015 MBP I
           | think. Ports, magsafe charger (with higher quality cable),
           | larger screen within a marginally larger footprint, keyboard
           | is good unlike the last few years, solidly built, no touch
           | bar, finger print login, performance, etc. No complaints
           | personally.
        
           | PainfullyNormal wrote:
           | I upgraded from a 2015 15" MBP to a 2021 16" MBP. I'm loving
           | the upgrade. Fast. Better display. Much better battery life.
           | Still has magsafe. The keyboard is acceptable. What do you
           | think is missing and/or bad about the new models?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | DavideNL wrote:
       | > " _Passkeys aim to solve the problems with passwords_ "
       | 
       | So are you locked in with Apple if you use this, or can you
       | switch all your existing passwords to another "passkey
       | provider/service" ?
       | 
       | > " _Wave Goodbye to CAPTCHAS_ "
       | 
       | I assume that's Safari only... so this is bad news for Firefox?
        
         | Shank wrote:
         | > So are you locked in with Apple if you use this, or can you
         | switch all your existing passwords to another "passkey
         | provider/service" ?
         | 
         | Eventually, yes. Not now, but the goal is eventually, yes. It
         | requires support to come to Android and at that point, they'll
         | build the bridge to bring them together. I don't think the
         | system currently exists for this, but they've said Passkeys
         | will be a "multi-year industry-wide transition" so I'm inclined
         | to believe it'll ship in the coming years.
         | 
         | When you sign in with a passkey, you have the option of
         | scanning a QR code from a locally present device running any
         | software that can speak the standard (e.g., Android). This
         | means that you can login using any software that supports
         | Passkeys using any devices that support Passkeys. For example,
         | Chrome on Windows (chrome://flags, turn on passkey support)
         | with an iPhone is a valid pair.
        
         | anaisbetts wrote:
         | Assumedly any service that implements this will let you reset
         | your password away from Passkeys, but it's still the soft
         | lockin of "Ughhhh I don't want to reset everything".
         | 
         | Sites will never go full Passkeys because that obviously falls
         | over if you want to access it from any other device or
         | computer, support request costs would go through the ceiling
        
           | philistine wrote:
           | I wouldn't be surprised if banks go passkeys only.
        
         | gernb wrote:
         | curious too as someone that uses 7 computers running 3 OSes,
         | are my passkeys accessable, syncable, across OSes?
        
         | PartiallyTyped wrote:
         | > In collaboration with Google, Microsoft and other industry
         | players, Apple has been working on a new logon technology for
         | web and other remote services called 'passkeys'.
         | 
         | I don't think it will be Apple only. However, I am wondering
         | what will happen to services like bitwarden [1] if it is
         | available on other OSes as well.
         | 
         | [1] https://bitwarden.com/
        
           | solarkraft wrote:
           | What's your concern regarding Bitwarden?
        
             | zenlf wrote:
             | Not the original poster, but I think the worry is that how
             | can a password manager survive in a passwordless future.
             | 
             | Will major players be too powerful that no competing
             | solutions will realistically exist.
        
         | scarface74 wrote:
         | This is based on a standard that Apple, Google and Microsoft
         | have all agree to and have agreed to a method to transfer keys
         | between devices.
        
         | nojito wrote:
         | Passkeys are an Open Standard.
         | 
         | https://fidoalliance.org/apple-google-and-microsoft-commit-t...
        
       | jmull wrote:
       | > However, the Gatekeeper check here is overridable by users.
       | 
       | This is presented as a flaw, but I'm not sure they are thinking
       | through the alternatives. It's hard to give too much credence to
       | security experts who are't thinking holistically. Perhaps there
       | _is_ a flaw, but I 'm curious to know what it is.
        
         | etchalon wrote:
         | Things the user can override are things social engineers can
         | convince users to override.
        
           | KerrAvon wrote:
           | Yes. Note that thus is the technical argument for disallowing
           | sideloading.
        
           | cmg wrote:
           | Exactly. Technical measures are important, but if someone
           | wants to play a game or do something that's been banned on
           | Apple's stores and finds a site that claims to have an
           | installer (which is actually malware) with instructions to
           | disable Gatekeeper or SIP or what not, social engineering can
           | work. Their goal is to do the thing they wanted to do,
           | probably not thinking of security in the meanwhile. Popup
           | alerts are going to be interpreted as something to get rid of
           | so they can do the thing.
           | 
           | It's a difficult balance. Power users, engineers, developers
           | - we can (usually) tell when warnings need to be heeded.
           | People who use their devices to achieve a goal without really
           | understanding or caring about what's happening usually won't.
        
             | macintux wrote:
             | I still recall when that viral elf bowling game was showing
             | up on _everyone 's_ computers, and it struck me that we
             | were all quite fortunate it wasn't secretly malware.
        
         | kybernetyk wrote:
         | Security folks tend to have a very myopic view on things. Ever
         | wondered why your computer got less and less useable? Security
         | people pushing their agenda.
        
           | threeseed wrote:
           | > Ever wondered why your computer got less and less useable
           | 
           | Would disagree.
           | 
           | I think the security changes have made the OS more usable
           | since I now get visibility into what apps are doing.
           | 
           | And I love the idea that security people pushing their agenda
           | of making devices more secure and more private is painted as
           | a bad thing.
        
           | pjmlp wrote:
           | Yeah, because we get many sad users when their hard drive
           | gets encrypted by ransomware, and even more so if it is a
           | shared drive.
           | 
           | So the less toys to play, the better.
        
         | dagmx wrote:
         | They explain their reasoning right after that statement. Their
         | concern is social engineering is still a way to convince people
         | to override this.
        
       | Lammy wrote:
       | > Gatekeeper's role is to ensure that when users execute some
       | code, that code meets the local system policy. The policy
       | includes checks such as whether the code is validly signed and
       | whether it has been tampered with in certain ways.
       | 
       | Weasel-word alert. I never thought I'd see the day when
       | technologists would applaud the gradual death of general-purpose
       | computing, but here we are. A decade from now Apple probably
       | won't even ship a local version of Xcode, and the transformation
       | will be complete as all new development happens in Xcode Cloud
       | where no line of code goes unscrutinized by the watchful eye of
       | the mother ship. At least we'll be Safe(tm).
        
         | guessmyname wrote:
         | It is funny to me to read this because I recently joined the
         | Xcode Cloud team to precisely work on this, thinking that I
         | could help Apple make developer's life easier in the near
         | future, but according to your comment, there are people out
         | there who will consider my team's work a regression.
        
           | jcelerier wrote:
           | > It is funny to me to read this because I recently joined
           | the Xcode Cloud team to precisely work on this, thinking that
           | I could help Apple make developer's life easier in the near
           | future, but according to your comment, there are people out
           | there who will consider my team's work a regression.
           | 
           | how exactly will it be easier than my current workflow of:
           | 
           | - Boot computer
           | 
           | - Press win-key + d
           | 
           | - type the letters "qtc"
           | 
           | - hit enter
           | 
           | - ctrl-alt-shift-<index the project I'm working on>
           | 
           | - ready to code
        
             | zmmmmm wrote:
             | Not having to download 10g to edit 1 line of code on a
             | computer where you haven't set up XCode should be a win?
             | 
             | Having said that, I agree, the biggest problem here is that
             | even if it doesn't seem obvious now, once the cloud
             | offering is there the control it offers will make it very
             | appealing for Apple to expand its use and eventually offer
             | features there that aren't in the real XCode. It can fast
             | be a slippery slope to the non-cloud app being deprecated.
        
           | drdaeman wrote:
           | There is no problem with a remote compilation. If anything,
           | it's good to have options.
           | 
           | The problem if someone decides that it's going to be the only
           | option. And another problem is that they can.
           | 
           | So, your work is not regression, and it definitely has a
           | positive use case. It's just that it can also make certain
           | unethical things possible.
        
         | RONROC wrote:
         | There is no more prescient of a take on this news as this one.
         | 
         | Once the singularity is nearly complete you'll know: macOS and
         | iOS will merge into one monolithic OS.
        
         | corrral wrote:
         | > A decade from now Apple probably won't even ship a local
         | version of Xcode, and the transformation will be complete as
         | all new development happens in Xcode Cloud where no line of
         | code goes unscrutinized by the watchful eye of the mother ship.
         | 
         | Any young folks wondering: yes, this exact same thing was being
         | posted ten years ago, all the time.
         | 
         | "Apple's gonna totally lock down macOS without any way around
         | it, they hate general purpose computing" and the related
         | "Apple's gonna merge iOS and macOS" are the apocalypse cult of
         | computer geek forums. They might be right eventually, but only
         | after being wrong a hundred times. And they never get the
         | timeline right.
        
         | danpalmer wrote:
         | I disagree. Before Gatekeeper there was no way to define a
         | policy about what code could run, now with Gatekeeper there is.
         | Currently, Apple define a default policy. Users can edit this
         | themselves if they acknowledge the risks. Admins of Macs can
         | also set their own policies.
         | 
         | The ability to have policies is very different from enforcing
         | overly strong policies. Apple seems quite clear that they see
         | iOS as being a platform with a stronger policy, and macOS as
         | being a platform with at least the ability to run a weaker
         | policy.
         | 
         | Edit: also Xcode Cloud isn't what you imply it is/could be, and
         | Apple's moves with Swift being developed in the open suggest to
         | me a very different direction for development. I can't see this
         | ever being locked down, either in terms of technology or
         | policy.
        
         | kccqzy wrote:
         | Gatekeeper was introduced in 2011 in Lion. It has already been
         | a decade. I didn't see that transformation happening.
        
           | Lammy wrote:
           | The existence of Gatekeeper already causes a huge privacy
           | violation by "requiring" my computer to phone home to verify
           | the signature the first time it launches an application.
           | Everyone should have realized this when Apple's OCSP
           | responder went down in November 2020 and nobody could launch
           | anything that wasn't built in to the OS.
           | 
           | According to TFA this kind of verification will now occur
           | every time an application is launched to deter post-
           | verification "tampering" by you, the user. How big of a
           | privacy violation would it have to become to bother you, out
           | of curiosity? If we let this continue we will end up in a
           | future where full "Remote Attestation" of every hardware and
           | software component is required to participate in the
           | Internet. This isn't hypothetical doom-saying, either: game
           | consoles already work like this. I remember my XBOX360 could
           | detect modified DVD drive firmware, launches of individual
           | pieces of software (e.g. Halo 3 Delta leak), and other types
           | of system modifications, then it would permanently ban that
           | machine from XBOX LIVE. And that was all 15+ years ago.
           | 
           | Just imagine what a gift this will be to law enforcement, for
           | example, once they can go to Apple all like "Hey, Siri, show
           | me all users of Tor Browser around the time of
           | ${BITCOIN_TRANSACTION_ID}".
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | ramesh31 wrote:
       | Am I the only one increasingly frustrated with macOS's naming
       | scheme? I have no idea what the latest version is. Ubuntu
       | versioning gets this right; you can parse their codenames
       | alphabetically to derive the semantic version. But Apple's
       | heuristic here seems to be "throw a dart at a map of California".
        
         | eknkc wrote:
         | Just use years. You are already releasing shit yearly. Name it
         | macOS 22.
         | 
         | These places mean nothing to me.
        
           | philistine wrote:
           | The strength of the California brand across the globe is
           | crazy good. It's all a bit of marketing.
        
         | vincent-manis wrote:
         | Future versions will be named Bakersfield, Weed, and Needles,
         | not to mention Oxnard?
        
         | duped wrote:
         | Ventura is MacOS 13.0.0.
        
         | tannhaeuser wrote:
         | Ah thx, was thinking about Lino Ventura so a place in Italy I
         | guess; could be worse eg Ponte Vecchio
        
         | Ruq wrote:
         | I just miss the Big Cat names.
        
         | ubercore wrote:
         | Hasn't it been this way the whole time? Why is your frustration
         | increasing?
        
           | guerrilla wrote:
           | Haven't you not been getting food this whole time? Why is
           | your frustration increasing?
        
             | russelldjimmy wrote:
             | Help me understand how being starved for food is analogous
             | to having OS version names that don't reflect the order of
             | OS releases.
        
               | guerrilla wrote:
               | The irritant becomes with as time goes on as long as its
               | present. More and more meaningless names to memorize...
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | itg wrote:
           | I imagine as the number of versions increase, there is more
           | tracking you have to do when someone doesn't explicitly
           | mention the version number.
        
             | saurik wrote:
             | That's definitely my issue: over the years, we have
             | accumulated more and more and more of these names. When
             | someone talks about iOS 4 or iOS 7 in some article I am
             | reading, I know what they are talking about and the extent
             | to which the version matters; but, when someone talks about
             | macOS Gaviota, I have to think "wait, was that the one that
             | just came out, or was that one of the ones I haven't had to
             | think about in a decade? oh shit... maybe it's the one that
             | got announced today and I just haven't heard the name
             | yet?!".
             | 
             | (That said, I will also note that frustration is not
             | inherently constant even when something is truly static:
             | sometimes you get used to something over time and it stops
             | bothering you, while other times it slowly drives you mad.)
        
         | jl6 wrote:
         | Ubuntu has both a codename and a version number. macOS has a
         | version number too (Ventura is 13) but Apple frustratingly
         | don't use it prominently.
        
           | jen20 wrote:
           | The version number and build number are on the "About this
           | Mac" screen and in the output of `sw_vers` - where else would
           | you like to see it used?
        
             | jl6 wrote:
             | In marketing material, such as here:
             | 
             | https://www.apple.com/uk/macos/macos-ventura-preview/
        
               | jen20 wrote:
               | I personally doubt you'll ever see that, though it's a
               | possibility since iOS uses version numbers.
        
           | rzzzt wrote:
           | Alliterating Antlion
        
         | giantrobot wrote:
         | It wasn't much better with big cats. There were two sort of
         | semantically related releases, Leopard/Snow Leopard and
         | Lion/Mountain Lion. Of those on the Leopard/Snow Leopard I
         | thought made sense as Snow Leopard was a "oh shit fix all the
         | bugs" release. SL was the first full OS release after the Intel
         | transition _and_ 64-bit kernel.
        
           | sharikous wrote:
           | Yes but it starts to be difficult to keep 18 names in the
           | head, be them cats or California places
        
           | bangonkeyboard wrote:
           | I can picture a big cat in my mind. That helped to peg OS X
           | releases and enabled me to mentally distinguish and order
           | them.
           | 
           | I can't picture "Monterey" or "Ventura" or any other macOS
           | names, they have no meaning to me.
        
             | Macha wrote:
             | Ventura has a meaning to me.... Ace Ventura, a cartoon from
             | my childhood about a egotistical questionably competent
             | detective.
             | 
             | I'm not sure that's the image Apple wants to give off
             | though...
        
               | rsfinn wrote:
               | "Ventura Highway, in the sunshine..." [0]
               | 
               | I may be dating myself somewhat here.
               | 
               | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventura_Highway
        
               | mixmastamyk wrote:
               | Sunny beach town, Spanish mission, etc.
        
               | philistine wrote:
        
             | themadturk wrote:
             | Big Sur, Monterey, Yosemite, El Capitan, Catalina... all
             | worked for me because I've either been there or there was a
             | screensaver/wallpaper to associate them with their locales.
             | I really don't know a thing about Ventura.
        
         | dagmx wrote:
         | The marketing names for macOS and OSX have always been random
         | other than having a general theme to it.
         | 
         | The OS in most cases just refers to itself by the number and is
         | what it will show in a lot of scenarios in addition to the
         | marketing name.
        
           | masklinn wrote:
           | > The marketing names for macOS and OSX have always been
           | random other than having a general theme to it.
           | 
           | Not _entirely_ true: two of the cats were name variations of
           | their predecessors to express an intent of limited end-user
           | / feature updates and a focus on refinement (even though
           | taxonomically the cats have basically no relationships
           | outside of being cats, mountain lions aren't even in the same
           | genus as lions)
        
             | dagmx wrote:
             | That's fair. In a similar vein, there was also Sierra and
             | High Sierra.
        
             | Tsiklon wrote:
             | In a sense they sort of did continue this style of
             | convention with Yosemite and El Capitan (the latter being
             | in the former), Sierra and High Sierra.
             | 
             | It's only in the last few releases that the dart board has
             | come out
        
               | rsfinn wrote:
               | Since they moved macOS off version 10.x (finally),
               | "Apple's crack marketing team" left the desert (Mojave)
               | for the Pacific coast. Unfortunately, they didn't plan
               | the trip carefully, so they started at Big Sur with macOS
               | 11, went north to Monterey for macOS 12, then turned
               | around and headed back south to Ventura for macOS 13. At
               | least those locations are in alphabetical order -- but
               | with Ventura they seem to have painted themselves into a
               | corner.
               | 
               | So will macOS 14 be further south (Carlsbad?) or back
               | north (Eureka?) -- stay tuned...
        
             | [deleted]
        
         | ksec wrote:
         | Yes. In Big Cat era, you could at least memorise those names
         | which have some meaning to nearly everyone around the world,
         | and it always had a version number.
         | 
         | Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" - 2010
         | 
         | Mac OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion" - 2012
         | 
         | Now it is only a name I guess only people in US / California
         | will know or understand. The same joke From Apple's "crack
         | marketing team" and played out by Craig Federighi for something
         | like 10 years[1].
         | 
         | But I guess that is post Steve Jobs's Apple for you.
         | 
         | [1] Just guessing since I remember they started using this line
         | after Forstall left.
        
           | muterad_murilax wrote:
           | Small correction:
           | 
           | Mac OS X 10.7 Lion was released in 2011.
           | 
           | Also, there's no "Mac" in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.
        
           | ntoskrnl wrote:
           | Let's go back to cats. Since macOS is becoming more and more
           | like iOS, we don't have to limit ourselves to big cats
           | anymore. Small cats are on the table too. There's gotta be at
           | least 100 cat breeds, that should last us a while.
        
         | ranman wrote:
         | _nodejs has joined the conversation_
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | sharikous wrote:
       | At least two other security changes:
       | 
       | - userspace filesystems: the nail on the coffin for kernel
       | extensions. Now we won't need to run in "reduced security" to use
       | FUSE and that was the last kernel extension that remained
       | popular. Probably kexts will be deprecated shortly - rapid
       | security response
       | 
       | - it seems also to include changes in Xprotect and mrt
        
         | dochtman wrote:
         | Very curious about userspace filesystems, would be awesome if
         | there's finally a fast solution for this that's well-supported
         | in the OS.
        
         | pxc wrote:
         | > the nail on the coffin for kernel extensions
         | 
         | The OpenZFS implementation on macOS also requires kernel
         | extensions, and I don't suppose it can easily be ported to FUSE
         | or that that would have desirable performance characteristics.
         | 
         | Special kernel extensions are also required to get some basic
         | functionality working on macOS these days, like disabling
         | pointer acceleration.
        
         | dagmx wrote:
         | Do you have any links on the userspace filesystems? There's a
         | few things I'd like to develop in that regard without getting
         | into kexts
        
           | sharikous wrote:
           | There is that: https://threedots.ovh/blog/2022/06/quick-look-
           | at-user-mode-f...
           | 
           | But userspace filesystems are already present in iOS so you
           | can find some reverse engineered info on that (e.g. in
           | Jonathan Levin's books)
        
             | dagmx wrote:
             | Thanks
        
       | jessriedel wrote:
       | Mostly off-topic: have Apple and Microsoft completely given up on
       | non-trivial changes to desktop operating systems? Will MacOS look
       | basically the same in 40 years? Or is the idea that everything
       | will be AR/VR by then and there is no use innovating in this
       | domain?
        
         | sys_64738 wrote:
         | If you look at independent developers working on the Mac OS,
         | you find it's pretty much dead. Only the name programs get
         | updated nowadays whereas everybody else has moved to
         | iPhone/iPad as that's where the money is. Open source still
         | chugs along though.
        
         | brundolf wrote:
         | Window management has continued to evolve in nontrivial ways,
         | imo. More fundamental interactions probably won't and probably
         | shouldn't change; those idioms are mature and deeply engrained
         | at this point. It would alienate swathes of users to rock such
         | an established boat.
        
           | philistine wrote:
           | Microsoft tried with Windows on their phones. Look where that
           | led them.
        
         | dagmx wrote:
         | I guess you'd need to set a goal post of what counts as
         | trivial?
         | 
         | Many of the things mentioned in the article aren't trivial.
         | They may be smaller in scope, but size (large / small) are
         | different than complexity.
         | 
         | You can take a look at what's new in Ventura
         | https://www.apple.com/macos/macos-ventura-preview/features/ but
         | that's not even getting into the under pinnings.
         | 
         | Similarly Microsoft made fairly significant changes to Windows
         | between 10 and 11, and several times to 10 within its life
         | cycle.
         | 
         | Unless you're talking purely visual design, in which case what
         | kind of changes would you expect without upending people's
         | workflow?
        
           | jessriedel wrote:
           | We have gotten so use to these trivial changes that our
           | expectations have renormalized. Desktop OSs are
           | asymptotically approaching a fixed point.
           | 
           | Examples of modest but non-trivial changes:
           | 
           | - eliminate the folder-file system (or at least make it
           | completely invisible to the user)
           | 
           | - remove UI distinction (but not necessarily the sandbox
           | distinction) between web apps and normal apps.
           | 
           | - seamless mobile-desktop integration, so the user views them
           | as just different form factors for accessing the same
           | resources.
           | 
           | (There are of course much more radical changes than these
           | that one could imagine.)
        
             | dagmx wrote:
             | I'm curious as to your background if you consider any of
             | the things mentioned in the articles as "trivial" changes.
             | Have you worked in systems development before?
             | 
             | I similarly question your definition of "modest". The first
             | one alone is incredibly radical, and has been tried several
             | times in the past but people keep asking for hierarchical
             | file systems. It's far from modest.
             | 
             | 1. How do you propose users organize things?
             | 
             | 2. Already exists today with electron and webview. What
             | would you propose an OS provide here? Many apps you use
             | today on macOS are web apps within a native context.
             | 
             | 3. This is already growing on macOS with features like
             | continuity handofd, universal control, being able to run
             | mobile apps on desktop, iCloud sync of projects etc.. Each
             | year they've clearly moved towards unifying things.
             | 
             | If these are what you consider modest though, I fear what
             | you consider radical without throwing out decades of
             | learned user interaction in the process
        
               | jessriedel wrote:
               | I'm not using "trivial" as a measure of ease of back-end
               | implementation, but rather of how it actually changes
               | user experience and productivity. There is no limit to
               | how hard it can become to implement trivial changes
               | behind the scenes; it would be silly to ignore or
               | downplay the ossification of desktop OS capability just
               | because software developers continue to expend more and
               | more effort to make smaller and smaller improvements.
               | 
               | My reading of your comment is that you aren't actually
               | interested in thinking about non-trivial changes here.
               | "Didn't you know people have tried eliminating folder
               | systems before? It's hard and hasn't succeeded yet" is
               | obvious and does not seriously engage with the
               | possibility. ("Didn't you know people have been
               | attempting to make stylus input work for decades without
               | success?") Likewise, the fact that web apps can be
               | disguised as native apps is not the same thing as
               | eliminating the distinction at the user level, and I
               | don't think you would have conflated these if you were
               | really interested in it.
               | 
               | So I don't think it will be productive to continue this
               | conversation.
        
               | dagmx wrote:
               | Again, that's why I'm delineating between scale and
               | complexity. Trivial implies complexity, but you seem to
               | keep going back to scale of the change.
               | 
               | Saying something is trivial, by definition, implies its a
               | simple change. Nothing mentioned so far is simple. None
               | of your suggestions were modest.
               | 
               | I understand you're using the word according to how you
               | think of it, but I'm trying to point out that you're
               | incorrect, and that many of the things you say are modest
               | are not so.
               | 
               | You're actively down playing the amount of work and it
               | either feels disingenuous to make your point, or divorced
               | from the reality of implementation.
        
         | loudermachine wrote:
         | Swap "everything will be AR/VR" to "everyone uses mobile as
         | primary devices" and I think it's a better guess. Or maybe
         | "everyone have at least two computer devices". I feel like the
         | goal is to have the most seamless experience between tablets,
         | smartphones and desktop, and impactful changes that don't work
         | towards that goal are just discarded.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | zmmmmm wrote:
       | Most concerning is Gatekeeper, as I do still routinely run into
       | scenarios where it harassess me about applications I am trying to
       | run and on the odd occasion I have to manually codesign things.
       | 
       | It will be _super_ annoying if this now starts making developer
       | 's life hell because it is nannying binaries they are building,
       | sharing or working with as part of their development work.
        
         | Wowfunhappy wrote:
         | You can completely disable Gatekeeper if it annoys you:
         | 
         | $ sudo spctl --master-disable
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | dagmx wrote:
         | If you're building, you can designate something as a developer
         | tool and gatekeeper will ignore it.
        
       | forgotmypw17 wrote:
       | Somewhere between Mountain Lion and High Sierra, it became
       | impossible to delete or even mark non-executable various annoying
       | built-in applications which I never use, e.g. iTunes.app and
       | Safari.app, which often open without me asking them to.
       | 
       | Does anyone know how to re-enable this functionality?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | kappuchino wrote:
       | Lets hope the open core project, namely the Open Core Legacy
       | Patcher[1] will revive some older models to run Ventura.
       | Personally, I'm running a 2014/15 Macbook Air 11" for 7 years
       | now[2] and with "Open Core Legacy" on Monterrey with no issues at
       | all.
       | 
       | [1] https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-
       | Patcher/MODELS.ht...
       | 
       | [2] Except the mainboard, display and shell everything else thats
       | modular (wifi card, ssd, battery and keyboard) was
       | replaced/repaired at some point.
        
         | ksec wrote:
         | May be off topic but this had me thinking.
         | 
         | Will Safari 16 be available on older macOS? Assuming Apple
         | doesn't break their tradition it should support two prior OS
         | release, Monterey and Big Sur.
         | 
         | While I could do without an OS update on my MacBook Pro 2015. (
         | I cant record a single useful feature from all the previous OS
         | update other than Universal Clipboard ) That means for MacBook
         | Pro 2015 Model users they will only have two more Safari
         | Update.
        
         | Synaesthesia wrote:
         | In pretty confident it will, the OCLP project has improved a
         | lot and is now very capable and stable. My MacBook Pro 2012
         | runs Monterey, and it's really fast and stable. Better than any
         | previous Mac OS in fact.
         | 
         | You can look on the Macrumors forum and Reddit to see if
         | they're already getting the betas to work.
         | 
         | https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-13-ventura-on-uns...
         | 
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/venturapatcher/
         | 
         | Edit: the OCLP team released an official statement, looks like
         | they're having quite a few challenges.
         | https://github.com/dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/issues/9...
        
       | captn3m0 wrote:
       | Do the new DNSSEC changes imply anything for local DNS overrides?
       | Would Apple refuse to block a site if DNSSEC is enabled and
       | PiHole returns a blocking response?
        
         | tptacek wrote:
         | Probably not. I haven't been able to dig into what they're
         | doing, but I watched the presentation about the feature, and
         | it's an opt-in API for applications. I'm not clear on this but
         | I have to assume that the macOS/iOS resolver code is still
         | leaning on your external recursor to do the DNSSEC validation
         | stuff (otherwise, it's going to generate _a lot_ of extra
         | lookup traffic), which means it's going to trust whatever your
         | PiHole tells it anyways.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | prpl wrote:
       | I'm sure quite a few MBP 2015 users are going to be a little sad
       | the end is near.
       | 
       | I loved that machine. I was able to skip the 2017 MBP and go to
       | 2019, but honestly I miss the smaller trackpad.
        
         | MrBuddyCasino wrote:
         | Still using the 2013 and 2015 MBPs here, had no reason to
         | upgrade. Love them to death, still no hardware issues
         | whatsoever except a new battery. I also prefer the smaller
         | trackpad. Guess its time to gift them to my parents.
         | 
         | Luckily, the M1/M2 is finally a worthy upgrade, after years of
         | keyboard issues and unwanted features.
        
         | brundolf wrote:
         | Will non-Ventura devices still get vulnerabilities patched, or
         | are they dead in the water?
        
           | samcat116 wrote:
           | Security updates are N-2 I believe (so current OS and last
           | two major versions).
        
           | crest wrote:
           | Apple has established a pattern of haphazardly offering
           | partial and late security updates for the two more releases
           | (e.g. Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura).
        
             | philistine wrote:
             | Looking from the outside, it sure does look like every
             | security patch is assessed on its difficulty to port to
             | older OSes, its severity, and its reach.
             | 
             | It can be maddening.
        
         | IndySun wrote:
         | Along with other comments, we have at least 10 fully working
         | mbp 2015s. Many with upgraded 2tb storage. All used for audio
         | work. Running 10.13 - 10.16. Little to no issues and I still
         | buy up any I find online. Absolutely fantastic machines.
        
         | samgranieri wrote:
         | I have a 2015 MBP, and still think this machine has legs to
         | last a bit longer. Maybe I'll put arch linux on it later on
        
           | sprkwd wrote:
           | It's what I'm gonna be doing!!
        
         | gernb wrote:
         | agreed the larger trackpad is a net minus. I get all kinds of
         | spurious input because of it sensing my palms
        
           | ksec wrote:
           | Butterfly Keyboard ( And arguably the new Magic Keyboard )
           | with little to no Key travel distance, along with Larger
           | Trackpad which create false positive input were two key minus
           | design features.
           | 
           | Unfortunately every time I pointed this out most of HN were
           | quick to answer this is an user issue and not a design flaw.
        
             | filoleg wrote:
             | I can see why most on HN (and actually outside of HN too)
             | would say a larger trackpad is great, so I think you might
             | indeed be in the minority opinion on this one. Even
             | mainstream reviewers tended to list it as a positive.
             | 
             | But butterfly keyboard had been pretty much universally
             | decried as a terrible mistake almost everywhere, including
             | HN.
        
               | ksec wrote:
               | >But butterfly keyboard had been pretty much universally
               | decried as a terrible mistake almost everywhere,
               | including HN.
               | 
               | That was certainly not the case until the reliability
               | problem got magnified in 2018. When the problem has been
               | there since 2016. Before that Butterfly was somehow the
               | holy grail for touch typist.
        
               | KerrAvon wrote:
               | I remember reactions being more mixed. I and others
               | always wanted more key travel, but I also knew people who
               | loved it.
        
               | oreilles wrote:
               | I don't believe it ever was the holy grail of touch
               | typist. First, it was incredibly loud, and most people
               | complained about it. The key travel distance was mostly
               | cited as a con, not a pro. And only then the reliablity
               | issues started to arise. But it didn't take 2018. This
               | article (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15496745)
               | made it to the top of HN in Oct 2017, but people had
               | already been complaining for months (See this article
               | from February
               | https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/some-2016-macbook-
               | pro-o...).
        
       | pram wrote:
       | The login items panel is such a good change, and also like 20
       | years overdue.
        
         | jessriedel wrote:
         | Yes, I have been baffled that it was always so difficult for
         | the user to manage what's auto-launched on start-up. So many
         | apps try to bury into start-up so they can keep collecting data
         | and lightly spamming the user.
         | 
         | Can anyone shed light on why it took so long? I had always
         | figured the non-existence of a login items panel was a
         | purposeful choice.
        
           | nvrspyx wrote:
           | It's actually been there for a long time. It's a separate tab
           | in "Users & Groups" pre-Ventura.
        
             | yurishimo wrote:
             | Apps aren't required to use that screen though. Some of
             | them will, but a lot of apps not in the App Store can and
             | do register themselves with launchd on their own.
             | 
             | Apple should be proactive and extract those items
             | automatically, but in practice, they don't.
        
             | mrtesthah wrote:
             | No, the "Login Items" panel that was previously under Users
             | & Groups did _not_ include Launch Agents or Launch Daemons.
             | 
             | Launch Daemons in particular are managed directly by
             | launchd and can have more sophisticated triggers including
             | periodic execution.
        
             | Etheryte wrote:
             | This view only includes actual apps that launch on startup,
             | it doesn't include agents, daemons etc. Many popular apps
             | have one, if not many, that the users are usually not even
             | aware of and can't turn off via the UI. To see what I mean,
             | try running `launchctl list | grep -v "com.apple"` as the
             | user you're logged in with. It will list jobs loaded into
             | launchctl not owned by Apple, and that isn't even the only
             | way to make things run at startup.
        
         | [deleted]
        
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