Slashdot Mirror
Apple To Require Sandboxing For Mac App Store Apps
mario_grgic writes "And so it begins: Apple will require that all Mac apps submitted to the Mac App store stick to strict sandboxing requirements. This means you must ask Apple for read or read/write entitlements for additional folders outside your Application Support folder before your app is approved. There are also restrictions on direct hardware access, communication to processes your app did not start, or even something simple as taking a screenshot. All that is needed after this to turn your Mac into an appliance is to only allow app installations from App Store."
You forgot a couple of answers:
- Who the f*ck cares, as long as it works.
- Why do you care, just don't use the Mac App Store, don't upgrade your OS to the version that locks you out, or don't use a Mac.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
You don't ask Apple for anything. You just declare what your application needs from OS to function.
Ever heard of Android? Works the same way.
This is very good practice for applications in the Mac App store. It's a huge security feature. Now, if Apple ever locks down the Mac to allow only applications from the Mac App Store (they won't), I'll give up Mac and go to Linux full-time (I use Macs for neuroimaging research and definitely don't have the applications/tools I use available through the Mac App Store; it would be nice to have a lot of them on a central repository though like Neurodebian {I virtualize that on my Macs}), but in the mean time I'll stick with my Macs. This is a wonderful security feature for applications given stamps of approval from Apple through the Mac App Store. Yes, there might be other security issues introduced through OS X issues but in general this is a positive step forward. Again, I'm not suggesting all applications should be sandboxed, I just think it is good practice for the ones distributed through the Mac App Store.
There's nothing wrong with the sandboxing model per se. It's probably the only way to make our computers more secure. That Apple is moving in that direction should not be surprising: they make idiot-ready software (also known as good software), and you can't really have security and idiot friendliness without a trusted 3rd party to sort out the nitty-gritty details.
It should also be unsurprising that Apple moves to an authoritarian model where it and it alone can act as the trusted 3rd party. Almost everything Apple does is to maximize clout and control over the product environment. Apple is a control freak: it's profitable and risky, it almost got them killed when the PC revolution happened.
I would much rather like to see a sandbox where multiple private companies publish application profiles and the consumer choice is maximized; that's a nice role for the AV companies to play, move from a blacklist to a whitelist model. Should such a company turn into Big Brother, limit the consumer choice and push it's own interests, the consumers can easily move to a different "security provider".
So a free Twitter app isn't allowed to take screenshots while I have my checkbook app open? I'm OK with that. Every one of those restrictions seem perfectly reasonable and good.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
How are they isolating developers? I develop on the Mac and constantly install development software all the time. Know how many development related bits I've had to install via AppStore? -- ONE -- The latest version of XCode after it went to public release.
The AppStore is for CONSUMERS, there will never be a full lockdown because forcing every software writer to release through the AppStore would kill OS X as a development platform. Even XCode requires a whole bevy of gnu utilities. OS X is a full fledged UNIX and as such, you'll always be able to do *Nixy things such as wget/curl a file, gunzip, configure and make.
What Apple does with their CoCoa Framework and native apps is up to them, but as long as they are a UNIX, they'll never have the ability to stop apps written in C, Java, Python, Bash, Perl, PHP or Ruby from doing whatever the hell they please.
The day they do, is the day OS X leaves the Unix fold and becomes something else. And if that happens, you can bet your sweet ass that Apple will be dead within 3 years.
You can install an application from anywhere. Apple is simply providing application writers a mechanism to help ensure user security (that you can also use in building non app-store apps), and a channel for people to get applications that they know will have less potential impact on the system if there's a security issue. If I get a computer for a grandparent and say "buy applications from here" then they are substantially better off and I can rest easier knowing it's less likely the system is compromised, even if any given application is compromised.
I would say what is restrictive is the notion that users should have to understand computers well enough to secure them. That is the real prison which we have forced millions to endure for years. A computer that people can use to a great desire without worrying about how to "maintain" it is liberation for 99% of computer users on the planet.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley