I already did, you just split the relevant part out. You can do it on a PC and then push it out to the XBox.
and you can develop it there in XNA
XNA supports neither unmanaged languages nor DLR languages. In other words: "If your game allows the use of more than one controller, it must be written in C# if it is to gain any substantial audience." Do I understand you correctly?
Yes, for your *extreme* niche where you want local multiplayer on a TV but you don't want it on Wii or PS3 and you want it without an XBox devkit and for the people who don't want to hook their PC up to their TV there is only that solution.
However if your product is any good you shouldn't have any problems with people hooking a PC to a TV to play, or even playing on their monitors.
Never, because I am not stupid enough to run untrusted software on an OS that provides no protection against it.
And the people who are are also the people who turn UAC off because it's annoying, are you that out of touch?
The thing you fail to understand is that not being able to run untrusted applications is already the problem.
If you really need to run untrusted software then run it in a VM, problem solved, but most people don't have this problem.
Also ever looked around in the computing world? Viruses, malware and all that stuff is causing plenty of problems.
And this wouldn't prevent that because already users will grant an application whatever privileges it asks for.
And to repeat myself, as you happen to ignore that:
"I mean seriously, take whatever arguments you have for user privilege separation, do s/user/application/ and be done with it. It's the same thing really."
I didn't ignore that, i just know that already users are annoyed enough by user privileges, they won't use application privileges because it's even more annoying.
And so, once again, a continual failure to provide specifics, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
What most people refer to the backend is the whole OS at the base level.
.Net applications don't care about that, they only go as far back as the CLR, which should be obvious given that x86 and ARM are different architectures so the whole OS at the base level simply cannot be the same and that as far as a.Net application is concerned anything beneath the CLR is irrelevant. I'm sorry if the use of 'backend' confused you but you can see if you use your definition it clearly doesn't make sense in this context, anyway that's neither here nor there in this discussion, you know what im talking about now?
Most of the time it is C and it will vary depending on the hardware used. ARM and x86 instruction sets are not the same. I don't know anyone who considers CLR to be the backend. At best it's the middle layer.
From an application perspective it is, if you write a.Net application the CLR is as far back as you need to be concerned with.
i'm referring to the CLR in that any.net applications are going to run the same whether it's x86 or ARM, unlike WinMo.
Why would you think that?
Because it's their goal, they've stated they want the same experience whether it's ARM or x86 and obviously from a.Net perspective that shouldn't matter. What makes you think that can't work?
That's why there's a.NET Compact which has different functionality for mobile devices than the full.NET.
But this isn't going to be the Compat framework, it's the full.Net framework with an x86 CLR and an ARM CLR.
In any case the semantics are irrelevant, i'm fairly sure you understand what i'm talking about now, the fact is their goal is to have a CLR for x86 and ARM so with.Net applications running on the CLR and the platform beneath that is irrelevant. So as far as the application is concerned, as far back as it goes (the CLR) the system is the same and it's the GUI layer that may be different on different devices as opposed to WinMo where they tried to make it look similar to the desktop but in fact the system that the application interacted with was very different.
but yet again you fail to give specifics on the problem,
The problem is that you have to blindly trust your application and can't run an untrusted one. And if you don't consider that a problem, then well, I can't help you.
In the real world that isn't a problem, you keep saying it's a problem yet it's a problem no-one has, in fact even through this entire thread after asking multiple times you still haven't even said specifically when this has been a problem for you.
Of course not, because they don't run on the user's system, duh.
* web applications have no access to the users system unless the user explicitly uploads a file
Sounds kind of like exactly what I described. The only real difference is that my approach would run on a desktop computer in a chroot-like thing instead of a Google cloud server.
So the annoyances of web applications with none of the benefit, great idea you got there.
You seem to be having a great deal of difficulty that no-one else is having with applications accessing files, where is this specifically an issue for you?
Your mindset seems to be stuck in the Windows95 world where privilege separation is evil and everything needs to have access to everything.
Rubbish, i never said privilege separation is evil, in fact privilege separation is a good thing in what we have now with user access privileges, but yet again you fail to give specifics on the problem, because it's a problem no-one has.
My point was that none of these providers (as far as I can tell) offer this service out of the box - but they all collect location data out of the box.
Given that WP7 is the context of this story i would have thought that would be the first place you would look, and if you did look then you didn't look very hard.
Essentially, if at any point you create a reference to a file, you can use that action to give permission to access the file to the application.
And no person wants to do such a thing, people still allow applications to escalate privileges without understanding it because they can't be bothered with it and just want to run the program, your more cumbersome solution is just going to be more annoying, not more safe.
Cryptographic signatures and package management systems.
That flies in the face of your original 'no installation' idea.
Welcome to the future, we have Gigabytes of memory and Terabytes of storage, wouldn't hurt to waste a bit of that to make computer systems far more maintainable and better to understand.
Welcome to the future, hard drives are being replaced with SSDs, where the capacity isn't nearly as much simply because it is better technology.
Hardware is a hell of a lot cheaper then humans and we waste a shit load of time these days with maintaining computers.
And your 'solution' just creates more work, users do not want to control applications in such a way, they already struggle with the basics of privileges so your idea that provides no benefit will be utterly useless.
It's not flawed, it's pretty much how the whole web works and why WebApps are so damn popular.
Wrong, they are popular because that control is not something the user has to deal with because they simply do not want to. Your idea gives no benefit, just more work for the user when they want to do things.
You seem to be having a great deal of difficulty that no-one else is having with applications accessing files, where is this specifically an issue for you? You continue to generalize the issue as if a problem exists, but it simply doesn't.
Who thinks Apple will confirm or deny which cloud service, if any, will host iCloud?
If anything, Apple wouldn't.
Now, I can believe some Microsoft PR guy thought about it and came up with the idea of spreading a rumour that it would use Azure, precisely because Apple wouldn't say...
The bigger question is 'who cares?'. Apple has nothing that competes with Azure so why would this be an issue? WP7 is hardly competing with iOS on the iPhone, MS are barely a blip in the tablet space and Apple's revenues primarily come from iOS rather than the only product really in competition with MS which is OSX. It doesn't seem much like Microsoft and Apple are in much competition with eachother at all these days.
How can the backend be the same when they are running either ARM or x86 instruction sets, desktop and tablet hardware.
It depends on what you determine to be the backend, i'm referring to the CLR in that any.net applications are going to run the same whether it's x86 or ARM, unlike WinMo.
Yeah, and that information you can use to important the file into the applications namespace. So hard to understand?
You don't need to, it's quite fine the way it is, no-one seems to be having issues with it except for you. Having the user confirm imports of hundreds of project resources is just annoying and gives the user absolutely no benefit.
Nothing stops the OS from transitioning privileges from one version of a program to the next.
And this is done how? How does it know that the new application you've just installed is the same application as the old one? Are you that oblivious to computer security that you can't see what a security hole that would be in your idiotic system?
Applications having full access to all the users files. With the user having no way to see what the apps are doing, ways to limit it or ways to run an untrusted application.
How the hell are you having so much of a problem with this?! This isn't a problem, you don't need to know these and users don't want to go through limiting application access.
You obviously fail to grasp the concept.
Your lack of understanding of computing fundamentals just shows how flawed your 'concept' is, you're having problems with applications having access to files on your computer, that right there shows you're clearly too incompetent to use a computer effectively.
Can you tell me what each file on your computer does?
No, and no-one needs to, how fucking stupid are you to think anyone needs to know that?!
Where it belongs to?
It belongs where it is you idiot.
How it got there? How it was change over time? Even on a Linux box the package manager controls only a tiny subset of files.
Now your moronic concept has changed again, you won't know those things without an entire history of every single change made to every single file by every single application. Newsflash, no-one needs such a system that would be cumbersome, slow and eat up masses of memory.
The last I remember that they did this, they made Windows Mobile look like Windows but didn't really function the same.
This time it's the other way around, the backend is the same and it's just the presentation layer that can be different based on the device (whether it's a tablet or a desktop/laptop).
Umm. Yes, the phone company has to know where you are. Now please explain why the folks who made the phone need to know?
Probably because they are the ones you go to when you lose your phone and want to use their service to find it, pretty hard for them to do that if they don't know where it is hmmm?
He concluded that "the Windows Mobile operating system is clearly sending information that can lead to accurate location information of the mobile device regardless of whether the user allowed the Camera application to share location information or not."
Is he testing Windows Mobile or Windows Phone 7? I RTFA and the linked articles and can't seem to find the testing methodology or any documentation.
And wouldn't you want that accurate location information to be sent if you were using the Find My Phone thing (just like you would with Apple's Find My iPhone): Microsoft's "Find My Phone," meanwhile, only keeps the device's most recent location, the company said.
Of course you have to trust that the company is only keeping the most recent location but that's the case with all providers.
And how do you expect to get your references into the project in the first place? Magic? The very same mechanism that you use to add a reference to a project you can use to export it to the applications that need access to it. There is no need for applications to just randomly mess around with your whole HDD.
It's just a reference to a file location, nothing more. Your solution is idiotic because if you re-install and application or install a new version then every project you open you would have to manually confirm every single resource access, that's idiotic. The application loads a project and the project tells the application which files to load, which could be anything anywhere, like i said you clearly don't understand the concept.
Privileges are for separating users, they are not much good for separating applications.
Applications are already separated, you want fine-grained control over what an application can access, the fact is that broad control is annoying so fine-grained control would be utterly useless as it would be so unproductive that it would be turned off.
Yeah, the best way to fix security issues is by pretending they don't exist....
That doesn't answer the question, what security issues are you having that this would fix? I'm guessing none, your annoying solution offers no tangible benefit.
When done right it wouldn't be annoying, it would be a hell of a lot more comfortable.
Who's uncomfortable about using their computer? And it absolutely would be annoying because your suggestion that applications don't access anything outside of their own data is bullshit.
As your system could have a well defined state, not just random good luck that keeps it running.
Your system already has a well defined state you fool, do you have any idea how computer operating systems work?!
So because it has them that means they must have invented them? Well you know the samsung galaxy has icons, i guess that means they invented icons. Seriously have you not bothered to look at anything that came before the Lisa?
By drag&drop'ing the project folder onto the application.
What project folder? Do you actually have any idea what i'm referring to? There is no project folder! It's called 'references' it's a very very basic and fundamental concept that is apparently foreign to you, go look it up.
That's why we have folders or if that isn't enough, invent a few new concepts, such as "packs" or whatever that group multiple related files.
No, because i don't want a copy of every single resource for every single project, that's idiotic, hence why you reference resources.
They are giving you essentially no control.
Rubbish, privileges control whether an application can modify anything outside of userdata, what more control do you actually need? Where are these rogue applications that are destroying user data and are so prevalent that you need the user to start controlling access to every single resource? There simply is no need for this level of control and annoyance to the user.
For protecting the users own files there is essentially nothing to stop and application from messing with them.
Because you don't need to, applications doing such things just aren't a problem, you don't need to bubble wrap everything.
it doesn't help you answer something like "Who modified this file?".
Why do you need this?! How often are you having this problem? If it is occurring regularly then you're doing something wrong and the answer isn't over-regulation.
You don't have to. As said, most apps do never need wild access to anything other then their own stuff or files that the user requested
And i already told you that is a load of rubbish and you clearly don't know what you're talking about because pretty much all productivity software uses references in their project files and you don't want a copy of every resource bundled in every project. Moreover if you're doing something like scanning for resources to import into a library the user doesn't want to have to allow/disallow for every single thing, they will just turn such a stupid system off.
or if they do, they are malware to begin with.
No, that is just complete and utter crap and demonstrates a fundamental lack of experience.
And anyway, the point isn't even that every user should mess around with permissions, it's that the OS does give the user that type of control in the first place
Because you don't need it! If you give the user that control all it does is become annoying and people will just turn it off, if you are actually having this problem so much then you're doing something wrong. Why do you want this ability to lock the applications down? What is the problem you're having? Most users are going to find it annoying and just turn it off so what's the point?
I can already run unsigned code on any of half a dozen PCs or similar devices I have that are not the 360 and are FAR more powerful. This is interesting-ish in that it's a neat kind of hack, but really... why would I want to do this now?
You probably wouldn't, and they aren't saying you would or trying to market it to you or anything like that. Since when does publicizing hack yield questions like 'why would i want this'.
Most applications never ever need access to your HDD, all they need is access to their own data, configuration data and state data (savegames, etc.).
That's extremely short-sighted, just about any productivity application does need access to other files. How are you going to handle project files that reference many other additional files? Just about every productivity app does this, you don't embed everything in one file and the user doesn't manually load every single file. Your 'solution' just turns into a massive PITA.
None of those requires user intervention and can be completely handled by the OS in a sandbox.
How is the OS going to 'handle' this if there is no installation process it doesn't know what the applications files are.
They give the user almost no control and they give the application almost complete control.
No, they give the user just enough control to not end up bothering them with every little detail, I don't want to have to go through a privilege dialog every time the application wants to open an external file, no one does.
why would you need to understant mobile web sites when websites build a css custom version specifically for iOS?
yeah why would you need standards when web developers can just build custom versions for specific browsers, seemed to work great for IE6, it's so good it's still sticking around.
Slashdot Mirror
But almost nobody else will be able to play it. Please see my reply to Anonymous Coward.
I already did, you just split the relevant part out. You can do it on a PC and then push it out to the XBox.
and you can develop it there in XNA
XNA supports neither unmanaged languages nor DLR languages. In other words: "If your game allows the use of more than one controller, it must be written in C# if it is to gain any substantial audience." Do I understand you correctly?
Yes, for your *extreme* niche where you want local multiplayer on a TV but you don't want it on Wii or PS3 and you want it without an XBox devkit and for the people who don't want to hook their PC up to their TV there is only that solution.
However if your product is any good you shouldn't have any problems with people hooking a PC to a TV to play, or even playing on their monitors.
Fair enough
Never, because I am not stupid enough to run untrusted software on an OS that provides no protection against it.
And the people who are are also the people who turn UAC off because it's annoying, are you that out of touch?
The thing you fail to understand is that not being able to run untrusted applications is already the problem.
If you really need to run untrusted software then run it in a VM, problem solved, but most people don't have this problem.
Also ever looked around in the computing world? Viruses, malware and all that stuff is causing plenty of problems.
And this wouldn't prevent that because already users will grant an application whatever privileges it asks for.
And to repeat myself, as you happen to ignore that:
"I mean seriously, take whatever arguments you have for user privilege separation, do s/user/application/ and be done with it. It's the same thing really."
I didn't ignore that, i just know that already users are annoyed enough by user privileges, they won't use application privileges because it's even more annoying.
And so, once again, a continual failure to provide specifics, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
When an app deletes all your files, that's a problem.
And when has this ever happened to you?! What app did this?
When an application looks around all your files, that's a problem (plenty games do that).
Again, when has this ever happened? What issue did it cause?
See, a continual failure to provide specifics.
What most people refer to the backend is the whole OS at the base level.
.Net applications don't care about that, they only go as far back as the CLR, which should be obvious given that x86 and ARM are different architectures so the whole OS at the base level simply cannot be the same and that as far as a .Net application is concerned anything beneath the CLR is irrelevant. I'm sorry if the use of 'backend' confused you but you can see if you use your definition it clearly doesn't make sense in this context, anyway that's neither here nor there in this discussion, you know what im talking about now?
Most of the time it is C and it will vary depending on the hardware used. ARM and x86 instruction sets are not the same. I don't know anyone who considers CLR to be the backend. At best it's the middle layer.
From an application perspective it is, if you write a .Net application the CLR is as far back as you need to be concerned with.
i'm referring to the CLR in that any .net applications are going to run the same whether it's x86 or ARM, unlike WinMo.
Why would you think that?
Because it's their goal, they've stated they want the same experience whether it's ARM or x86 and obviously from a .Net perspective that shouldn't matter. What makes you think that can't work?
That's why there's a .NET Compact which has different functionality for mobile devices than the full .NET.
But this isn't going to be the Compat framework, it's the full .Net framework with an x86 CLR and an ARM CLR.
.Net applications running on the CLR and the platform beneath that is irrelevant. So as far as the application is concerned, as far back as it goes (the CLR) the system is the same and it's the GUI layer that may be different on different devices as opposed to WinMo where they tried to make it look similar to the desktop but in fact the system that the application interacted with was very different.
In any case the semantics are irrelevant, i'm fairly sure you understand what i'm talking about now, the fact is their goal is to have a CLR for x86 and ARM so with
but yet again you fail to give specifics on the problem,
The problem is that you have to blindly trust your application and can't run an untrusted one. And if you don't consider that a problem, then well, I can't help you.
In the real world that isn't a problem, you keep saying it's a problem yet it's a problem no-one has, in fact even through this entire thread after asking multiple times you still haven't even said specifically when this has been a problem for you.
In case you missed the point:
* web applications don't have to be installed
Of course not, because they don't run on the user's system, duh.
* web applications have no access to the users system unless the user explicitly uploads a file
Sounds kind of like exactly what I described. The only real difference is that my approach would run on a desktop computer in a chroot-like thing instead of a Google cloud server.
So the annoyances of web applications with none of the benefit, great idea you got there.
You seem to be having a great deal of difficulty that no-one else is having with applications accessing files, where is this specifically an issue for you?
Your mindset seems to be stuck in the Windows95 world where privilege separation is evil and everything needs to have access to everything.
Rubbish, i never said privilege separation is evil, in fact privilege separation is a good thing in what we have now with user access privileges, but yet again you fail to give specifics on the problem, because it's a problem no-one has.
My point was that none of these providers (as far as I can tell) offer this service out of the box - but they all collect location data out of the box.
Given that WP7 is the context of this story i would have thought that would be the first place you would look, and if you did look then you didn't look very hard.
Essentially, if at any point you create a reference to a file, you can use that action to give permission to access the file to the application.
And no person wants to do such a thing, people still allow applications to escalate privileges without understanding it because they can't be bothered with it and just want to run the program, your more cumbersome solution is just going to be more annoying, not more safe.
Cryptographic signatures and package management systems.
That flies in the face of your original 'no installation' idea.
Welcome to the future, we have Gigabytes of memory and Terabytes of storage, wouldn't hurt to waste a bit of that to make computer systems far more maintainable and better to understand.
Welcome to the future, hard drives are being replaced with SSDs, where the capacity isn't nearly as much simply because it is better technology.
Hardware is a hell of a lot cheaper then humans and we waste a shit load of time these days with maintaining computers.
And your 'solution' just creates more work, users do not want to control applications in such a way, they already struggle with the basics of privileges so your idea that provides no benefit will be utterly useless.
It's not flawed, it's pretty much how the whole web works and why WebApps are so damn popular.
Wrong, they are popular because that control is not something the user has to deal with because they simply do not want to. Your idea gives no benefit, just more work for the user when they want to do things.
You seem to be having a great deal of difficulty that no-one else is having with applications accessing files, where is this specifically an issue for you? You continue to generalize the issue as if a problem exists, but it simply doesn't.
Who thinks Apple will confirm or deny which cloud service, if any, will host iCloud?
If anything, Apple wouldn't.
Now, I can believe some Microsoft PR guy thought about it and came up with the idea of spreading a rumour that it would use Azure, precisely because Apple wouldn't say...
The bigger question is 'who cares?'. Apple has nothing that competes with Azure so why would this be an issue? WP7 is hardly competing with iOS on the iPhone, MS are barely a blip in the tablet space and Apple's revenues primarily come from iOS rather than the only product really in competition with MS which is OSX. It doesn't seem much like Microsoft and Apple are in much competition with eachother at all these days.
Because maybe my team wants to develop a video game with local multiplayer, but we don't qualify to develop for a Sony or Nintendo console.
You know you can do local multiplayer on a PC with no problems and you can develop it there in XNA and then run it on your xbox.
How can the backend be the same when they are running either ARM or x86 instruction sets, desktop and tablet hardware.
It depends on what you determine to be the backend, i'm referring to the CLR in that any .net applications are going to run the same whether it's x86 or ARM, unlike WinMo.
Hahaha how many mobile OS companies offer this service?
Why does that matter? If they offer that service then obviously they need that location, how hard is that to understand?
Yeah, and that information you can use to important the file into the applications namespace. So hard to understand?
You don't need to, it's quite fine the way it is, no-one seems to be having issues with it except for you. Having the user confirm imports of hundreds of project resources is just annoying and gives the user absolutely no benefit.
Nothing stops the OS from transitioning privileges from one version of a program to the next.
And this is done how? How does it know that the new application you've just installed is the same application as the old one? Are you that oblivious to computer security that you can't see what a security hole that would be in your idiotic system?
Applications having full access to all the users files. With the user having no way to see what the apps are doing, ways to limit it or ways to run an untrusted application.
How the hell are you having so much of a problem with this?! This isn't a problem, you don't need to know these and users don't want to go through limiting application access.
You obviously fail to grasp the concept.
Your lack of understanding of computing fundamentals just shows how flawed your 'concept' is, you're having problems with applications having access to files on your computer, that right there shows you're clearly too incompetent to use a computer effectively.
Can you tell me what each file on your computer does?
No, and no-one needs to, how fucking stupid are you to think anyone needs to know that?!
Where it belongs to?
It belongs where it is you idiot.
How it got there? How it was change over time? Even on a Linux box the package manager controls only a tiny subset of files.
Now your moronic concept has changed again, you won't know those things without an entire history of every single change made to every single file by every single application. Newsflash, no-one needs such a system that would be cumbersome, slow and eat up masses of memory.
The last I remember that they did this, they made Windows Mobile look like Windows but didn't really function the same.
This time it's the other way around, the backend is the same and it's just the presentation layer that can be different based on the device (whether it's a tablet or a desktop/laptop).
Umm. Yes, the phone company has to know where you are. Now please explain why the folks who made the phone need to know?
Probably because they are the ones you go to when you lose your phone and want to use their service to find it, pretty hard for them to do that if they don't know where it is hmmm?
He concluded that "the Windows Mobile operating system is clearly sending information that can lead to accurate location information of the mobile device regardless of whether the user allowed the Camera application to share location information or not."
Is he testing Windows Mobile or Windows Phone 7? I RTFA and the linked articles and can't seem to find the testing methodology or any documentation.
And wouldn't you want that accurate location information to be sent if you were using the Find My Phone thing (just like you would with Apple's Find My iPhone):
Microsoft's "Find My Phone," meanwhile, only keeps the device's most recent location, the company said.
Of course you have to trust that the company is only keeping the most recent location but that's the case with all providers.
And how do you expect to get your references into the project in the first place? Magic? The very same mechanism that you use to add a reference to a project you can use to export it to the applications that need access to it. There is no need for applications to just randomly mess around with your whole HDD.
It's just a reference to a file location, nothing more. Your solution is idiotic because if you re-install and application or install a new version then every project you open you would have to manually confirm every single resource access, that's idiotic. The application loads a project and the project tells the application which files to load, which could be anything anywhere, like i said you clearly don't understand the concept.
Privileges are for separating users, they are not much good for separating applications.
Applications are already separated, you want fine-grained control over what an application can access, the fact is that broad control is annoying so fine-grained control would be utterly useless as it would be so unproductive that it would be turned off.
Yeah, the best way to fix security issues is by pretending they don't exist....
That doesn't answer the question, what security issues are you having that this would fix? I'm guessing none, your annoying solution offers no tangible benefit.
When done right it wouldn't be annoying, it would be a hell of a lot more comfortable.
Who's uncomfortable about using their computer? And it absolutely would be annoying because your suggestion that applications don't access anything outside of their own data is bullshit.
As your system could have a well defined state, not just random good luck that keeps it running.
Your system already has a well defined state you fool, do you have any idea how computer operating systems work?!
So what do I buy if I want both control and local multiplayer?
Buy both, not sure why you need control and local multiplayer at the same time on the same platform.
Just looking at the Apple Lisa article on Wikipedia, I find plenty examples of rounded corners in both the GUI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apple_Lisa_Office_System_3.1.png And the design of the machine itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apple_Lisa.jpg
So because it has them that means they must have invented them? Well you know the samsung galaxy has icons, i guess that means they invented icons. Seriously have you not bothered to look at anything that came before the Lisa?
By drag&drop'ing the project folder onto the application.
What project folder? Do you actually have any idea what i'm referring to? There is no project folder! It's called 'references' it's a very very basic and fundamental concept that is apparently foreign to you, go look it up.
That's why we have folders or if that isn't enough, invent a few new concepts, such as "packs" or whatever that group multiple related files.
No, because i don't want a copy of every single resource for every single project, that's idiotic, hence why you reference resources.
They are giving you essentially no control.
Rubbish, privileges control whether an application can modify anything outside of userdata, what more control do you actually need? Where are these rogue applications that are destroying user data and are so prevalent that you need the user to start controlling access to every single resource? There simply is no need for this level of control and annoyance to the user.
For protecting the users own files there is essentially nothing to stop and application from messing with them.
Because you don't need to, applications doing such things just aren't a problem, you don't need to bubble wrap everything.
it doesn't help you answer something like "Who modified this file?".
Why do you need this?! How often are you having this problem? If it is occurring regularly then you're doing something wrong and the answer isn't over-regulation.
You don't have to. As said, most apps do never need wild access to anything other then their own stuff or files that the user requested
And i already told you that is a load of rubbish and you clearly don't know what you're talking about because pretty much all productivity software uses references in their project files and you don't want a copy of every resource bundled in every project. Moreover if you're doing something like scanning for resources to import into a library the user doesn't want to have to allow/disallow for every single thing, they will just turn such a stupid system off.
or if they do, they are malware to begin with.
No, that is just complete and utter crap and demonstrates a fundamental lack of experience.
And anyway, the point isn't even that every user should mess around with permissions, it's that the OS does give the user that type of control in the first place
Because you don't need it! If you give the user that control all it does is become annoying and people will just turn it off, if you are actually having this problem so much then you're doing something wrong. Why do you want this ability to lock the applications down? What is the problem you're having? Most users are going to find it annoying and just turn it off so what's the point?
I refuse to buy devices where the mfg intentionally locks me out of running code I want on a device that I own.
That's the great thing about choice.
I don't get why so many other people don't seem to mind giving up control over their own systems.
Because most people don't need that level of control and in fact that level of control just becomes a burden.
It's a war only one side is fighting.
It's not a war, it's a difference of opinion, if you want control get yourself a Nexus and a PC if not then you can opt for an iphone and an xbox.
I can already run unsigned code on any of half a dozen PCs or similar devices I have that are not the 360 and are FAR more powerful. This is interesting-ish in that it's a neat kind of hack, but really... why would I want to do this now?
You probably wouldn't, and they aren't saying you would or trying to market it to you or anything like that. Since when does publicizing hack yield questions like 'why would i want this'.
Most applications never ever need access to your HDD, all they need is access to their own data, configuration data and state data (savegames, etc.).
That's extremely short-sighted, just about any productivity application does need access to other files. How are you going to handle project files that reference many other additional files? Just about every productivity app does this, you don't embed everything in one file and the user doesn't manually load every single file. Your 'solution' just turns into a massive PITA.
None of those requires user intervention and can be completely handled by the OS in a sandbox.
How is the OS going to 'handle' this if there is no installation process it doesn't know what the applications files are.
They give the user almost no control and they give the application almost complete control.
No, they give the user just enough control to not end up bothering them with every little detail, I don't want to have to go through a privilege dialog every time the application wants to open an external file, no one does.
why would you need to understant mobile web sites when websites build a css custom version specifically for iOS?
yeah why would you need standards when web developers can just build custom versions for specific browsers, seemed to work great for IE6, it's so good it's still sticking around.