I don’t see how this makes anything better? Sending a global unique hash of the developer certificate in the clear still allows both Apple to keep a log and anyone the power to snoop. This is fundamentally busted. Apple should send ban lists to the user. blog.jacopo.io/en/post/apple-…
The developer certificate for, say, Signal the developer will still make it perfectly clear that you’re running Signal the app. Sending that in the clear, with a time stamp, with IP address tracing, leaks all sorts of metadata that can be combined with other data sources.
Further more, Apple has shown itself to be a bullying, vindictive operator of its platform powers. While you might think they used that power “for good” locking Facebook out of their own internal iOS apps by revoking their dev certificate, it’s an incredibly scary superpower.
Remember Apple fucking canceled the developer account of Epic over the Fortnite case! They threatened to ban all Unreal Engine games from the App Store. You really want them to have an unbreakable on-the-fly power to forbid your computer from running the software you installed?
So not only is this a privacy disaster, it’s also a monopoly disaster. I’m not disputing there can be security benefits, but if you have to hand over your privacy and your freedom to run apps on your own damn computer to get that protection, maybe it’s fair to want out?
No one should have a log of every application you run on your computer. No one should have the power to deny you the right to run the software you want on your computer. Justifying these abusive dictatorial powers with “because security” is the standard monopoly playbook.
Wrapping your power grabs in “because security” is not only the standard playbook of monopolists, but of all sorts of absolute rulers. Dissent from such an overreach (like Epic) is punished with banishment (bye bye Fortnite). Yet plenty people will cheer for The Strong Company.
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