Yes, which lead them quickly and without legal recourse forcing them to do so to provide opt out options.
Which is why I think it’s bad design and not bad intent here.
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What you’re describing is really not that different from Microsoft’s ideas behind Windows Vista (released 2007 and - as we all know - not the best OS version MS made).
From Wikipedia:
Microsoft’s primary stated objective with Windows Vista was to improve the state of security in the Windows operating system.[8] One common criticism of Windows XP and its predecessors was their commonly exploited security vulnerabilities and overall susceptibility to malware, viruses and buffer overflows. In light of this, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates announced in early 2002 a company-wide “Trustworthy Computing initiative”, which aimed to incorporate security into every aspect of software development at the company.[9]
Your trust in this company (yes, sorry to say, it’s still a company, and - to be honest - with some very nasty characteristics as well) is without limits it seems.
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The article has been picked up by many. Many. On Twitter by David Heinemeier Hansson (founder of Basecamp and Hey a.o.) for example. Nobody seems as enthusiastic/forgiving as the MPU-crowd though.
Is that the same Basecamp that signed up to help launch the Coalition for App Fairness to fight Apple’s app store policies? I look forward to their unbiased view of the situation 
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Oh, and Twitter never blows up in flames, following gut feeling over thinking, ever.
But as I said, this might get Apple to move and that’s a good thing. However, the ends do not justify the means.
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Not really. Given the embarrassment they suffered on Thursday it seems obvious that someone would be given the job of “make sure this doesn’t happen again” in any company.
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I’d rather trust Apple than Google (GMail, Google Docs,…).
That being said: Apple Gatekeeper is a good idea, but IMPROVE it. Make opt-out possible, re-enable blocking, make it encrypted…
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I agree with you but, personally, I would rather not trust any company worth more money than the GDP of most countries. Simply put, it is an awful lot of power with a laughable level of oversight.
For a long time, I was curious to see if Apple would move macOS closer to IOS or bring IOS closer to macOS. Now, it seems clear the direction they are headed. I am afraid that pretty soon people will have to start jail-breaking MacBooks and iMacs in order to install apps from developers that don’t want to be in the AppStore.
Given that Apple is reportedly going to go so far as letting you sign your own Linux kernel so you can boot it on an M1 system, it seems like they’re pretty committed to keeping the Mac much more open than iOS devices.
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I sure hope you are right about this.
A technical and much more balanced take on this, with good news:
https://blog.jacopo.io/en/post/apple-ocsp/
No, macOS does not send Apple a hash of your apps each time you run them.
The downtime generated by this debacle is a crucial issue and Apple should (and will certainly) take notice. But the grandiloquent tone of the original article was definitely off. Stallman and Doctorow quoted as authorities: red flag. 
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Both of them were, despite their knowledge, too much of a “zealot” for me. Not dismissing Stallmann’s contributions, but listening to him is…hard.
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And there we go. It took literally two business days for them to react. I’d like to see any of the other tech giants be as fast for anything.
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Nice summary on Ars Technica:
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This is by no means over. There are more issues starting to get attention with The release of Big Sur. This issue speaks to a design philosophy and a lack of transparency which is always a bad thing for privacy and security. We’ll see if they respond to letting their own apps bypass host based firewall and vpn services… Apple needs to get it together.
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Well, I think that it is a good idea to be transparent about privacy. And yes, I think that it is good that companies like Apple are being watched by us users, by organizations, by regulators. This is happening and that is a good thing. Checks and balances.
So far when using Apple devices I have been and still am confident how Apple is dealing with privacy. I personally have no issues with them lacking transparency when it comes down to privacy.
Every time when somebody crawls out of the woodwork I watch Apple closely. So far, and also with this “issue” I am fine how things are playing out. My Mac is my Mac. But I just do not like to defend it against all evil on my own. I am fine with and thankful for Gatekeeper. Yes, Apple did not have their best days late last week regarding notarization and what not… They will have to work on themselves, they will have to get better. I am confident in them getting better. And I am confident that there will be other issues anyway eventually.
If you use Windows, if you use Google, if you use Amazon devices, if you use Apple devices, you HAVE to trust those companies to some degree. If you don’t, you have to stop using those devices and services. I do trust some of the mentioned companies. I do not trust others of those mentioned. And so I made my personal decisions based on that trust or lack thereof.
There is only one alternative, if you are not able do trust a single one of that companies: go for an Android device, root it (!!!) and monitor it closely. Install Linux on a PC and monitor it closely. Do not use any cloud solution. Because that is the only real solution, if you want to take it to the extreme or if you want to be 100% sure.
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And functionally speaking, never download any apps beyond the stock system ones. 
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If you want to go deep down that route (there’s currently a relatively paranoid discussion on the subject on the Obsidian Discord), you would even do everything in separate VMs and monitor exactly what they do while maintaining completely different silos… you really need to be motivated.
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Apple has added some privacy protection language to the “Safely open apps on your Mac” support page. Articles in the tech press for the most part have moved on from some initial click bait headlines based on the Jeffrey Paul post, to “How to fix the bugs” type stories. And all but a fraction of a percent of Mac users, like us, are blissfully unaware that Apple even does some tracking.
The vast majority of Mac, and PC, users aren’t concerned about privacy. If they were Facebook wouldn’t have 2.7 billion users.
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