[astrange]

Pointer authentication isn’t in 3rd party processes though, only system ones. (or maybe it’s available but optional, I forget)

[my123]

> Pointer authentication isn’t in 3rd party processes though

Still isn’t, because the arm64e ABI isn’t stable. As such, any binaries not bundled with the OS, including Apple applications, use the arm64 ABI without pointer authentication.

You can use -arm64e_preview_abi as a boot argument to enable arm64e support for non-OS bundled processes.

Note that however the arm64e binaries that you compile might not work on future macOS releases.

[saagarjha]

System libraries are more than happy to use some parts of pointer authentication, such as return address signing.

[olliej]

System libraries use the full pointer authentication schema, because they’re updated as a whole with the entire system, so ABI changes don’t impact them (as much).