[mschuster91]

> macOS comes pretty close to what I'd ideally want in an OS with regards to installation - independent packages that are certified/notarised, but I'd like to see the OS allow for user-specified authorities beyond just Apple.

It's easy to run unsigned binaries/app packages on macOS: right click on the .app, hold down Option, then click Open and confirm the warning.

[tmpX7dMeXU]

That is not a user-specified authority.

[TheNewsIsHere]

I would also like this option. I see why Apple finds it undesirable though. Software installation safeguards are a game of whack-a-mole with (e.g.) support scammers who ask grandma/Lee-in-accounting/Cindy-next-door to naively click through all the warnings.

The closest Apple comes to this capability is achieved via device Supervision and MDM, which might be comfortable for some of us here in this forum but obviously isn’t practical beyond more technical circles.

Baddies keep ruining all the fun for the rest of us.

[cm2187]

And being the only authority also happens to be conveniently aligned to their financial incentives.

[mschuster91]

> Baddies keep ruining all the fun for the rest of us.

IMHO the blame rather lies with our politicians who are unwilling to take the steps necessary to cut the baddies off from the Internet. Let's see just how fast India, Pakistan, Turkey and other scammer hotspots clean up their act when the US+EU threaten to cut them off from the Internet and SS7 unless the scam callcenters are closed down for good... the amount of corruption regularly exposed by scambaiters on Youtube is insane. Billions of dollars of damages each year [1] from that bullshit and our politicians don't. fucking. care.

[1] https://www.vibesofindia.com/fraudsters-in-india-cost-americ...

[resfirestar]

I’m more than a little skeptical that scams would be less of a problem if specific countries cracked down on large operations. For one thing it’s not clear how you’d ever get the whole world on board. Pressuring India is hard enough, try Myanmar, a place that doesn’t get along with the West at all and is already a hotspot for phone scams targeting Chinese speakers. And if centralized, relatively open operations overseas were no longer possible, it would likely become more like other types of fraud run by local gangs. So I’m all for pressuring India to crack down on scammers, but I don’t see how that would reduce the desire to tighten software controls on PCs.

[mschuster91]

> For one thing it’s not clear how you’d ever get the whole world on board.

You don't need the whole world. The Western world is enough - no Internet and phone service (both easily enforced by requiring providers to reject ASNs / phone country codes) means a lot of lost business for an affected country.

> Pressuring India is hard enough, try Myanmar, a place that doesn’t get along with the West at all and is already a hotspot for phone scams targeting Chinese speakers.

Honestly, that's China's problem to solve.

> So I’m all for pressuring India to crack down on scammers, but I don’t see how that would reduce the desire to tighten software controls on PCs.

When software vendors don't have to gate more and more features behind more and more obnoxious bullshit simply to whack-a-mole scammers, they won't.

[cto_of_antifa]

they probably don't do it because it's a bad solution.

[mschuster91]

Is it? I prefer to tackle problems at the source, and its crystal clear that overseas scammers are exploiting corrupt local law enforcement in conjunction with easy access to targets via the Internet and shady telephone providers.

[10000truths]

There is no Pareto optimal unicorn that provides both a democratized marketplace of software with low barriers to entry and an ironclad guarantee of security against compromise of personal user information. These two are fundamentally at odds. If anyone can produce and distribute software easily on a given platform, then so can people with malicious intent.

[gjsman-1000]

Or just run `sudo spctl --master-disable` one time; and it will change the allowed app sources to the invisible "Anywhere" option.