[mikeash]

If Apple rarely abuses their power and makes it easy for literally everyone who isn't making malware to obtain developer ID certificates, including people who build BitTorrent clients and Tor proxies and iOS jailbreak apps, then I agree.

However, I see no reason to give Apple the benefit of the doubt here. They have been abusive since the moment they first had the idea of restricting what their users could run on their own hardware. Given that history, I'll assume abuse until proven otherwise.

[quonn]

Transmission - a BitTorrent client - is already signed with a (free) Developer ID certificate and passes Gatekeeper just fine.

I will fil a Tor bug report, right now, requesting Gatekeeper support.

Let's see ... :)

[mikeash]

I'll be especially interested if jailbreak apps make the cut. I think that will be the real iron test of this system. Will Apple allow through a non-malware app that goes directly against them? I'm not going to bet either way on this one, but I hope someone makes them choose.

[quonn]

I'm also interested and have submitted a request to FireCore who provide a jailbreak for Apple TVs. Their bug tracker also indicates that they were considering signing recently.

I have not received feedback, yet, but will monitor this closely.

[mikeash]

Fantastic. Can't wait to see how it turns out, either way.

[wmf]

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple even issues certs to malware authors — and then uses the resulting signatures to more reliably target their blacklist (which is now updated every day).