Oddbean new post about login | logout Let me play devils advocate here: App stores are necessary to protect users from rogue devs. Even though they are not 100% guarantee, they play a vital rol in regulating and ensuring devs cannot publish malicious apps in the store, thus helping users whom may not be tech savvy enough to detect them. Agree or disagree?
I worry for rogue app stores manipulating devs code in apps adding backdoors, etc.
It can go both ways, but isn’t easier to point and find rogue devs at a doxxed almost global store than a single dev living in God’s knows where?
Not worried about a dev at the app store. More that the whole app store can be compromised and under subpoena and or control of a malicious company. Apple could very well be injecting code into every app on their app store, and no one would know because its proprietary.. This is just hypothetical..
Ofc, just playing devils advocate here. In that sense, the whole App Store can be brought down and pay for its wrongdoings. My point is, they are doxxed and it’s a lot easier to pin point them. Unless as you said gov is involved, in that case is pretty easier for them to avoid the “justice” part. But even so, we are necessary for the majority of users; we protect them from malicious devs. Without us would be wild world, the ones who knows are safe, the ones who make the malicious software get the prize, the ones that fall for it are the suckers. We prevent the suckers to keep getting screwed; therefore we are good.
Well uncle Jobs never liked the idea of App stores because of malicious devs ensuring to publish malicious apps.
I guess he didn’t the idea of some folks deciding what goes and what doesn’t
I don’t see how they accomplish that, though they may have some rudimentary code auditing. App sandboxing seems to be a more effective means to that end. App stores and Linux repositories do seem to help prevent imposter software.
Guidelines, you either follow our guidelines or you’re out
Maybe so. I just figured that a truly rouge dev could insert a small back door that the App Store reviewers wouldn’t catch. But I can see your argument 🤙
the google app store IS the malicious thing🤪
Why tho? They’re just trying to save users from scams and back doors 🤔
most apps on there aren't even opensource most used social media apps are literally infiltrated by malicious three letter agencies all I'm saying is the vital role doesnt exist
Having worked Help Desk for a long, long time, I assure you that your experience is most likely not true for the overwhelming population of average users. The number of times the problem description started with "I just downloaded a free wallpaper..." is obscene. I never get these calls on cellphones, because the app store does stop the overwhelming majority of this malware.
to which of the three lines are you referring tho
The vital role. I believe, genuinely, that for the majority of users, it does serve a vital role.
Agree, though with the caveat that they are also able to bend the user base to their own special interests - or other special interests. The bigger they are, the more so. nostr:nevent1qqsypc4sqtjsm7whnzau353vdwvzepg37egn2j2g9t8km39lhl9xekspp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqzyqvw8tc7mmktwp2zadlqqr84csl2p4knk70tkexgutyckdqagtja7qcyqqqqqqggr98h9
I think in general I disagree with this. Just because there are too many instances to count where malicious apps have snuck into app stores. A large portion of the apps in app stores are closed source, so you can't really audit them if you want to. Not that, I guess, "normal" people audit the code of their apps all the time or even care. There's also plenty of instances due to the close source nature of a lot of the apps where they will change their code to be malicious after they've been approved to be in an app store. I know you've added a caveat saying that it's not 100% guaranteed that all the apps on an app store will be safe. I think the history that a lot of App Stores have had with letting in malicious applications on top of censorship concerns make me think that app stores are not a necessity but will probably also never go away entirely Due to the fact that they do make app curation and distribution easy for someone who's not tech savvy.