

Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux Apps access your Photos and Data too - rasengan
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2012/03/windows-mac-os-x-and-linux-applications-can-access-your-photos-contacts-and-data-too/

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jlawer
The whole concept of not trusting the applications you run is actually fairly
recent I would argue less then the past decade.

Early security was about not trusting other people, and thus passwords &
authentication was developed. Then with the rise of closed source off the
shelf apps and viruses came anti-virus software. But this was protecting you
against the distribution channel. As most malware at the time was purely
malware (although potentially infecting useful software).

The problem is now we have malware that is also the software your wanting to
run. While Sandboxing and such have been Computer Science concepts for decades
(so has pretty much everything "new") its only now becoming important enough
to consumers & business that it is being used. The initial implementations are
quite poor because they have to be backwards compatible with codebases that
are often decades old (Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Office, etc).

Security is really hard to do well, and almost impossible in a completely
backwards compatible way. iOS and Android will be the first platforms who are
able to fix this because they are less burdened by the weight of legacy
software. In a walled garden it is quiet easy to break compatibility and
demand a rebuild, as long as you don't piss the developers off too much and
make sure the change isn't TOO difficult you will generally get it done with a
bit of complaints.

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traderjoe83
This is why I only use open source software.

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rasengan
Even with OSS, to take trust out of the equation, one would have to review the
source and compile by one's self. But yeah, I agree totally.

