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AngryEssay

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  • #19
    chaos215bar2 said:
    Technically, this is still true, in some ways more than ever.

    The Files app is only a view into a corner of the filesystem reserved for user storage (and then, mostly just a way to access iCloud storage). And with System Integrity Protection on macOS, you don’t actually have write access to the system partition at all. Although you can at least configure SIP such that you’re able to write /System, any changes you make are just an overlay in the data partition and don’t actually touch the system partition.

    Not that either of these is necessarily a problem. The access you get is enough at this point to do just about anything you’d want (filesystem-wise, anyway; no breaking out of the walled garden), and the security benefits to protecting sensitive parts of the filesystem are immense.
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    I'm not convinced that hiding files from the user is the best way to secure them. Other platforms don't work this way, and it's hard to see why this approach is necessary. And even with the Files app, which is a step in the right direction, there are still some pretty significant limitations. But what really gets me is that this isn't a new issue - there was a long time when we didn't even have a Files app. Did people really not need to access their files during that time? Were they just not thinking about it? It seems unlikely. More likely, people just didn't have a choice. And that's what's frustrating - people should be able to use the device they purchased in the way that makes sense to them.
     
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