Top all-time · #287
Jeff Johnson
Personal blog · lapcatsoftware.comprogramminghardware
Jeff Johnson writes The Desolation of Blog, a personal blog at lapcatsoftware.com about programming and hardware. Since 2008, 169 different Hacker News readers have linked it 490 times, most often “Catalina is checking notarization of unsigned executables”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-29, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 4 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers cite Jeff Johnson's posts on macOS code signing, Gatekeeper, OCSP checks and Apple's privacy behaviour as sources. Three comments call specific posts good or thorough.
- Recommended for · 4 comments
- Called "very thorough and excellent" and "a good article" (twice), and "a serious stance" with "a lot of serious data and arguments".
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The résumé of Jeff Johnson, professional Mac and iOS developer.
Most-linked posts?
- Catalina is checking notarization of unsigned executables13 people · 13 mentions · first linked 2020-05-23
- Can't you just right click?11 people · 16 mentions · first linked 2020-08-19
- The myth and reality of Mac OS X Snow Leopard [2023]8 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2023-11-13
- macOS Ventura System Settings is bad6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2022-06-07
- Mac app launches slowed by malware scan (2024)5 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2024-02-15
- Apple Reneged on OCSP Privacy5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2022-06-13
- Apple re-enables Bluetooth on every OS update on purpose4 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2022-07-21
- Apple Developer ID OCSP4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-11-14
- Chrome exempts Google sites from user site data settings4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-10-07
- Safari Runs Disabled Extensions4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-01-26
What Hacker News says?
Right. The recent problem (in top-level OP, and that you were presumably experiencing) was not just first run, but the behavior explained at the GP link ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23281564 , HN thread for https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/catalina-executables.htm... ) is just about first-run, so the behavior explained at the GP link is not sufficient explanation for the recent problem, it's not talking…
Comment linking /articles/catalina-executables.html
on “macOS unable to open any non-Apple application”Submitted Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15 as a story · 1330 points
HN discussionOCSP is Online Certificate Status Protocol. The connection to ocsp.apple.com is checking the status of the certificate used to code sign the launching app. I wrote an article about this a couple weeks ago because of the temporary revocation of HP's signing cert for printer drivers on the Mac: https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/revocation.html
Comment linking /articles/revocation.html
on “macOS unable to open any non-Apple application”Submitted Chrome exempts Google sites from user site data settings as a story · 1320 points
HN discussionvia https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/catalina-executables.htm... , I've added an entry in my /etc/hosts to block requests to api.apple-cloudkit.com: 127.0.0.1 api.apple-cloudkit.com 127.0.0.1 *.api.apple-cloudkit.com
Comment linking /articles/catalina-executables.html
on “MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?”Submitted Can't you just right click? as a story · 1169 points
HN discussionThey asked me for a sysdiagnose when I complained about how crappy their new Finder disk icon looks on macOS 26. See this rant by Jeff Johnson, who called for a boycott on filing bugs with Apple a couple years back (I stuck to the boycott except for two obvious UI design issues in the latest OS because neither required repro steps (so why the sysdiagnose?)). https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2025/8/7.html Edit: ac…
Comment linking /articles/2025/8/7.html
on “Apple Photos app corrupts images”Submitted Google Chrome to remove detailed cookie and site data controls as a story · 962 points
HN discussion"You have to trust Apple", it's said. But I suspect that if you actually knew how much your Apple devices were phoning home to Cupertino, you wouldn't trust Apple anymore. Using Little Snitch (the kernel extension) was a real eye opener for me. Especially when I allowed Little Snitch to block all Apple processes (by disabling the built-in iCloud Services and macOS Services rule groups). This may be a good time to re…
Comment linking /articles/catalina-executables.html
on “Apple's apps bypass firewalls like LittleSnitch and LuLu on macOS Big Sur”Submitted Chrome again exempts Google from user site data settings as a story · 621 points
HN discussionTo your first point: I find it telling that your main concern with reducing Apple's monopoly power is that it would elevate Facebook's monopoly power. How about we design regulations that mitigate against monopoly power in all its forms? Then there would be viable alternatives to Facebook and all of the sudden their business model based on hostile tracking becomes completely unsustainable because there's meaningful…
Comment linking /articles/unsigned.html
on “EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved”Submitted Undocumented Catalina file access change as a story · 566 points
HN discussionSee my blog post "The myth and reality of Mac OS X Snow Leopard": https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2023/11/5.html TL;DR What people remember fondly is not Mac OS X 10.6.0, which was in fact very buggy, and buggier than 10.5.8, but rather later versions of Snow Leopard after almost 2 full years of bug fixes. See also "Snow Leopard bug deletes all user data": https://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyle/snow-leopard-b…
Comment linking /articles/2023/11/5.html
on “Apple needs a Snow Sequoia”Submitted Apple memory holed its broken promise for an OCSP opt-out as a story · 422 points
HN discussion> Phil Schiller Rings a bell. > Tim Cook asserted his control over the company, putting his own personnel in place, and now his authority is absolute. Even those few others who remain from the Jobs era, such as “Apple Fellow” Phil Schiller, are overridden by Cook https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2025/5/6.html by way of https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/05/23/apple-turnaround/
Comment linking /articles/2025/5/6.html
on “More on Apple's Trust-Eroding 'F1 the Movie' Wallet Ad”Submitted Disclosure: Another macOS privacy protections bypass as a story · 384 points
HN discussionmacOS Tahoe has declared war on app icons with distinctive shapes. No silhouettes. If your icon isn't a squircle, it will be shrunk to fit inside a default shape. The penalty box. https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2025/6/2.html The loss of icon silhouettes is a big step down in usability. Erases decades of design guidelines. https://pxlnv.com/blog/roundrect-dictator/ Frankly it's senseless. https://www.flarup.emai…
Comment linking /articles/2025/6/2.html
on “Icons in Menus Everywhere – Send Help”Submitted Catalina is checking notarization of unsigned executables as a story · 361 points
HN discussionEDIT: I didn't notice that this topic was about the DDG browser (which I didn't know existed) and responded assuming this was about the site/extension. For a browser, yes, a client-side solution is possible and probably preferable. Please check and upvote other comment trees. This makes sense to me and is not alarming. Getting favicons actually is difficult to do robustly; many applications and websites use Google's…
Comment linking /articles/duckduckgo.html
on “DuckDuckGo browser seemingly sends domains a user visits to DDG servers”Submitted Yet another macOS privacy protections bypass as a story · 320 points
HN discussion"The myth and reality of Mac OS X Snow Leopard" https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2023/11/5.html
Comment linking /articles/2023/11/5.html
on “What happened to Apple's legendary attention to detail?”Submitted Closing web browser windows doesn't close connections as a story · 276 points
HN discussionWe just need to make sure the browser suppliers are in total opposition to the surveillance capitalism and personalised advertising industry. So while Chrome is such a dominant browser? No. It’s not gonna happen. Google will keep writing “inadvertent errors” that exempt their own tracking cookies from user instructions to delete them. https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/chrome-google.html
Comment linking /articles/chrome-google.html
on “Cover Your Tracks”Submitted A problem worse than Zoom? as a story · 231 points
HN discussionI think that counts as a workaround and no longer works on Apple Silicon. But I haven't verified this myself. Would be interesting to hear from someone who knows. Edit: Here are the details. Looks like it's true that it simply won't run totally unsigned ARM code. But self-signing is allowed. For now. https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/unsigned.html
Comment linking /articles/unsigned.html
on “αcτµαlly pδrταblε εxεcµταblε”Submitted hdiutil is deprecated in macOS 27 Golden Gate as a story · 189 points
HN discussion> There is no information on how often the validation happens. I wrote a blog post about this. My analysis indicates that Developer ID OCSP responses were previously cached for 5 minutes, but Apple changed it to half a day after Thursday's outage, probably to reduce traffic: https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/ocsp.html
Comment linking /articles/ocsp.html
on “Does Apple really log every app you run? A technical look”Submitted Mac sandbox escape as a story · 188 points
HN discussion01 Jul 2026 10:19:45 UTC | Apple 'Hide My Email' vulnerability reveals peoples' real email addresses | https://www.404media.co/apple-hide-my-email-vulnerability-re... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48744606 02 Jul 2026 03:47:04 UTC | Apple 'Hide My Email' Vulnerability Reveals Peoples' Real Email Addresses | https://www.404media.co/apple-hide-my-email-vulnerability-re... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?i…
Comment linking /articles/2026/7/2.html
on “iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com”Submitted Xcode constantly phones home as a story · 185 points
HN discussion
