Who likes to enter root password into random forms?

Hello ilya,

It isn't OS X that is making that request, but your 3rd party software. The only way to find out what the software actually does would be to review the source code. You could ask the developer what it does and any responsible developer will tell you. OS X does log authorizations, but it doesn't provide much detail.

Your best option would be to stick to software downloaded from the Mac App Store. It is forbidden from ever asking for administrator privileges. The next best option is to always deny any request for administrator privileges. Any software that asks for administrator privileges to install will never have to ask again, be very wary of that.

When in doubt, you can always ask us what random software you are talking about and specifically where you downloaded it. We can give you a good idea of how responsible said developer is. There are many very useful 3rd party software programs that may ask for administrator privileges to either run or install. Most are not malicious. Unfortunately, the more malicious the software, the less suspicious people tend to be about it.

Hello again ilya,

No, it is the app that asks for permissions. It is not a trivial procedure. An app wouldn't do that unless it really needed to do something major. This is not something that would happen as a result of not having write permissions. That would just be a random crash or lockup.

Generally, nothing within any hidden folder should ever get incorrect permissions. Probably the only way that would ever happen is through user error. If the folder is hidden, it is hidden for a reason. People often post instructions on how to make those folders visible and how to go in and muck around with files, but that should always be considered a last resort. Permissions issues are almost always caused by user error so user hacks are unlikely to be long-term solutions.

You make a good point about social engineering attacks. People will generally do what the software tells them to do. That is why there is an epidemic of adware right now. But if Apple locked things down like on iOS, people would cry bloody murder. And Apple has little incentive to do that when it has already solved the problem if users stick to apps downloaded from the Mac App Store. If people download and install system modifications that have root privileges, they are sometimes just going to make their machines crash and slow down, likely resulting in the premature purchase of a new machine.

Do you have specific examples of such requests to elevate user permissions? Normally it is good practice to run with standard permissions and only ask for more if absolutely necessary. As a general rule, ordinary apps shouldn't ever be doing that. Certain Apple utilities like system preferences will do that sometimes. Some 3rd party utilities may do that if they are doing some funky system hacks. But it really shouldn't be a source of massive frustration.

Correct me if I am wrong, it's not the app that pops up the dialog asking for admin cred but the OS. As I understand it, the sequence of events leading up to the dialog being displayed goes like this. The instruction within the app says, "open and write to file X." It's a system call. The OS tries to access it with the app's permissions. If the app doesn't have write permissions for X, the OS pops the standard dialog asking for admin credentials.

Consider yourself corrected.

If you ask the operating system to access a file that you do not have access to, it will return an error.

The operating system will NEVER ask for permission on behave of a file access that failed.

The application that wants access to a restricted file or directory has to ask for that permission and run the privileged access in a sub-process that has been given elevated privileges.

My day job is developing file systems (Unix/Linux/Windows) and no file system I have ever worked with will ever prompted the user before giving access to a file or directory. It will ALWAYS return an error and it is the job of the application to deal with it.

Hello again ilya,

The Finder is not "some random app". It is part of the operating system. A user-initiated file move is a (in general terms) safe operation. You initiated the action and you know why the dialog appears. Why some of your files have restricted permissions is a different issue.

Dear BobHarris, what you consider the OS is probably different from what I mean in this context. What I mean when I say OS here is something other than the the 3rd party app. I agree that it's not the Linux that's under the hood popping the dialog. It's whatever GUI layer that operates between the graphical apps and Linux. Fore example maybe SystemUIServer process or whatever...

But I'm someone that actually works on operating system file systems (for other Unix platforms), so the OS to me is very specific.

And you said

it's not the app that pops up the dialog asking for admin cred but the OS.

The "Finder" is just another application. It can even be replaced. For example: "Path Finder"

http://www.cocoatech.com/pathfinder/

That is not a recommendation, it is just my trying to show that "Finder" is just another application, and that the Finder "IS" the application that pops up the dialog asking for admin cred, and NOT the Operating System.

Bottom line, is that applications have to ask for permission, the operating system will NOT make the request behind the application's back. If the application does not ask, the application will not get additional permissions.

BTW, is this support community correct one to ask this question? Is there one whose topic is closer related? I couldn't find one that is security/privacy related...

This is not a bad forum for your question. The other possibility would be the Mavericks forum

OS X Mavericks

Hello again ilya,

The operating system displays this dialog to give you the option to provide the password, or deny it. You can always click "Cancel". One part of this that is definitely confusing is that the name of the application isn't what you think it is. Apple recently changed the interface for requesting administrator privileges. An applications needs to start a helper application that will ask for privileges. In this case, PathFinder's helper application is named "Authenticated Copy/Move". The only way you can tell it is PathFinder is due to the icon on the padlock. In the earlier example, this was the icon for Finder. PathFinder could have named its helper app better. And Apple could have updated Finder to use the same logic that it forces 3rd party developers to use.

Obviously, in this case, you are using PathFinder to perform some Finder-type operation. If PathFinder or Ableton Live (whatever that is) ever pops up a similar dialog that is not associated with an action you made that would obviously require administrator privileges, then you should deny it. At a certain level though, you are trusting the 3rd party developer to use those administrator privileges to do only that action you have requested that requires those privileges.

If you don't like that dialog, then click the "Cancel" button and uninstall any app that presents said dialog. You may have to use the icon on the padlock to identify which app it is.

It is impossible for all these application developers to agree on this one thing and only it -- to display a consistent dialog when asking for admin creds. The dialog must be displayed by some process belonging to Os X.

Mac OS X provides GUI frameworks (libraries) of services that applications can use. Asking for elevated permissions is just a library call.

Again, the application decided to call the library, the operating system did not make that decision for the application.

You will notice that most applications have the same open/save file dialog boxes, the same color picker dialogs, the same font selection/font size dialogs, etc... All library calls that the application decides to make. There are lots of library calls that applications can use. But it is ALWAYS a choice of the application to use them.

And again, I'm going back to the fact that when you are asked to provide approval to access restricted files, it is the application making that request.

If anything, I would be more concerned why you have to give permissions so much to access files. I rarely need to do that. Most of the time I'm entering permissions to install new software, not to copy files.

Who likes to enter root password into random forms?

You lead the discussion with your title, which is mostly what we have been keying off of.

How can a security conscious/paranoid mac user find out what restricted resource the app is attempting to access? How can he find out what exactly he is asked to authorize. Does OS X log requests for restricted files by underprivileged users?

Yes you did ask the other question, and the answer is that unless the application asking for elevated permissions tells you, you do not know what files they intend to change.

The elevated privilege request if blanket coverage for any privileged operation the application would like to perform.

If the app is not going to tell you enough to satisfy what you want to know, then click "Cancel" and do not allow the operation.

It maybe possible after the fact to see changes in a log file If and ONLY If the app decided to log what it changed, such as some standard installers that will write a list of files they installed. But that is after the fact, not before.