Saturday, January 11, 2020

macos - Mac: what permissions are granted for "allow the apps below to control your computer"?

I want to use an app from the mac app store (window tidy) but it wants me to give it control "over the computer". This setting is found under security & privacy > accessibility


This seems like a very big umbrella permission, and I can't seem to find out what this actually means in terms of what permissions it grants to apps.


What is the worst that can happen? Can it read my files? Can it make network calls to transfer my files, encrypted files, etc? Can it access contacts, and send emails as me?


I've looked online and this seems quite hard to answer. Does anyone know?


Thanks...


Update based on @teppic's comment below:


$ codesign -d --entitlements :- /Applications/Window\ Tidy.app
Executable=/Applications/Window Tidy.app/Contents/MacOS/Window Tidy




com.apple.application-identifier
34U5SFK3WS.com.lightpillar.Window-Tidy
com.apple.developer.team-identifier
34U5SFK3WS


Update 2


Continuing my curiosity, I installed the network monitoring tool Little Snitch to block and monitor outgoing communications. And in less than 1.5 hrs, Window Tidy (which is a simple app meant to resize windows) has reached out to connect over the network 3564 times. Definitely seems dangerous to have this app have access to read my files and control other apps...


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