By Dan Moren

Secretive helps you keep your SSH keys secret, keep them safe

Way back in January I noted that one of the features that had kept me from using Passwords as my only password management app was its inability to manage SSH keys, a feature offered by competitor 1Password. What I liked about 1Password’s approach was that it abstracted this feature, letting me authenticate my keys using macOS’s built-in authorization system. So instead of typing in a passphrase for that key, I could just use Touch ID or type my 1Password password. This still seems to me like the kind of thing that Passwords should offer, and I still hope that it might in the future.¹

In the meantime, I’ve recently turned to Secretive, an open-source tool by Max Goedjen and others that allows you to store your SSH keys inside your Mac’s Secure Enclave. Doing so means that your keys can’t be exported and are protected by the same level of security as your system’s most sensitive data. In addition to ECDSA-256 keys, running Secretive on macOS Tahoe and later lets you create post-quantum keys using the MLDSA-65 and MLDSA-87 algorithms. If you don’t know what any of that means, don’t worry about it—you’re fine.

Using Secretive still requires some technical know-how. You’re going to have to edit some configuration files and, if you’re using the keys to log in to remote servers, install them yourself. There are instructions for much of this both in the app and online. Other apps can work with Secretive too, assuming the developers have built in support: right now, it’s mainly targeted at developer tools like git and GitHub, as well as secure file transfer clients like Transmit and Cyberduck.

The one major downside of this system is that since the private keys are stored in the Secure Enclave, they cannot be backed up or transferred elsewhere. That’s more secure, but it’s more inconvenient as well; if your Mac gets hosed, or you migrate to a new device, you’ll have to recreate your keys all over again. It also means that if you maintain SSH keys on multiple Macs, you have to set up Secretive on all of them. That’s another reason that I’d like to see Apple find a way to abstract this process further via the Passwords app, if it can figure out a safe and secure way to do so—not to mention, potentially making it available on iOS as well. Like passkeys, ssh keys offer more security and less reliance on passwords.

Secretive’s not for everybody, but there are certainly a subset of users who will be very interested in the security it offers. But until such a time as Apple makes this process part and parcel of its operating system, I’ll be relying on Secretive to help me manage it.

[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His next novel, the sci-fi adventure Eternity's Tomb, will be released in November 2026.]

By Dan Moren

Apple is changing Full Disk Access in macOS

In a post on Apple’s Developer News site, the company says it will be updating the Full Disk Access permissions:

Going forward, we will introduce additional controls to ensure that users who genuinely wish to grant an app this extraordinary level of access can only do so with very explicit user action. Addressing this is critical. As AI agents become increasingly capable and autonomous, the risks associated with this level of access will grow substantially.

Nick Heer has a detailed analysis of this announcements, though, as he points out, it’s impossible to make any conclusive judgments as we don’t yet know exactly what these “additional controls” will look like. But the reactions from some developers whose apps rely on this permission were wary, at best.

Security and convenience are a tough line to walk, there’s no question. The competing models of macOS and iOS take very different approaches to the idea of, oh, let’s call it “messing around and finding out.” Even giving an app access to every single permission on iOS—unwise as it might be—can’t touch certain parts of the system; that’s not true on the Mac. But, on the flip side, it unlocks a possibilities for apps on your Mac that simply aren’t possible on the iPhone.

Specifically, as Apple calls out here, AI agents. The AI agents that you can use on your phone can get access to information that you granularly share with them, but there are limits. An AI agent will Full Disk Access to your Mac is capable of much more. If I can draw an imperfect analogy, it’s akin to giving the agent power of attorney to act autonomously on your behalf, without your full knowledge. At least until after the fact.

But there are plenty of legit uses for Full Disk Access. Just looking at my MacBook Air this morning, I’ve given that permission to three apps¹: Terminal, BBEdit, and SuperDuper. All apps that I trust with that level of power because of their long history and because in order to do what they do best (or at all), they need that access.² (Interestingly, on my Mac mini, that list also includes SpamSieve, KnockKnock, and Shortcuts—though not BBEdit, for whatever reason.)

As Nick explains, this move was likely a response to Jason Aten’s recent story in Inc. about Meta’s Muse having access to his Messages, despite supposedly not permitting it.³ But it’s also a recognition that this is going to become more and more of an issue as AI agents become more commonplace, and no doubt ask for Full Disk Access, because these kind of apps want as much power and information as you will give them, and it’s far more efficient for them if they can just ask for disk access than enumerating all the individual data stores. Especially, in an era where we’re besieged by permission dialogs.

I don’t think Apple has done the best job with its permissions user experience—it surely could be improved. But I also have to admit that my own behavior has changed over time as Apple has instituted more and more granular controls. Perhaps it was simply the callowness of youth, but I was once far more willing to grant permissions to apps I installed⁴—these days, I find myself scrutinizing them more and more: Why do you need Bluetooth access, app? What devices on my local network are you really accessing? My default is to not allow things, unless I have a very clear understanding of why the app is requesting them—and, in the cases where I am overly cautious and impeded an app’s functionality, going and turning on permission I disabled.

But I also realize that I’m hardly the average user. I think there is a good argument for protecting Full Disk Access further, but there’s also only so much you can do to protect a user from themselves. Ultimately, this is a cat-and-mouse game, and while I don’t want my data purloined or misused, I also don’t want my computer locked down to the point that I can’t use it for all the things I want to do.

[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His next novel, the sci-fi adventure Eternity's Tomb, will be released in November 2026.]

By Glenn Fleishman

Silencing AirTags enables stalkers and domestic violence

ElevationLab has released an AirTag product I find appalling, and I strongly urge they immediately withdraw it from sale and recall all inventory. The AirTag Silencer is a simple device: remove the back panel and battery from an AirTag, position the Silencer’s highly engineered pin over the speaker, tap the pin with a hammer, and the AirTag’s speaker is destroyed. This prevents it from emitting an alert in three circumstances, only one of which is triggered by an owner. The other two scenarios aid stalkers and perpetrators of domestic violence, among others. I will not link to it.

Disabling an AirTag speaker is a way for an unwanted party to more easily track someone without their knowledge and consent. Apple designed the AirTag to alert people when an unknown tracker was moving with them (via software), or when a tracker moved or was bumped (via a sound) after remaining in a location for a period of time. The latter case is critical, as Find My items have been found in purses, luggage, vehicles, and other things that move, left there either provably or putatively by a party attempting to track someone otherwise unaware they’re under remote observation.

You can find sites selling AirTags with the speaker disabled all over the Internet, as well as instructions to do so, and some even state outright that the action helps with unwanted tracking. ElevationLab’s AirTag Silencer is certainly the only mainstream device that performs this task with the exacting design one has come to expect from the company since the introduction of their 2012 iPhone dock—now with the proviso of “unfortunately.”

I’ll take ElevationLab at their word that they intend this for use with, as the product description states, “Anything you wouldn’t want the speaker tipping off a thief. (We originally designed this for our own bikes that have been stolen).” This also guided their 5-year and 10-year AirTag cases, which can be secreted in a hard-to-remove location deep within something expensive.

It is true that the “moving with you” and audio alerts make an AirTag and similar items less ideal for recovering stolen items than for finding lost ones, tracking luggage in transit—or being alerted that you left something behind.

Eva Galperin, Director of Cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was blunter than I. “Honestly, this is just another example of the mindset that things are more important than people,” she said via email. “There is a reason why the AirTag makes that noise, and it is because you cannot make a tracker that does not alert a thief without also making a person a tool for stalking. I think these people have, in fact, considered the implications and decided that they don’t care.”

I posed the question of potential misuse to Casey Hopkins, ElevationLab’s CEO. He replied via email, “We make products we want for ourselves. And we’ve had expensive bikes and other gear stolen and then recovered using AirTags. We have also silenced our own AirTags on those items using DIY methods available online and on YouTube. If someone is determined enough, they could already silence it themselves, but the person would still get phone notifications. With roughly 200 million AirTags in use, extreme edge cases will make news, but the overwhelming number of people just want to track their own gear.”

I see his point, but I don’t accept it, as the viewpoint is either naive or uninformed about the scale of abusive tracking. Yes, AirTags are used mostly for good purposes—my family must own 20 Find My items at this point—but there’s a difference between what a product might be used for and making a tool that expedites bad behavior, disabling both a component and a strategy created by Apple. Making it easy to remove the speaker also makes it simpler to engage in consent-free tracking—there are no two ways around it.

Silent tracking

Apple’s Find My items and Google’s Find Hub trackers securely relay a signal from trackers through nearby iPhones, iPads, and Macs (Apple) and Android devices (Google), letting us keep tabs on our stuff and then potentially find it when it’s lost or stolen. The AirTag is a sword with two edges: one allows desired finding by yourself or others you share an item’s location with; the other, privacy-invading stalking, is often employed by those attempting to control someone, as part of ongoing domestic violence or stalking an acquaintance or stranger.

This isn’t speculative. You can find hundreds of newspaper articles and television reports about specific cases, and many write-ups of the broader problem. In New South Wales, Australia, a local commission on crime was able to compel retailers to provide information about who purchased tracking devices in 2023. Their analysis revealed one in four of the purchasers—about 750 of 3,000 people—”had a history of domestic violence, while a further 126 were apprehended violence order defendants at the time the items were purchased.” A lawsuit filed a few days ago in Oregon is the latest example.

The speaker is a primary component of the company’s anti-tracking strategy, so much so that the second-generation AirTag, released this year and replacing the original, emits a 50% louder sound. While that aids in finding stuff you’ve misplaced, it definitely increases the likelihood that a victim of stalking will hear an alert sound. Apple and Google, not notable collaborators, worked together in 2023 to release an anti-stalking proposal, which both companies have adopted, including audio alerts.

Apple originally had an AirTag (and third-party devices certified as Find My items) emit a sound when it was moved after three days in the same location. Advocates for victims of domestic violence and groups concerned with privacy urged a shorter time period. Apple updated the alert, just a few months after the product’s 2021 release, to trigger at a shorter and random interval. Since mid-2021, an AirTag or any Find My item chirps when moved between 8 and 24 hours after its paired device was last within Bluetooth range; the randomness makes it harder for a tracking party to predict when it might make a sound.

If you have an iPhone, iPad, or Android device and an Apple or Google tracker moves with you for a short period of time, your device will alert you and provide a map of where you’ve been tracked so far. This also lets you play a sound on the tracker device—something that’s not possible if the speaker has been removed.

Not being a lawyer, I can’t argue whether or not ElevationLab’s product comes with liability. However, using an AirTag, Find My item, or Google Find Hub tracker to acquire the location of someone without their permission may be a crime or risk a lawsuit, depending on the jurisdiction.

There are different ways to disable an AirTag or other tracker you discover, typically by rotating the back case and removing its battery. EFF’s Galperin has more direct advice: “I think that encouraging people to hit their AirTags with a hammer is a fine idea. They may need to hit it several times.”

A misfired pin

I’ve been purchasing products from ElevationLab since their 2012 ElevationDock. The company has always had an eye for elegance coupled with problem-solving.

This is what makes the company’s AirTag Silencer an absolutely baffling misfire, something that you would have thought would have called out as enabling behavior by some customers that no company would want to be associated with.

ElevationLab can’t prevent speaker-removing hardware from being sold or instructions from being disseminated. But the company should not be producing a case-hardened steel piece of precision goods that may look like a pin, but is a razor-sharp double-edged sword. Pull this product from sale.

[Glenn Fleishman is a printing and comics historian, Jeopardy champion, and serial Kickstarterer. His current books in preparation, which you can pre-order, are Flong Time, No See, and That One Matt Bors Comic. Other books include Six Centuries of Type & Printing and How Comics Are Made.]

By Glenn Fleishman

Why Stolen Device Protection makes Passwords safer

After my massive article on migrating your passwords, passkeys, and other secrets from third-party password managers to Apple’s Passwords, Wallet, Safari, and general ecosystem—potentially with help from another app—reader Scott asked whether I was directing people into weaker security. He wrote:

If someone manages to steal my device and its passcode, they have access to the contents of my phone, including all of the information stored in Apple Passwords. This is not the case if I use a third-party password manager and have set a separate password for access, as the thief will not have access to my other passwords…I’m surprised this liability is not discussed and considered more frequently.

This is a great follow-up question, and one that I didn’t address within the scope of the migration article, which was already long. Let me pick apart how to answer that by looking at risks and mitigations.

The risks of cracking our eggs at once

I understand the fear of losing everything, whether it is a set of material objects or digital secrets. One of the most heartrending stories I ever heard was from a photographer who lost all his work in an apartment fire shortly after moving to New York City to start his career. He rebuilt. That’s harder to do digitally, where if our privacy is “burned,” we might see bank accounts drained and potentially have to get our Social Security number or other identity number replaced.

Continue reading “Why Stolen Device Protection makes Passwords safer”…

By Jason Snell

Imagining the next MacBook Neo

Everyone loves the MacBook Neo. Apple’s fresh-squeezed laptop was a not-too-surprising hit with computer buyers, and presumably sales have continued to be good despite a $100 mid-stream price increase elevating its original $599 price tag to a still-good-but-not-astounding $699.

The Neo proved that Apple’s iPhone-class processor, the A18 Pro, was powerful enough to drive a Mac and the Mac’s wide-open software platform. With performance roughly in between an M1 and M2 processor, the Neo is completely capable of even somewhat difficult tasks like audio and video editing. Obviously, RAM and processor limitations prevent it from tackling the toughest jobs, but that’s why Apple makes numerous other, more expensive Macs.

A friend’s kid is moving into her college dorm—the same one both of my kids lived in!—as I write this. I have no idea what computer she’s bringing to school, but it certainly could be a MacBook Neo, and I’d wager a bunch of her classmates will have them, too.

So, hooray for the Neo, but what’s next? With the arrival of the iPhone 18 Pro and the A20 processor, the question is, will Apple release a Neo based on last year’s A19 Pro processor, or jump to the A20? I fear that the answer is the less-exciting A19 Pro, but what if it’s the A20 Pro? (And if it’s not the A20 Pro in 2027, it’ll be the A20 Pro in 2028, you could almost bank on it.)

So what’s in store for the MacBook Neo in the future? Let’s go to the charts:

In short, the A19 Pro would be an incremental update to the Neo, keeping it roughly in the ballpark of M1 CPU performance and M2 or M3 GPU performance. The A20 Pro, on the other hand, would elevate the Neo to M2-level CPU and M4-level GPU performance.

Also, in terms of differentiating the product line, next year the MacBook Air will presumably get the M6 chip just unveiled for the Mac mini. But regardless, both the M5 and M6 chips are still well ahead of the A20 Pro in everything that really matters for Mac performance.

I’m sure Apple could get away with releasing a MacBook Neo with an A19 Pro chip, and given the pressures on its margins caused by the RAM crisis, that’s probably what it will do. (It would presumably bring the Neo up to 12GB of RAM, which would be a nice boost—while raising the price, of course.)

But now that we’ve seen it in action in an iPhone, the prospect of the A20 Pro in a MacBook Neo is even more tantalizing. The question is how long we’ll need to wait to see it.