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macOS HighSierra: Brief Use Brings Relief in a Way: Worth Ignoring for a While

2017-10-05 • SEND FEEDBACK |

Related: Apple, Apple macOS, Apple macOS High Sierra, passphrase, security

Get iMac 5K at B&H Photo and see my Mac wishlist.

The only machine I’m willing to install macOS HighSierra on so far is my daughter’s 2016 MacBook Pro 13": 2.4 GHz, 512GB SSD, 16GB.

Upon first use, I noticed two bizarre behaviors I’ve never seen before:

Glacially slow login (and not the first login either), taking about 3 minutes to login. Subsequent logins went faster, but are still very slow.
Coming out of sleep, the MacBook Pro was running about 100 times slower than normal. It wsa not hot or under stress as with MacOS Bug: Kernel Task Uses Most or All CPU Cores Continuously (Ambient Temperature Too High). Just some new bug I’ve never seen before on any Mac and my daughter indicates that she never saw it behave the way since she got it 9 months ago.

Glitches like these right after upgrading make me think I will take quite some time before I trust smokin' HighSierra.

Apple has also rushed out a patch for a nasty security bug:

Take steps to protect your data if you see your password instead of your password hint for an encrypted APFS volume.

Incompetence is one thing; incompetence with security is an order of far worse. As usual, Apple has rushed out a macOS release with incompetence in testing, just as over the past 5 years. I am not a fan of release-by-calender-for-iPhone-quality-be-damned management.

This issue might be far nastier than described: plaintext passwords should NEVER be saved if at all avoidable (and it is avoidable for encrypted drives, login, etc) only their salted and hashed forms (irreversible computations of the original). I’m not entirely sure what is going on from the description, but if it is what is sounds like, there are serious security flaws in design.

MPG stands by and re-emphasizes its advice to avoid upgrading to High Sierra for at least six months. That’s about how much time will be needed to finish it and about how much time Apple allows until deverlopers are put onto the next buggy calendar-drive macOS release.

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Update: apparently there is a new zero day exploit introduced as well.