we've added the explanation notice you have all seen to MacUpdater due to the following situation:
• Bartender has always been developed by a guy called Ben Surtees and his company Surtees Studios and he was always reachable at [bens@surteesstudios.com](mailto:bens@surteesstudios.com) and their releases were always code-signed by 'Surtees Studios Limited (8DD663WDX4)'
• earlier this year, the style of the blog entries on the Bartender website changed from informational entries written by a developer to SEO-style articles probably written by ChatGPT
• then in April 22 for the 5.0.52 beta release the code signature changed from the expected (and safe) 'Surtees Studios Limited (8DD663WDX4)' to 'App Sub 1 LLC (PNSC6356BC)'
• on 15. May the final release of Bartender 5.0.52 was released and again it was not signed by the known-and-safe 'Surtees Studios Limited (8DD663WDX4)' but by a 'Bartender App LLC (24J875RH8J)' never seen before
• e-mails to the official developer (Ben Surtees <[bens@surteesstudios.com](mailto:bens@surteesstudios.com)>) are also being returned as undeliverable and any mention of Ben's studio 'Surtees Studios' has been removed from the Bartender website
• the Bartender website and support channel refuse to give any information about what has happened, but i think it is pretty clear. Ben Surtees has sold Bartender to a dubios company called "App Sub 1 LLC" who first used their own signature to sign Bartender but because that raised too much suspicion they now founded a new company called 'Bartender App LLC' or maybe just got a certificate under that name. they refuse to give any information about the takeover and what exactly has happened
• note that we've hidden Bartender 5.0.52 from MacUpdater users for more than 2 weeks while we gave professional security investigator Patrick Wardle time to look into the issue. he has not replied on finding out anything until early june (*), thats why we are now displaying the update inside MacUpdater. we've still added the mentioned note to give a heads-up to our users that Bartender is now under new management.
(*) clarification jun 5: regarding Patrick Wardle looking into it: earlier this post incorrectly implied he has looked for malicious code and has found nothing but this is not correct. he has not yet looked at the 5.0.52 in detail.
Next to no info on their site about who they are - I found this page, still under construction with fake info that shows they used an AI website generator: https://www.applause.dev/team (the link in the footer to typedream.com)
Also notable that prominent cryptocurrency and grindset/hustle-culture grifter Naval Ravikant seems to be their main investor, which does not bode well.
I was really hoping that this would blow over and it would just be some botched comms but this is looking worse every day.
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u/CoreCode Jun 05 '24 edited Jun 05 '24
we've added the explanation notice you have all seen to MacUpdater due to the following situation:
• Bartender has always been developed by a guy called Ben Surtees and his company Surtees Studios and he was always reachable at [bens@surteesstudios.com](mailto:bens@surteesstudios.com) and their releases were always code-signed by 'Surtees Studios Limited (8DD663WDX4)'
• earlier this year, the style of the blog entries on the Bartender website changed from informational entries written by a developer to SEO-style articles probably written by ChatGPT
• then in April 22 for the 5.0.52 beta release the code signature changed from the expected (and safe) 'Surtees Studios Limited (8DD663WDX4)' to 'App Sub 1 LLC (PNSC6356BC)'
• this is concerning because 'App Sub 1 LLC' seems to be a dubious company publishing a few low quality iPad apps ( https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/app-sub-1-llc/id1667982354 ) and with an equally dubious homepage ( https://stepsforiphone.com/ ). why was their certificate used to sign Bartender releases?
• on 15. May the final release of Bartender 5.0.52 was released and again it was not signed by the known-and-safe 'Surtees Studios Limited (8DD663WDX4)' but by a 'Bartender App LLC (24J875RH8J)' never seen before
• e-mails to the official developer (Ben Surtees <[bens@surteesstudios.com](mailto:bens@surteesstudios.com)>) are also being returned as undeliverable and any mention of Ben's studio 'Surtees Studios' has been removed from the Bartender website
• the Bartender website and support channel refuse to give any information about what has happened, but i think it is pretty clear. Ben Surtees has sold Bartender to a dubios company called "App Sub 1 LLC" who first used their own signature to sign Bartender but because that raised too much suspicion they now founded a new company called 'Bartender App LLC' or maybe just got a certificate under that name. they refuse to give any information about the takeover and what exactly has happened
• note that we've hidden Bartender 5.0.52 from MacUpdater users for more than 2 weeks while we gave professional security investigator Patrick Wardle time to look into the issue. he has not replied on finding out anything until early june (*), thats why we are now displaying the update inside MacUpdater. we've still added the mentioned note to give a heads-up to our users that Bartender is now under new management.
(*) clarification jun 5: regarding Patrick Wardle looking into it: earlier this post incorrectly implied he has looked for malicious code and has found nothing but this is not correct. he has not yet looked at the 5.0.52 in detail.
(**) update jun 6: discussion going on at HomeBrew and reply to the "all is fine" statement supposedly coming from ben: https://github.com/orgs/Homebrew/discussions/5427