occums razor

Get your mind out of the gutter.

Until version 8.8.7 of Notepad++, the developer used a self-signed certificate, which is available in the Github source code. This made it possible to create manipulated updates and push them onto victims, as binaries signed this way cause a warning „Unknown Publisher“. Since v8.8.7, however, Notepad++ relies on a legitimate GlobalSign certificate, and installing its own Notepad++ root certificate is no longer necessary – if such a warning pops up, users should be alarmed.

I don't understand how this is relevant. Unless the attacker has either

(a) somehow acquired the private key of the cert

(b) replaced the cert delivered through the installer

A self signed cert isn't any worse. Both of these attack vectors still work with a public root CA. Or maybe notepad++ just forgot to validate the self signed cert against the one they delivered through their sources, just accepting any non-expired cert? That's just a bug.

It's the same kind of extortion racket that these powermods (they do it for free, lol) like to engage in in Reddit and Lemmy too: Play ball, or get banned/defederates for engaging with no-no communities.

And the worst part about it is they genuinely think they do it for a greater good instead of their petty power fantasies and power struggles ("we own this corner of the internet.")

Nintendo is doing exactly that (pulling games from stores, letting them die). Now that they have more invasive DRM in their latest console, they might even take a more active approach like Ubisoft wegen it comes to live service games. Let's just "sunset" Mario kart world live service and brick it in a couple of years?

As long as it’s legal, they shouldn’t be policing transactions at all!

Well, they aren't policing transactions per se, they are a lot more Machiavellian than that. If they were policing transactions, it would be much easier to fight.

Ich bin kein Trekking Experte, aber da muss doch schon viel mehr schief gehen als Schlappen und falsche Route, wenn man auf einer Sommerwanderung stirbt?!

What does it matter if it's CRC or sha512 if they are using an unsecured connection to transmit them? A stranger who has already acquired capability to modify the payload in transit can also modify the checksum. A better hash will not solve this problem.

Oh, okay, so maybe I misread the sentence. I thought the implication was they used crc32 as opposed to HTTPS. Not sure why you need an additional layer in addition to https- as long as the certificate chain is setup properly. And again, you're not gaining additional security if you submit the hash (or a gpg key) through the same channel. So if they already use https and just want to check for broken downloads, crc32 is perfectly fine. It's just security theater at that point.