The dialog for kernel extension doesn't contain any of those labels though. Instead it offers you to open the "Security" preference pane where some additional UI will be displayed.

If you blindly click buttons you will not accidentally enable a kernel extension.

I have barely any experience with macOS, but could an application perform those steps on a user's behalf if it were granted Accessibility access?

Every app I've installed that wants accessibility access follows the same steps from the comment you replied to. You must explicitly unlock that pane with your password after clicking the lock and then enable the app to have accessibility access.

It's also possible to detect input events from accessibility. Little Snitch detects and ignores those events (tested via "Synergy" - a keyboard/mouse sharing application), as does the download icon that appears in the upper right corner of iBooks (I don't know why).

The accessibility preferences panel appears to accept those synthetic events, however.

> If you blindly click buttons you will not accidentally enable a kernel extension.

As someone who's gone poking around system internals for twenty-plus years... I can tell you that you're very wrong here. I've forgotten about more completely broken operating systems than I care to discuss, but many of them have ended with me poking around and blindly clicking buttons in a vain hope of getting the OS to do what I want it to do which is apparently frequently different from whatever OS producers want me to do.

You may want to use the workflow yourself to see how it differs and re-evaluate. It surprised me.

This seems a bit hyperbolic. I do, and I'm pretty sure a lot of people do - especially developers; and especially dialogs that you didn't explicitly expect.

Not saying that the majority do; or that a dialog is "good security protection". I just don't think it's as useless as you seem to imply.

It’s exaggerated but only slightly. Some of the worst messes I’ve seen were people who should have known better just blindly pasting google search results because they didn’t have time to do it right.

More developers than sysadmins but definitely not exclusively so. Never underestimate the degree to which people are rushing or not questioning whether their initial diagnosis was correct.

I would add that these kinds of "Normal users click accept/next" are how "offers" on software gets installed.

Case in point: uTorrent. Download and "install". You will, generally, get 2 screens that install junk. On one screen you can click "Decline". On another, you can click "Skip". These screens are between all the normal "which folder", "do you accept" and "thank you" screens.

Case in point: Adobe Reader... download it from their website WITHOUT unchecking the "Optional Offers". You then have a Reader with Benefits.

I consider myself "trained" and "knowledgeable" and I occasionally get bit by these... sidecars... included with desired software.

I have no faith that 95% of people know how to sidestep these "landmines". Decline? that means "don't install". Skip? Why would I skip an important part of the installation.

The problem with most of your examples is that either they're not dialogs ("unclick optional offers"), or they are expected dialogs (you expect during installation dialogs that ask you this-and-that, and you knowingly triggered the installation, so you mistakenly/casually click the wrong button). They are dark patterns, that first train you to click "next-next-next" then present you with an "offer" where you're also expected to click "next".

The system security dialogs like the "permissions" dialogs are not like that - I even read the Android permissions dialog (though I realize most people don't, I still think a sizeable chunk of people do, and thus I considered the original claim - that nobody does, not even developers/dev-ops - to be hyperbolic).

What about the High Sierra notification itself? The only options are "install" and "details"

I've been burned enough by bad installers that I go to ninite for any software like that.

If 1% of the population reads even half of their dialog boxes I'd be amazed.