Your Mac. Your data. Your control.
Understand what Acorn can access on your Mac, how customer jobs are processed, and the protections and limitations that apply. Technical details and a contact for reporting security concerns are below.
For host owners: Mac app permissions
The Acorn worker app (Acorn.app) is a macOS menu-bar application built with SwiftUI. The current build is not enrolled in macOS App Sandbox. Its normal operation uses:
- Outbound network — reach the coordinator API and download audio fragments.
- File access (user-selected) — only when the user explicitly chooses a local audio file.
- Keychain access — stores the worker credential securely.
- GPU / Metal compute — used by the Whisper and Parakeet backends to transcribe claimed fragments locally.
The app does NOT request camera, microphone, contacts, location, screen recording, or full disk access. Because App Sandbox is not enabled today, these are application-level limits rather than an operating-system sandbox boundary.
For API buyers: access and job data
Customer requests run on participating Macs. Authentication and data-scoping controls serve different purposes:
- Customer sign-in — email magic links establish customer account sessions; these are not manager passkeys.
- API access — API requests use bearer API keys, separate from browser sign-in.
- Audio sharding — Per-model shard lengths with overlap (5 min default). Each claim receives shard-scoped audio plus task metadata. Sharding is not encryption and does not create an operating-system sandbox boundary.
- Trust tiers — new workers are untrusted by default, validated against canary audio.
- API key hashing — keys are stored as SHA-256 hashes. Treat the original bearer key as a secret.
- HMAC-signed webhooks — outbound deliveries signed so receivers can verify the payload.
For manager operators: administrative access
Manager sign-in uses WebAuthn passkeys and a manager session. Protected manager operations require an authenticated administrator. This administrative access is separate from customer email magic links and API keys; it is not a containment boundary for worker execution.
Data in transit
All coordinator traffic uses HTTPS. No plaintext connections accepted in production.
Reporting a vulnerability.
Email security@acorncompute.com with reproduction steps and your contact details. We respond within two business days. Give us reasonable time to fix confirmed issues before publishing. Valid reports get a public credit (unless you prefer anonymity).