The past 3 releases of the Standalone Flash Player Release version for Mac have all been shipped with invalid developer signatures. (This does not apply to the Flash Player plug-in, or the Debug application.) This renders them unusable on any Mac OS X Lion (10.7) or Mountain Lion (10.8) system with Gatekeeper set to "Mac App Store and identified developers". If you try to launch the Flash Player app in these circumstances, you will be presented with the following dialog:
The only provided options are to Cancel or Move to Trash. The above dialog is actually displayed when you try to launch an application that has been signed with a developer signature that is invalid. This is potentially a sign that the application has been damaged or tampered with since it was created and signed by the developer – hence the direct suggestion to move it to the trash. Another possible explanation is that the developer (in this case Adobe) has incorrectly signed the application.
If the user somehow believes the application is actually safe to use, the only workaround to launch it is to change the Gatekeeper settings in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General to allow applications downloaded from "Anywhere", then launch the Flash Player application, and then reset Gatekeeper back to "Mac App Store and identified developers" again.
The affected applications are (as of this writing):
Macintosh Flash Player 11.7.700.169 Release Projector
Macintosh Flash Player 11.7.700.202 Release Projector
Macintosh Flash Player 11.7.700.203 Release Projector (current version)
Adobe, you have shipped 3 releases of the Flash Player application with invalid developer signatures. Please fix this so that the above dialog does not appear and the described workaround does not need to be used.
Thanks.