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Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

Apple is still doing this to date. Lots of connections to xp.apple.com even with analytics turned off.

What is the traffic to xp.Apple.com? How much of that traffic is sensitive information? What breaks when you block the domain?

According to [1] the domain supports proxies so it might be somewhat trivial to answer rather than just blanketing with, “my data is being sent to Apple.” Let’s get really specific and figure out what is being sent despite settings that explicitly apply to those values.

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-hk/HT210060

> Let’s get really specific and figure out what is being sent despite settings that explicitly apply to those values.

The opening of the connection itself leaks too much information so it's not even relevant what's being sent just that it was opened in the first place.

If you are concerned about any connection at all being made, you shouldn’t be using a consumer OS. You should install something like qubes OS and heavily lock down everything.

It’s unreasonable to expect consumer products to function for highly specialised requirements that are counter to good experience for their intended markets.

Not wanting your computer to spy on you is not a highly specialized requirement.

Apple even uses privacy as a marketing differentiator.

Fetching a list of revoked certificates for example is not spying. If the simple request for this kind of data is a concern, you have very unusual requirements.

You can install proxyman on your device and observe for yourself how much apps and phone track info and talk back to their servers.

why the f*ck is there any netwrork traffic in the first place ?

Plenty of reasons. Fetching the updated list of malware domains is one, fetching the list of revoked certificates, checking for available updates. Checking the list of toggled feature flags, some features roll out in an OS update before being turned on. The addition of AirTags worked like this so it just worked day one when the product was available to buy.

This is all stuff the average user wants and benefits from.

No way to turn it off either. Nobody who sells me a product needs to tell me whats good for me

>Nobody who sells me a product needs to tell me whats good for me

That's exactly what buying a product is. You are letting the seller make the decisions for you, the alternative is building it yourself where you have the full freedom to do anything.

Your job as a consumer is to decide what sellers you think are aligned with your needs or when to build yourself.

Glad to see another informed consumer who buys eggs and only uses them for recipes provided by the grocery store!

What I can’t figure out is why computers include input devices when you aren’t supposed to be making any decisions about how they’re used.

Are the arguments made by this account always stupid AF? Based on the history, I’d say “yes”

I mean some consumers have decided Apple is not selling what it promised and are taking a legal route. Good for them. Just because you have a reason for violating a promise doesn’t make it ok. Maybe make that clear in the first place instead of burying it in a TOS.

There is a perfect solution available. Don't buy the product. No need to get angry about it. It just isn't for you.

So no...

"refrigerate after opening"

"don't eat grapefruit when taking this medication"

"please use seatbelts"

"keep your passwords safe" or "use password managers"

There is a joke, well semi-joke, in product liability circles that every warning label you see on a ladder is because someone won a $10 million lawsuit because people fell down using a ladder.

Things break. Nothing is perfect.

(edited to add the ladder example)

Are you a microsoft salesman from the 90s?

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