81–90 of 218 posts
Is this the first time you are monitoring traffic of any modern consumer devices connected to the Internet?
Have you tried GNU/Linux?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it even a push notification if you have to fetch them from a server?
Is there mobile push technology which is actually fundamentally push, all the way down to the transport layer? Like open socket, listening for incoming packets only, no notifications-> no traffic? I was under the impression it was all polling if you go down far enough, but at least because of central registration the phone only needs to poll one single pubsub service instead of a separate server per subscription. Cou…
That’s the end-to-end principle. Each host on the Internet is fully capable of listening on a socket and doing whatever its owner wants it to do.
The issue is when firewalls prevent incoming traffic, and when NAT prevents a host from even being on the internet. There’s not really a good reason for NAT with IPv6, but there are some good reasons for firewalls. They mostly boil down to human imperfection. The developers of one’s OS and software are imperfect, so the fact that a laptop sitting in Dallas can be probed by other computers in Frankfurt or Maseru thousands of times a second is an issue: a single bug will make one’s computer, and all its data, vulnerable. And users are imperfect, too. One might misconfigure one’s computer, and accidentally expose a service to the world.
There could be some approaches to mitigate these issues, but we’re probably stuck with firewalls forever. Which is really kind of sad.
What is the problem with this?
It's the problem with the benevolent dictator. It's no problem as long as the dictator is benevolent. Also benevolence is a matter of reference. Something that might be ok for most, might not be for you. There is also the question of ownership. Do you really own something you bought if you don't control its behaviour? Is it even moral to sell stuff to customers if they won't fully own it, or if the nature of ownershi…
The way I see it is either you trust Apple or you don’t. To be clear, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to arrive at either conclusion, as it relates to your own needs and security posture. Personally I choose to trust them. My trust is not blind, and they could lose my trust very quickly. But as it stands right now, they have my trust. If you say that you don’t trust Apple, I don’t see how you could tolerate running…
I arrived on the same conclusion as you, that you cannot really selectively accept a service provider. Because of the nature of the ongoing relationship, posture evaluation would need to happen on every interaction, which is improbable. I don't think we can evaluate every update. So really, it's either trust, or no trust. No sense to lull ourselves into anything else.
I personally solve this for myself with compartmentalization. For example, I loathe Windows, but I use an LTSC edition of it for gaming, and only gaming. I don't trust them with my "life", so it doesn't get access to my data, just games.
Honestly, the list looks legit. Computers nowadays are semi-remotely-managed appliances. Internet is presumed, offline is not first, and offline is absolutely not exclusive. >I have been trying to minimize to the extent possible the reach of big tech into my life. I don't think this goal is possible, or worthwhile, on a big tech offering like a Mac + macOS. It can certainly be tried, but the user needs to be prepared…
As a counterpoint - There are a lot of Apple services that get contacted because they can be contacted, not because they need to be. For example, I don’t use Home/HomeKit but it phones home to Apple several times a day if I allow it. The same with Apple News, Weather, etc. You can prevent this in various ways but not out of box. It’s possible to run macOS without an Internet connection. I value this, but it’s impract…
For fun, compare and contrast the comments here to this post on Windows 10 from 5 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44208050
This article: Apple’s OS relies on a lot of services to deliver its features! That article: Microsoft reports every click you make Is that the comparison you’re making?
While this seems like a lot, in some ways this is what user's expect. Push notifications should be coming all the time, assuming the system is on. Most users expect various maintenance services to run when the system idle so it doesn't interfere with their active use of the system. When users open apps like Weather (or view a widget), they expect it to already be up to date without having to manually refresh or wait…
The problem with Apple is that __anyone__ sits in a 1% group of users in one way or the other. But they try to make a one-size-fits-all product.
This is in contrast to Linux where everybody can do whatever they like, and most things are opt-in rather than opt-out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A default linux install is incredibly silent on the network. You might be seeing some mDNS stuff, gnome/firefox may do some requests to detect captive portals, but overall the amount of network traffic is pretty small and manageable. It's important to note that, generally speaking, Linux software does not come with default-enabled telemetry, and for those that do, distros like Debian will routinely patch out phoning…
That is only because there is barely any open source software for Linux that is backed by cloud services. Now install Spotify, VSCode, Steam for Linux and you will see the same kind of chatter with backend services.
TL;DR: not really all that exciting. Apple also publishes a list of domains, ports and protocols and what they are needed for. The side-effects of filtering them usually means something doesn't work right or doesn't work at all (push messages, software updates, buying stuff, anti-theft - which will fail closed!). > I have been trying to minimize to the extent possible the reach of big tech into my life That's how int…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When Microsoft has telemetry: * Windows is a spyware machine - how can anyone use it? Year of Linux baby! When Apple has telemetry: * It's working as expected. So... to be fair, is there a thorough comparison of the two? How are they the same, and how are they different?
I didn’t see the person you’re replying to ever mention Microsoft. It seems weird to accuse them of hypocrisy?
Here, the top-voted comment is OK with Apple software phoning home, but there's no evidence they are not equally OK with Microsoft software phoning home, so I'm contrasting this popular opinion with another popular opinion elsewhere.
Here's one example from a different user, where Microsoft is described as "the big daddy of spyware."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22246187
See also this sibling top-level comment from today: