[geeks] Apple applications phoning home

[Mark]

On 19 Oct 2007, at 05:05, Shannon Hendrix wrote:

> I just noticed that every time I go to preferences in "Address Book"
> on MacOS Tiger, it tries to connect to port 80 at
> configuration.apple.com.
>
> I blocked its request since I see no reason for it to do that, but if
> you block its outgoing connection, you cannot use the preferences
> dialog.
>
> What kind of idiotic crap is that?
>
> Does anyone know why it does this?
>
> More importantly, does anyone know how I can stop it and still use
> the program?
>
> Aside: it isn't just Address Book.  Apple's apps seem to be
> contacting Apple all the time.
>
> Anyone else see this on their Mac systems?

Mine doesn't throw na alert when I run it (I use 'Little Snitch -  
great tool if you have port paranoia) so I'd suspect it's the dotmac  
sync client (which I have unblocked on port 80 and 443). Quite a few  
of Apple's apps phone home to check for software updates, dotmac  
details, and the like. I have no reason to believe any of it is  
unnecessary. A ping and whois of the IP there confirms the address  
belongs to Apple Inc. so it's not 'malicious'.

-- 
Mark Benson

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