Da**it! Apple should know better.

Even if there's nothing nefarious going on, even if Apple's intentions were completely benign, the furor and legal action over Microsoft's WGA and the way it communicates with the mother ship should have clued Apple in that this was a bad idea. Worst of all the reason is to verify that some Dashboard Widgets are up to date. Like, who cares. If the Wigets stop working have a "Check For Latest Version" button the user can hit, not something like this that WILL be seen in the worst light. And having my computer call .Mac whenever I add a new e-mail address even if it's not a .Mac account. It's none of their business.

This is just stupid.

Did any of these breathless detectives ever ask themselves how Software Update, which has been around a while, knows that there is new software available? It periodically polls Apple's server.

All this is getting play because of controversy that has erupted over new Windows license enforcement technology, which not only "phones home" but apparently communicates identifying information (the license key, which OS X doesn't require), and is rumored to be capable of shutting down a system running an unauthorized copy of Windows.

A purist might wish that OS X perform no communication without explicit control by the user, but what Apple is doing is very different from the Microsoft behavior that triggered the interest.

True but the implementation was handled badly. Secrecy, and not having a way for the owner of the computer to say no is more of a problem than the calling home. It looks bad. Software Update is right out in the open and you can disable it with one click on a checkbox. The functions described above were put in without most peoples knowledge and without an obvious way to turn them off. I'm not saying that Apple is doing anything wrong, they just did something that looks like they may be doing something underhanded. Appearances do count and this just looks bad.

I love how every hacker that watches bits fly out his computer's back side is called a "researcher" now. Researchers used to be people who came up with cures for cancer or performed Carbon-14 analysis on historical artifacts to help date them.

I also love how every time something like this comes up, "some" users are concerned. Well, some are also totally and deliberately unconcerned. Who speaks for us, the unconcerned? Who writes our stories? Do we get no press, no equal time in these stories, no recognition because we don't give a *&^% enough to get a spokesman?

I am hoping that Apple will respond to this quickly, though. Perhaps, in a press release about how they are packing up iTMS in France, they could throw in a line about how the researchers who are demanding that Apple not check for dashboard widget updates should go play on the freeway.

In this particular case is not a question of secrecy, but of not annoying the user.

This call for dashboard is fairly frequent, at least twice a day. Would you really want to have it notified every single time? I'd rather not.

The first time I saw it with Little Snitch, I checked what it was and then let it do its call and gave total authorization so I'll not be bothered again.

It's a good thing to be careful and aware of what your computer in doing, but there's a limit where it becomes paranoia...

Cheers

This was bad because for those of us with outbound firewalls, we didn't know what was happening. It didn't happen as soon as we upgraded. For some, it may have started days later, but then appear quite frequently (depending on configuration and use). There's no "This is an outbound request by Apple to check, and would you like to turn of this feature?" instead it's "Had you not been using an outbound firewall you wouldn't know this was happening, but here's an outbound request that could be coming from anything and doing anything".

And I want the option of turning this off, just as I have with software update. Even if it's on by default I want to be able to go to a control panel and disable it with one click.

Wow that was a horrible mess of words. Was that supposed to be human readable? You might wanna try running that through Babble Fish and back. It might end up actually being MORE understandable. Outbound firewall? Geez I guess I must just have an inbound firewall. How can I become as cool as you? Can I upgrade to an omni-bound firewall?

The fact is that this isn't bad. I guess it wouldn't hurt if there was some standarized disclosure list somehwere that people with no life could refer to if they really cared about each and every socket connection their OS might make. But in reality this is not a big deal, and if you think it is, you really ought to throw that foil hat in the garbage and go on a date or something. You'll be much happier.

Am? I have Little Snitch and no phone home? I will add, I run Software Update manually.

Sorry Biff, but I disagree on a few points;
I found the note about outbound firewalls quite understandable. We use outbound and inbound filtering and monitoring all the time.

It is a big deal mostly because of the appearance of Apple doing something wrong. If it had been handled correctly, upfront, and in the open, it could have been a public relations advantage. However, by keeping it secret, by not giving us the option to disable it if we wanted, not that I would mind you, and by not letting us know what was going on so when this wormlike activity shows up in our logs we don't know what it is, Apple made themselves look no better than Microsoft, even though they are not doing anything nearly as bad. This was stupid from a public relations standpoint.

I do like your idea of a standardized disclosure list. "What your Macintosh is doing for you" kind of a pop-up to keep the user up to date. But this would be useful for a lot of people, not just serious tech types.

I've been married for 20 years and very much have a life.

I'm glad there are "researchers", "hackers", whatever you want to call them watching what's going on behind the scenes. We need watchdogs telling us what Apple is up to behind our backs.

I think verifying widgets is just about the most pointless thing Apple could possibly do. I suspect what they're actually doing is collecting data on which widgets are actually being used and comparing those to the download stats.

I'm not going to block the widget calls to Cupertino if any originate from my Mac. Apple needs to know that at least one customer thinks Dashboard is a complete waste of resources and doesn't have any widgets active.

I'm much more concerned that Mail is contacting .Mac when users work with other email accounts. We the user community will have to keep a close eye on that one to make sure Apple doesn't harvest information on our friends and relatives.

Give me a break, how do people think that Tiger gets half the information that it it does? For instance, half the widets in use need to contct some remote server to get the information you want. That is just common sense. If you do not want it to contact anyone, do not use the application or widget.

From my experience, Apple is bvery good about not calling home unless needed. Little Snitch solves the issue for those really concerned.

You want a bad company for calling home, forget about using your adobe applications unless you have preventative software installed or use other means to prevent the calling.

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RetiredMidn wrote:
Did any of these breathless detectives ever ask themselves how Software Update, which has been around a while, knows that there is new software available? It periodically polls Apple's server.

Only when I tell it to. If it's automatically connecting, go to System Preferences/Software Update and turn off the automatic checking. Yet another person who hasn't taken the time to check preferences, Help files, etc.

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Terrin wrote:
You want a bad company for calling home, forget about using your adobe applications unless you have preventative software installed or use other means to prevent the calling.

Adobe is a good example. Here in the (mostly Win) office I'm continually getting complaints from users. They click on a pdf or a web link to a pdf document and rather than getting the document they want they get a window with a list of patches and updates.
"Do You Want to Update Your Adobe Products?"
No I want to open my GD document.
We do try to set Adobe to not look for updates but it doesn't seem to stick a lot of the time.

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Terrin wrote:
If you do not want it to contact anyone, do not use the application or widget.

So what you're advocating here then, in order to avoid the calls home mentioned in this article, is that one not use OS X?

That's kinda' jumping to a conclusion. OS-X (and WinXP, and Linux) OS is separate from a function that contacts invisibly with a server elsewhere on the planet. One does not of necessity require the other, and for functions that do require remote connections, it need not be done in a clandestine fashion.