Hacker News Reader

Comment by deepstack | Hacker News Reader

I would like to see mac that does not phone home at all out of box! And if you chose to use internet then it phone home for authentication like icloud.

View on HN

And that's fair, you can put the notary verification server in your hosts file so requests to it do not work and everything will work as before.

But for the vast majority of people, a system that warns them their software has been compromised will help keep things secure.

I mean I don't agree with them phoning home for every application startup; they could have implemented it like the https certificate system, where you have a database on your own system with signatures that the OS can check against. They can install the signature (or fetch it) on application installation / update, no additional phone home required. They could even put it in a secure enclave or whatever so that in theory, no malicious software can update it.

I think you can still complete the initial setup on a mac without ever connecting it to the internet?

Ok, but what do you do after that?

I don't think most people can realistically use a Mac (or PC) without ever connecting to the internet.

The Windows community reacted to similar behavior by Microsoft by creating several scripts and lists of servers being used to phone home. I guess something similar will be created for macOS although the actual packet filtering will have to be implemented on the router rather than the host.

I want a computer that I can use for music without internet. Only connect for software upgrade. Very simple. And I don't want to use linux or freebsd. Mac used to be for pros, not it is just for hispsters.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com