Apple Privacy

Mojave phones home.

Get It Try It

'Mojave phones home', writes Jeff Johnson on 6 December 2018. 'Mac app notarisation raises privacy issues for Mojave users.'

And those issues aren't trivial. They're definitive.

The Apple War

Many sought their way to the shores of OS X in search of a better life, a life without malware epidemics, a life without secrecy, without the increasingly tangible feeling that their OS vendor perpetrated a war against them.

They've been fooled.

Starting over ten years ago, this site and many other sites and individuals began warning about what was going on at Apple. But the fanboys - the Landed Gentry™, the legacy users - choose to ignore. Time and again the signs have been there.

'On first launch of every app you download, Mojave phones home. At the very least, Apple sees your IP address, the exact app version that you downloaded, and the exact time that you first launched the app.'

Johnson goes on.

'Given all of the information that Apple already has on you, they could probably associate your IP address with your Apple ID. It's likely that Apple keeps logs of these Gatekeeper notarisation checks, because if customers are launching malware, Apple would want to know how widespread the malware was.'

But Apple's concern is hardly limited to malware - malware is hardly a major issue on a Unix platform, as the 'Mac vs PC' ads reminded everyone time and again.

Here comes the cruncher.

'It's important to note that no explicit consent has been given for this information to be transmitted to Apple.'

Johnson gives this final matter considerable scrutiny and no, there'd been no information forthcoming from Apple.

Nor had there been any information forthcoming when they, back in the day of Leopard and Snow Leopard, suddenly made it possible to escalate privileges without user authorisation.

Afterword

ISVs can recommend and create software for a platform they can in good conscience fully support. Twenty years ago it became increasingly apparent that Microsoft Windows could not be supported, even though major clients felt it more judicious that ISVs say nothing at all.

The time has now come to Apple.