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MacOS 10.5 Leopard Phones Home, Reveals Little Snitch 2
empowerthyself.com — Apple's Mac OS 10.5 Leopard 'loginwindow' process phones home to lcs.mac.com on port 443 which is only revealed by running the new Little Snitch 2 security monitoring tool.
- Submitted:
- 186 days ago, made popular 186 days ago
- Submitter:
bofhcabbit
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- 913 diggs
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Ironically, Digg is spying on my browsing behavior to infer if I actually read the story or not. I want to see someone traffic analyze the transmissions. If they are HTTPS, they probably contain something worth encrypting, which could be personal information.
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Welcome to digg, a site full of hypocrites. We only care when Microsoft does it, move along.
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Microsoft pwns digg.
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This story would have 5 times the number of diggs if it was Microsoft.
Mactards on the defensive!!!!! Mobilize your Steve Jobs halloween costumes!!!! Macbook Pro's to super overheat mode!!!! Prepare to defend the logo with your hordes of bland, ethnic looking, infomercial models!!!!!!
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Doublethink?
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As the address ends .mac.com, it is definitely Apple's .Mac service. This is confirmed by people without .Mac setup against their login not getting this behaviour.
This is lame, at least do research before finding "things wrong with Leopard". Okay there are some legitimate issues (such as "move") but spreading FUD doesn't help anyone, except maybe your sites traffic.
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Yeah, I think it's the fact that it's transmitting encrypted data that makes me worry most of all.
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Clear? or not Clear? It does not bother you that you do not what what information is being sent it?
It sure bothers me most of all. What information could they be sending out thats good for you anyway? NONE -
I do not know what data they are sending, but it could just be your apple login and password, so it can integrate with their services better, such as itunes, apple store, and dot mac
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Yes the fact that it's encrypted says Apple has something to hide. Sent in the clear would be easier to see what is sent. Transparency is good when it comes to things like this.
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I retranslated the Russian thread about it, I forgot that I hadn't saved the Altavista Babelfish translation into the file. http://www.empowerthyself.com/files/translate.html
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cool
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Here's your story description translated via Babelfish to Russian and then back to English:
Leopard 10.5 macOS Znonit on the telephone to house, shows few Snitch 2 telephones 10.5 "loginwindow ' leopard os of mackintosh apple's process domestic to lcs.mac.com on port 443 is only shown by way to run the new small security snitch 2 checking tool.
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Off the top of my head I'll guess this is how .Mac's 'Back to my Mac' feature works.
For those unfamiliar. Back to my Mac allows you to connect back to your Mac from elsewhere. It does so though Apple's .Mac service which keeps tracks of the IP address and names of all your Macs.-
Opening the .Mac prefpane does try to connect to mac.com although not lcs.mac.com but that sounds like a likely explanation.
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That's what they want you to think..
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That's actually exactly what it is. If you have a .mac account enabled from a previous (or the current) OS install, it will attempt an SSL connection (hence port 443) to authenticate the user with the remote .mac blob. This is really, really not a big deal.
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I was gonna say that I have been using Little Snitch in Leopard since the first version 2 beta (weeks before the release of Leopard) and I never saw this behavior. Since I don't have .Mac that would probably explain it.
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I expect that's right; I'm not a .Mac users and thusly doesn't have Back To My Mac - and I haven't seen this connection warning, using the latest version of LS.
So once again, an OS creates traffic that you weren't expcting, and everyone assumes the worst. It could just as easily been checking for software updates and such - in either case, GOOD traffic. Truth be told, I'm a bit more comfortable with Apple doing it than any other software maker, but that's only because they have their own additional (optional) software packages that tie in with the OS and historically have a pretty good track record. -
The first thing that occurred to me was the obvious, find any leaks previous to the official launch of 10.5. But, you're probably right... I hope.
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It is definitely Back to My Mac. I guess they thought it looks suspicious because it's loginwindow, a seemingly unrelated process, making an HTTPS connection.
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I do NOT have 'Back TO My Mac' active (as far as I know)
I do NOT have my .mac details entered in Sytem Prefs
I do NOT have file sharing on.
I do NOT have Auto Software Updates active
so, can you tell me why my machine IS calling lcs.mac.com
many thanks
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It's probably just your password, browsing history, and all your pictures.
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I laughed out loud at work in front of my boss because of that comment.
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"....and all your pictures."
I think it's actually all your music (which it then cross references which ones were ripped in iTunes and which ones were downloaded (not through iTMS). -
And your credit card number so that uncle Jobs can charge you for all downloaded mp3's.
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it sounds more like an ad for little snitch 2. almost a lame infomercial.... for 4 easy payments of....
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The FCC probably paid apple to since there to lazy to find out on there own.
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isn't 443 the SSL/HTTPS port?
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Read like an ad for little snitch 2.
But the programs really a must have for osx, so that's not necessarily a bad thing.-
Programs like that are a must have for ANY computer, regardless of the OS.
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Must have? More like a complete waste of money. I don't need to pay $25 for information I can get by looking at the firewall log on either my computer or my router.
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Once it's in your firewall log, it's too late. This intercepts the transmission as it happens, and allows you to decline it and set up rules to handle it automatically in the future, on a per-process (application) basis. I agree this article read like some Diggvertisement, but Little Snitch is crucial for Macs (as are equivalents for other OSs), and I'm always interested in knowing what info my OS vendor is sending home, so dugg.
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Like a previous commenter has said, it's probably for the back to my mac stuff. If Apple was collecting information then it wouldn't be using the mac.com domain but apple's own. Besides, after the bother Apple got into with the iTunes Ministore feature, I'd be surprised if Apple was collecting information.
I'd be interested to see a non .Mac subscriber try this to see if it still does the same...-
Exactly my thoughts!
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Dont have .Mac, and my Macbook Pro is not phoning home. Looks like it is .Mac
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"it's probably for the back to my mac stuff."
It is.
If you do a verbose boot, you can see that "Back to my Mac" starts just before the login window shows up.
-jcr -
That's what I was thinking, and in that case, it doesn't seem too nefarious. "Every time you use Apple's online services, it connects to Apple's servers!!" Um, yeah... what else do you expect?
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I don't have .mac and it isn't phoning home. FUD!
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OH MY GOD APPLE IS TAKING THE DATA I CHOSE TO SEND TO THEM OH NOES!!!11!
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"I don't have .mac and it isn't phoning home. FUD!"
Same experience here. -
I do have a .mac account for *when* I use iChat, but none of my info is entered in to the .mac section of System Preferences.
I don't even know what 'Back To My Mac' is - never seen it.
When booting up my machine, Little Snitch tells me that my machine is indeed making a hit to lcs.mac.com - I want to know WHY?
i do not have auto Software Update checking on at all. So, why is this happening?
My machine has no right AT ALL to attempt to call home every time I boot up my machine.
So, are there any Mac people out there with knowledge of a) a good reason why this could be happening and b) how to stop it happening.
thanks.
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so anyone know a good way to counteract the flavor or horseradish in a pasta?
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mirrorrrr!!!!!!
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how do you know this isnt to check for software updates, etc?
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Gee... it contacts something @mac.com, which would maybe kind of sorta imply that it's part of the .Mac service? Doesn't the .Mac service transmit dyndns information if you opt in?
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its back to my mac... a feature in the os. wow. lot of paranoid people in here.
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My Leopard installation is -not- calling home when loginservice is invoked. I just checked using their crappy Little Snitch 2 software. There is no connection made to *.mac.com through natural use of the computer (tried login, tried changing System Preferences, tried all kinds of things).
I do not use .mac. -
So tell your router that lcs.mac.com is 127.0.0.1. Problem (if there really is any) solved. Unless the process has the ip address and doesn't use DNS you could otherwise edit the hosts file in the OS.
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APPLE IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH -
*Begins to break out the pitchforks..." Oh wait, its Mac doing it, thought it was Vista. Guess its ok since they can do no wrong.
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anyone know of a comparable program for linux?
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Maybe mac users should think with portals.
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I'm just going to sit back and watch the Mac fanboys defend Apple and berate Microsoft while the Linux guys laugh at all of us.
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I just looked at my fw logs, we have several leopard machines and don't see any hits to lcs.mac.com today.
I call BS.-
Looks like we know what YOU'RE doing tonight!
http://www.funnystuffblog.com/images/douchebag-vas ...
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Notice how the anti-Apple zealots always flock to the Apple stories? What a bunch of losers.
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You are a Apple fanboy and a loser in life..
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notice how the anti-windows zealots always flock to the windows stories? what a bunch of losers
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notice how the anti-ubuntu zealots always flock to the ubuntu stories? what a bunch of losers
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notice how most users tend to read articles on the top10 list in a section? thats so odd...
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One thought... does this guy have the .mac "Back to my Mac" feature enabled on his computer?
If so, then isn't he effectively opting in to notifying .mac about his mac's presence so a remote mac can log in? -
lol apple
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I call Shenanigans - it's Back To My Mac. Either an ad for Little Snitch2, some anti apple fanboi, or just someone clueless.
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It is "Back to My Mac". It is enabled by default if you configure .Mac. To prove this (if you have .Mac configured), go into the .Mac System Preference, choose the "Back to My Mac" tab, click Stop, then click Start again. If you have Little Snitch installed, it will throw up an alert to..."lcs.mac.com"
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Awfully Big Brother-ish of Apple, isn't it? More so than when they restrict you from taking screenshots with the DVD Player app running anyway...
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Port 443 is HTTPS... Of course it's encrypted - that's how HTTPS Works.
It's a subdomain of mac.com thereby tying it in with dotmac somehow, i'd go with it being a backtomymac feature. -
I posted some rebutting arguments to Alex's stance here http://chrisholland.blogspot.com/2007/11/macos-105 ... ... posing the theory that this connection to lcs.mac.com might be part of a NAT-PMP transaction.
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Wow, submitter just got raped because it was a feature that was opt-in and does what it's supposed to.
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I've played with Leopard for a few days now, and is it me, or is it a close knockoff to Solaris/Any favorite Linux distribution? I'd almost rather use Ubuntu than Leopard. I mean spaces has been around forever, rsync instead of Time Machine, and I just hate browsing in the Applications dir for the programs I haven't docked yet. I wish there was a Win key + E alternative to getting to browsing the files system, like there is in XP too.
I'm not against X, as a matter of fact, Apple is the only laptop or desktop that I'd put money towards right now for a family computer. But I find myself more productive in XP/Vista/Ubuntu after trying Leopard. -
This should be confusing and frightening only to people who fit into one of the following groups:
1) People who have not used Leopard
2) People who have neither used nor even heard of Back to My Mac, which is a service that people explicitly turn on
3) People who lack rational thought
Which category does the original poster fall into?-
People who buy Macs obviously are incapable of rational thought.
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So, I use Leopard, I have never turned back to my mac on and I am rational.
SO, any explanation as to why my Mac is hitting lcs.mac.com every time I boot up the machine?
I have no auto updates at all switched on. No file sharing of any kind active. No .Mac details
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