Open Radar

 
OS X has gotten steadily worse about respecting user's privacy.

Online searches for WTF and WhyTF mapspushd, akd, helpd, IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent, rtcreportingd, etc. etc. etc. are making random connections to various places reveals verry little information.

Few outside of Apple seem to know what in the world these things are.

It is:

1. Disrespectful to your customers to do this.

And worse:

2. Can compromise their privacy/security. This large number of connections are made by every Mac around the world over SSL. SSL can be broken [see okturtles.com]. If it's broken, then the information in that connection can be used to identify individual users and additionally transmit malware to them.
3. Even without breaking SSL, these outgoing connections can be used as "fingerprints" to track user's whereabouts, even if they are behind a VPN.

But worst of all, it's just not your computer. I mean, I know you wrote the operating system, I know you designed and manufactured the computer, I know your EULA says junk about licensing (and not owning) software (I have that in my apps as well)—IT'S STILL ... un-Apple like. Un-good like. Un-great like to do this.

It leads to a poor user experience. Because of this, OS X is being compared to Windows:

https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/632285087787192320

That tweet is by former Yahoo CSO. Received 246 RTs. Followed by more tweets, kindof a rant, about how ridiculous this is.

You are Apple. You are better than this. Users feel violated when their computer goes off doing mysterious things without their permission and without any explanation. That's not something we should train them to get used to.

Please figure out the Apple Way to fix this.

Thank you,
Greg Slepak

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Turn on computer.

Expected Results:
For all outgoing connections to happen at expected moments and for understandable reasons.

Actual Results:
Mysterious connections made by a bunch of mysterious services to a bunch of unknown domains without any authorization or explanation.

Version:
10.11 (15A284)