MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

- Using a new, random executable. Even echo $rand_int will work. Edit: What I mean here is generate your rand int beforehand and statically include it in your script.

- Using a fresh filename too. Just throw a rand int at the end there. e.g. /tmp/test4329.sh

I MITMd myself while recording the network traffic and, sure enough, there is a request to ocsp.apple.com with a hash in the URL path and a bunch of binary data in the response body. Unsure what it is yet but the URL suggests it is generating a cert for the binary and checking it. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Certificate_Status_Prot...

Here's the URL I saw:

http://ocsp.apple.com/ocsp-devid01/ME4wTKADAgEAMEUwQzBBMAkGB...

Edit2: Anyone know what this hash format is? It's not quite base64, nor is it multiple base64 strings separated with '+'s but it seems similar...

Edit3: Here is the exact filename and file I used: https://gist.github.com/UsmannK/abb4b239c98ee45bdfcc5b284bf0...

Edit4 (final one probably...): On subsequent attempts I'm only seeing a request to https://api.apple-cloudkit.com and not the OCSP one anymore. Curiously, there's no headers at all. It is just checking for connectivity.

Tangent: as much as some developers hate that the only way to distribute apps for the iPhone is through the App Store, as a user I consider that walled garden of apps to be a real security benefit. When John Gruber says “If you must use Zoom or simply want to use it, I highly recommend using it on your iPad and iPhone only. The iOS version is sandboxed and reviewed by the App Store.” There’s a reason why he can say things like that and it’s because Apple draws a hard line in the sand that not everyone will be happy with.

Bubye Apple, my next machine will likely be a Dell Ubuntu.

For example, you used to be able to back up your purchased iOS apps to your computer, and restore them from your computer. In one iOS update (9 IIRC?), they removed the ability to back up the apps from your phone. In a later iOS/iTunes update, they removed the ability to restore backed up apps from your computer, making your existing backed-up apps useless, if you still had them.

Now, the only way to keep your software on your iPhone indefinitely is to never delete it, and never reformat your phone. Ohh and never update iOS because they will break backwards compatibility with apps you already have. For any app that is no longer supported by the developer, you're just out of luck (and I have purchased MANY such apps, being an iPhone user since 2009).

If I keep going at this rate, I think I will quit smartphones within a few years.