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Apple's apps bypass firewalls like LittleSnitch and LuLu on macOS Big Sur

(twitter.com)
1183 points robenkleene | 1 comments | 20 Oct 20 15:51 UTC | HN request time: 0.211s | source
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eptcyka ◴[20 Oct 20 16:14 UTC] No.24839101[source]▶
Apple seems to do all kinds of weird networking _stuff_. For instance, during wakeup, your T2 equipped Macbook will wait for a DNS response and then use said DNS response to synchronize time via NTP before letting the user use the keyboard. Probably checking timestamps on signatures for the keyboard firmware, or something stupid like that. This only happens if it happens to have a default route.

Similarly, all macOS machines will test a DHCP supplied default route before applying it by trying to reach something on the internet. So if you happen to have some firewall rules that block internet access, no default route will be applied until the internet check times out.

I won't share the other sentiments about the above, but is it really that hard to document these behaviors?

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1. udev ◴[20 Oct 20 19:49 UTC] No.24841670[source]▶
That's how typical Apple "magical/just works" features are implemented, i.e. very ugly behind the curtain.

Documenting means revealing the edge cases and the limitations, which engineering knows is the best kind of documentation. But marketing people are invested in the "magic".

Marketing people have too much sway at Apple.