macOS unable to open any non-Apple application

Sincerely and without any intention to troll or be sarcastic: I'm puzzled that people are willing buy a computer/OS where (apparently) software can/will fail to launch if some central company server goes down. Maybe I'm just getting this wrong, because I can honestly not quite wrap my head around this. This is such a big no-go, from a systems design point of view.

Even beyond unintentional glitches at Apple, just imagine what this could mean when traffic to this infra is disrupted intentionally (e.g. to any "unfavorable" country). That sounds like a really serious cyber attack vector to me. Equally dangerous if infra inside the USA gets compromised, if that is going to make Apple computers effectively inoperable. Not sure how Apple will shield itself from legal liability in such an event, if things are intentionally designed this way. I seriously doubt that a cleverly crafted TOS/EULA will do it, for the damage might easily go way beyond to just users in this case.

Again, maybe (and in fact: hopefully) I'm just getting this all wrong. If not, I might know a country or two where this could even warrant a full ban on the sale of Apple computers, if there is no local/national instance of this (apparently crucial) infrastructure operating in that country itself, merely on the argument of national security (and in this case a very valid one, for a change).

All in all, this appears to be a design fuck-up of monumental proportions. One that might very well deserve to have serious legal ramifications for Apple.

Even when it works right, it’s transmitting the apps that you use, as well as your timestamped coarse geolocation (from client IP) to Apple, which logs all of it. It’s good for city-level location.

They know what times you're at home, and what apps you're using there. They know what times you're at work. They know what times you're tethered. They know when you travel, and to which cities. They know when you're on a friend's Wi-Fi, and they know which apps you open from that connection.

Apple is a partner in the US military’s PRISM spying program, so this log is available to US military intelligence at any time without a warrant.

Thanks to API changes in Big Sur, it’s impossible to use Little Snitch to block these system level connections, and they will also bypass any configured VPN. To control this, you’ll need to use external network hardware, like a travel router that you can operate a vpn/firewall on.

Big Sur is the only OS that will run on the new Apple Silicon macs, so it’ll be impossible to use the new machines without leaking your track log and app usage history in a way that is available to the FBI/CIA/et al whenever they want it.

Note also that Apple recently backdoored iMessage’s end-to-end encryption by defaulting the non e2e-encrypted iCloud Backup to on for all users: it backs up (to Apple) your device’s complete plaintext iMessage history, as well as your device’s iMessage keys, using Apple keys, each night when you plug it in. You should immediately stop using iMessage as a result of this, because even if you have disabled iCloud or iCloud Backup, your conversation partners likely have it enabled. iMessage is no longer meaningfully encrypted.

Apple’s marketing about privacy is lip service, not real.

Whoa - thank you for sharing that.