Mac OS X in phone home row Dashboard talks to CupertinoBy Nick Farrell: Monday 10 July 2006, 07:22ENTERTAINMENT gear maker Apple is at the centre of a spying row after it was discovered that the OSX 10.4.7 contacts HQ servers.Microsoft was caught in a similar "to do" over its Windows Genuine Advantage and eventually had to back down amid a hostile reaction from users.The Apple press, which rarely ever attacks Apple central command, has failed so far to call Steve Jobs to account. It has called the "dashboardadvisory" a "feature" and comments that all it does is ensure a user's Dashboard widgets are up-to-date.However, Daniel Jakult, who uses an application called Little Snitch to check for unauthorised network activity on his machine, is a little shocked about how often the Apple software needs to phone home.For some reason you need to check your widgets twice in a seven hour period, which is a little excessive.Writing in his bog, Jakult said that the "feature" popped up without his permission, and there’s no obvious way for him to turn it off.Although Jakult trusts Steve with the data he is collecting, he has no idea what information is being sent. "The first appears to be a public key or something. The second appears to be empty but its header values may convey something of interest to Apple’s client. I can’t see that anything at all is being sent back to Apple, but that’s sort of not the point," he said. He said that the mere act of "checking in" lets Apple know that he is here and he is running 10.4.7. Apple didn’t ask his permission to start making this regular checking, and he is not even sure what benefit he going to be getting out of allowing it.
