Thread

Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence features on Mac

353 points · 223 comments · alwillis

parable · 1790015646 · focus · HN ↗
Is it possible to block Apple Intelligence from sending data over the Internet via Little Snitch? I would assume it is, but I'm not sure if anything significant has changed in macOS 27 that makes this impossible now. I don't really mind the local features - I'd rather they stay disabled, but it's not the end of the world - but I really don't want any data leaving my Mac.
1. ActorNightly · 1790015772 · focus · HN ↗
  Apple OS will bypass any user space firewall.
  You can verify this yourself. Get an old laptop to act as a wifi hotspot and forward traffic over usb ethernet adapter to your actual router. Then run tcpdump on the computer. You will see the multitude of phone-home traffic.
  1. throwaway27448 · 1790017764 · focus · HN ↗
    Is there evidence of this anywhere on the internet? I couldn't find anything with ten minutes of searching, and I don't use little snitch, and I'm not going to put the effort in to remediate this just to figure out if this comment has weight.
    agsnu · 1790018472 · focus · HN ↗
    Probably referring to <a href="https://www.obdev.at/blog/a-hole-in-the-wall" rel="nofollow">https://www.obdev.at/blog/a-hole-in-the-wall - as of 2020
    > As it turned out, this behavior is on purpose. There’s an explicit whitelist that allows certain macOS services to bypass any third party firewalls and to communicate on the Internet without being even noticed by the user. A hole in the wall.
    Was remediated later, but shows there is precedent.
    throwaway27448 · 1790025801 · focus · HN ↗
    Ah. That seems far less concerning than the general case.
    ActorNightly · 1790034364 · focus · HN ↗
    .... I literally gave you a way to check this yourself. Not sure why you would need a 3d party source to find something you can discover yourself.
    Also keep in mind that <a href="https://www.obdev.at/blog/a-hole-in-the-wall/" rel="nofollow">https://www.obdev.at/blog/a-hole-in-the-wall/ and its subsequent patch <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/102445" rel="nofollow">https://support.apple.com/en-us/102445 refers to things that bypass the firewall. There are things on your Mac that simply won't function if you block them from phoning home, making your OS an unusable mess.

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