Mac Geekery debunks Dashboard 'phoning home'

Ok, this is fucking pissing me off...
WHO GIVES A FUCK?!?!?! Apple is checking up on the widgets, omg, we are at risk!!! What the hell is wrong with you? Get a life.

Re: But honestly, who really cares.

Do a bit of research and you might understand why some people have perfectly valid, level-headed reasons to be concerned with content to/from computers and over networks they have responsibilities for managing.

I think that this whole thing has been blown completely out of proportion. Sure Dashboard does 'call home' to Apple every once and a while. But honestly, who really cares. The little process is really doing nothing more than checking for software updates on Apple's servers. This is nowhere near as sinister as Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage which has the ability to brick your entire computer should Billy G get a little ticked at you.

Sure, they ran a tcpdump to www.apple.com. What if the application is talking to another host?

Ian hit the nail on the head.

Giving the user the option to check for updates, manually or automatically, is a best practice Apple uses across the board. Why not Widgets?

I don't think this is a betrayal of the community, but it is an unnecessary misstep by a company that generally does the right thing.

DTDAD
(Disable the dashboard advisory daemon)
Disable or enable the dashboardadvisoryd on Mac OS 10.4.7.

free download :

http://bigpixel.macintoshdevelopers.net/software/info/dtdad.html

I just love the stuff on Mac Geekery. Those guys are awesome.

Ben, how, exactly is it "unequivocally bad"?

Why do you guys care? I've never seen any argument as to why this is bad.

yeah, maybe it ask the user whenever a widget changes (is installed or updated) whether or not they want to check...

Ian: You've just lowered my opinion of MacUser. SHOCK HORROR, Apple messed up by not documenting something?

Christ, it really is a slow news week.

Ben, how, exactly is it "unequivocally bad"?

Guess what - you install OS X 10.4.7 voluntarily. There's no warning before you go to apple.com telling you they'll know your IP, OS, Browser etc.

Load of hype about nothing. If there's nothing decent to report on, don't turn the tiniest things into major stories.