5 ms·

This is an interesting little example of how "systemic" happens, or can happen. The list exists initially to support a feature, a utilitarian reason. Then, bei

This is an interesting little example of how "systemic" happens, or can happen. The list exists initially to support a feature, a utilitarian reason. Then, being in the list has SEO value or some such. The list becomes a legitimacy or authority test. It affects traffic, sales. Maybe other stuff piggybacks this list. Anyone who needs a list of important domain names uses it. Ordering search results, caching, testing, crawling... More dynamics unrelated to Apple's original purpose. Meanwhile, Apple continues to treat the list as a relatively unimportant thing... Just a clunky little hack that enables autocomplete. At some point, willfully ignorant of a whole industry of professional services out there promising to get you on list.

nonrandomstring 5y ago
Yes, nice to see we've come full circle at last from Karp, Mills and Postel maintaining the official HOSTS.TXT throgh the "free internet era" and back to a nice sanitised, official list of what's on the internet.
blenderdt 5y ago
Ok, maybe I am missing something here. The link points to a list Apple is hosting without any context. Does anyone know why this list is hosted and what it is used for? Is it even used? Edit: some 7 year old posts suggest it was used by Spotlight. I also am a little amazed it loaded and scrolls smooth on Firefox mobile...
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  When I type "analog.com" into the search bar, I can imagine a way for autocomplete to go wrong. This list would prevent it from going wrong.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- zymhan 5y ago
  Can't say the same for Firefox on Windows, on a powerful PC :/
  - blenderdt 5y ago
    That's because Firefox on desktop parses JSON.
- varenc 5y ago
  For context, see my buried comment explaining how I found this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30906482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30906482 In summary: I don't have any indication it's in current use. I saw this URL in intercepted traffic from an iOS 13 device. I suspect it was used at some point but not anymore. I bet iOS 15 still uses something similar but doesn't use this particular URL (perhaps one with more obscurity/protection). p.s. I also found this list of spelling corrections/autocompletes: https://cdn.smoot.apple.com/static/static_corrections_dict/20200930/static_corrections_dict.json https://cdn.smoot.apple.com/static/static_corrections_dict/2... Some examples: {"q":"hackernews","c":{"hackerneww":0,"hackernees":0,"hackernee":0}} {"q":"ycombinator","c":{"ycomi":0,"ycombinatir":0}} {"q":"apple store","c":{"apple stire":0,"apple stoe":0,"apple stoee":0,"aple st":0,"aplle":0,"aple":0}}
  - JoeyBananas 5y ago
    The link https://cdn.smoot.apple.com/static/spotlight_suggestions_stopwords/4/stopwords-en.map?version=4 https://cdn.smoot.apple.com/static/spotlight_suggestions_sto... is interesting. It's a binary file, but if you look at the hex dump there's a list of vaguely "bad" words near the end including "whorehouse," "Zipperheads," "unabomber". I have no idea what format it is, though.

nonrandomstring 5y ago

Yes, nice to see we've come full circle at last from Karp, Mills and Postel maintaining the official HOSTS.TXT throgh the "free internet era" and back to a nice sanitised, official list of what's on the internet.

blenderdt 5y ago

Ok, maybe I am missing something here. The link points to a list Apple is hosting without any context. Does anyone know why this list is hosted and what it is used for? Is it even used? Edit: some 7 year old posts suggest it was used by Spotlight. I also am a little amazed it loaded and scrolls smooth on Firefox mobile...

jjoonathan 5y ago
When I type "analog.com" into the search bar, I can imagine a way for autocomplete to go wrong. This list would prevent it from going wrong.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
zymhan 5y ago
Can't say the same for Firefox on Windows, on a powerful PC :/
- blenderdt 5y ago
  That's because Firefox on desktop parses JSON.
varenc 5y ago
For context, see my buried comment explaining how I found this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30906482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30906482 In summary: I don't have any indication it's in current use. I saw this URL in intercepted traffic from an iOS 13 device. I suspect it was used at some point but not anymore. I bet iOS 15 still uses something similar but doesn't use this particular URL (perhaps one with more obscurity/protection). p.s. I also found this list of spelling corrections/autocompletes: https://cdn.smoot.apple.com/static/static_corrections_dict/20200930/static_corrections_dict.json https://cdn.smoot.apple.com/static/static_corrections_dict/2... Some examples: {"q":"hackernews","c":{"hackerneww":0,"hackernees":0,"hackernee":0}} {"q":"ycombinator","c":{"ycomi":0,"ycombinatir":0}} {"q":"apple store","c":{"apple stire":0,"apple stoe":0,"apple stoee":0,"aple st":0,"aplle":0,"aple":0}}
- JoeyBananas 5y ago
  The link https://cdn.smoot.apple.com/static/spotlight_suggestions_stopwords/4/stopwords-en.map?version=4 https://cdn.smoot.apple.com/static/spotlight_suggestions_sto... is interesting. It's a binary file, but if you look at the hex dump there's a list of vaguely "bad" words near the end including "whorehouse," "Zipperheads," "unabomber". I have no idea what format it is, though.