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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

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.

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.