4 ms·

The problem with online checks (gatekeeper) are when you have flaky internet connection. It can handle no connection quite well, but unstable internet is reall

• varispeed 4y ago
  Is there a way to make it "think" it is connected to internet? Like plugging a device that will be seen as network card and responding to certain api requests to trick whatever service calls them?
  • lapcat 4y ago
    > Is there a way to make it "think" it is connected to internet? You actually want the opposite, to make it think it's not connected to the internet. In other words, a network connection blockers such as Little Snitch.
    • yencabulator 4y ago
      As far as I understand, Apple's own software can bypass Little Snitch. https://blog.obdev.at/a-hole-in-the-wall/index.html https://blog.obdev.at/a-hole-in-the-wall/index.html
      • lapcat 4y ago
        That issue was fixed relatively shortly thereafter.
  • _V_ 4y ago
    Not really but you can simulate this by either using iPhone as an AP and forcing 3G if possible or you can hide behind linux proxy and set up packet dropping (can be done with nftables) random packets. That will result in almost unusable system.
    • jcadam 4y ago
      > hide behind linux proxy and set up packet dropping (can be done with nftables) random packets. I used a similar method to simulate running our software on a government network when I worked in defense. Timeouts and packets dropping all over the place. Government work sucks.
      • _V_ 4y ago
        Yeah I don't understand why Apple does not force its developers to use such connection for day or two in work. I'm very sure that they would notice because even shell gets pretty unusable - and if you have Oh My ZSH with plugins such as git where it runs several commands every prompt... Oh boy are in for a ride. And the most painful thing is that Macbooks don't have eSIM/cellular so you have to use iPhone with its small-ish antenna. So you have a MBP and your system is barely usable and next to you is your colleague, using DELL with built-in LTE and 4 large antennas behind its display doing over 70Mbps with a sh*t-eating grin asking you if you want to use his computer :-D
  • maicro 4y ago
    That's a technique used/required by some software cracking methods - override your general network DNS lookup process (I believe anything you put in the "hosts" file in Linux/Mac, and the similar file in Windows - though obviously don't quote me on this - will be used rather than DNS-queried). So you configure say "google.com" to go directly to 127.0.0.1 (the localhost address, pointing right back at your own computer) and run a server on the port that the program is expecting to authenticate to. The problem is responding to those API requests in a way that the program will accept - if it's just a simple PING, no issue, but if there's any sort of more advanced encryption, handshaking or license checking/exchange going on, you'll need to reverse engineer the algorithm. Some simple versions of that you can just record once and "replay", but most will at least have a timestamp hashed in. (super rough, lay-man's understanding of the issue - sorry for any inaccuracies)
    • kingds 4y ago
      noob question: is there not a way for the client to verify that it is actually talking to google.com in a situation like this? I would think there would be some way to verify based on certs or something like that.
      • maicro 4y ago
        Noob answer - yeah, that's what I'm talking about, there's certain levels of faking those responses that you can't really do.
      • dec0dedab0de 4y ago
        yes, cert pinning, DNS over https, and encrypted DNS can make it much harder to see what the software on your network is doing. even just verifying ssl certificates client side is enough in most instances. Luckily, proxy servers in corporate environments have forced many vendors into not fully implementing these features.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • _V_ 4y ago
  • the_third_wave 4y ago
    Yes there is but you probably don't like the answer: install Linux on the thing and be done with it. It does not seem to work as well on the ARM-versions but on Intel it flies. You can try to keep on fighting the beast but in the end the beast will win unless you show it the door - its only vulnerability. You get the glitzy hardware without the annoyances of MacOS - Linux may have its own annoyances sometimes but these tend to be less nefarious and more easily solved than the hurdles put up by Apple. Apple is not alone in this or I would have said to install 'Linux or Windows', Microsoft is just as bad when it comes to these shenanigans. An additional benefit is that you'll be able to keep the thing running an up-to-date OS for far longer since (most...?) Linux distributions are not enmeshed in planned obsolescence schemes. Source: typing this from an older ("late 2009") iMac running Linux
    • _V_ 4y ago
      Well, this is nice but in reality useless. You can run Linux on ancient Apple devices such as 2009 iMac but not really on anything newer. I want to have modern peripherals and experience such as 4k display, USB-C, reasonably fast wifi/bluetooth. I don't really have a need for CD-ROM, firewire and IR port... And believe me, I tried to run Linux on 2018/2019 MBP. Apple really really tries to makes that as painful as possible. Most of the things are behind T2 (including keyboard for example) and since there is virtually no documentation you have to rely on reverse engineering efforts of few talented individuals. Also there are things that just plain don't work such as resuming from sleep (the graphics MUX gets all confused and the driver will not re-configure it for some reason) etc... Basically nice for playing around, not good enough for running as a main device.
• joshspankit 4y ago
  Also a PITA (even though it’s super easy for devs to replicate): being connected to your local network, but your internet is down.