10,000+ Blocks To stats.gc.apple.com In 1 Minute
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I recently enabled the Quidsup_Trackers feed in pfblocker. The list contains the domain "stats.gc.apple.com" in it which is blocking more that 10,000 dns queries a minute from an iphone. Here's a a picture from the logs for just 1 minute.
The device in question is an iphone provided by my wife's employer. We have 4 other apple devices in our home and none of them ever show up as trying to access that domain.
I've searched around the web but haven't found much about the domain. I'm wondering if anyone else has seen this domain being caught, or knows why the phone would need to be reaching out to it so much. And better yet, what can be disabled on the phone to shut it off.
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@dma_pf I just looked in my pihole log, and I see no queries to that stats.gc.apple.com at all. Have multiple iphones and ipad, and work iphone even.
I found this - seems to break game center when blocked
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@johnpoz Thanks, I saw that same post. I have the Game Center shut down/logged off on the phone. I also saw on apple's website that gc.apple.com is required for iCloud so I shut down/logged off of iCloud on the phone as well. Nonetheless it just keeps banging away trying to reach that server.
I'm wondering if it has something to do with the remote management capabilities from my wife's employer. They provide the phone and have administrative rights on it. I'm thinking it might be some kind of monitoring, especially since none of the devices we personally own seem to be trying to reach that server. But even if that is the case it sure seems excessive, especially for a company that sells itself as a protector of people's privacy.
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@dma_pf my work completely owns my phone - I can not even install profiles any more since their latest version. They have it really locked down.
I looked through all my logs and can not see any queries for that.
But tell you for sure, bad programing maybe seems to be common - if something doesn't resolve, hammer at it like crazy.. Vs doing oh that didn't work let me check again in 30 minutes or an hour, etc. And devices can sometime hammer trying to resolve/get somewhere that is blocked. But 10k in 1 min seems overly zealous for sure ;) heheh
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Try enabling App Privacy Report, maybe you'll see what's hitting stats.gc.apple.com
You should be able to see something like this:-
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@nogbadthebad Andy, thanks for that tip! My wife's out until this afternoon but I'll definitely look into what you suggest. I never knew you could do that on an iphone (not much of an apple guy). I'll let you guys know what I find out.
Thanks again!
