Why does iTunes 10.7 try to contact the domain bogusapple.com?

I don't believe it is a connectivity check. The request actually happens with almost every browse action in the iTunes store (i.e. every time a click a link to open a new page in the iTunes store).

The reference to bogusapple.com is actually in the HTML returned by the store, setting a value in a Javascript array "its.serverData". The actual assignment appears to be setting the properties required to log things over https to an Apple server:

"ITSLogger.ServerReportingProtocol": "https",

"ITSLogger.ServerReportingDomain": "bogusapple.com",

"ITSLogger.ServerReportingApp": "MZUserXP",

"ITSLogger.RecordStatsAction": "recordStats",

"ITSLogger.SenderName": "ITSClient"

The full HTML response for an arbitrary query is here:

http://pastebin.com/DCu047Vq

This continues to suggest to me that this is a mistake, with the bogusapple.com server being used internally for development, at the very least as a meaningless placeholder, but possibly as a development server for testing (among other things) the ITSLogger.

You've just confirmed what was my current best theory. It's a mere link display issue in their Store views. They have the ability to 100% transparently fix the problem.

That's good to know, practically speaking. But a bit disappointing, personally speaking 🙂.

Disappointing indeed. 🙂

As you suspected, fixing the error is easy, so much so they appear to have already fixed this issue; now the relevant assignment corrects the server to metrics.mzstatic.com.

"ITSLogger.ServerReportingProtocol": "https",

"ITSLogger.ServerReportingDomain": "metrics.mzstatic.com",

"ITSLogger.ServerReportingApp": "MZUserXP",

"ITSLogger.RecordStatsAction": "recordStats",

"ITSLogger.SenderName": "ITSClient"

Does Apple give finders fees for finding bugs? Or will they just delete this thread outright? 🙂

mzstatic.com has a long history of being contacted by iTunes (e.g., https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2791289?start=0&tstart=0); it is hypothesized to be part of MarkMonitor.com though the domain is registered to Apple.

Of course, the question remains: what are they logging, exactly? And why is it client-side instead of server-side?

Wait, statistics and metrics? That means that this was never intended to test a failure state, but instead was probably just some placeholder error on the part of a developer.

Interesting. Very nice find.

Now I wish I had been more interested in examining the full payload on the server side 🙂. (Note: THICK, THICK, SARCASM!)

Oh well.

Hmm... they probably forgot how to follow dots :-) ..in this case that dot has been completely forgotten: that one between bogus and apple.

bogus.apple.com actually has an MX record pointing back to apple.com MTAs.

Preparing to send email back to mothership?

iTunes doesn't e-mail.